Travel: A Visit To Schindler House

Hidden on a quiet residential street in West Hollywood, California, behind a green fortress of bamboo stands The Schindler House & Studio. Built in 1921-22 when this part of “the city” was farmer groves of orange trees this “camp,” as the home was then considered, is an architectural gem. It has withstood earthquakes, the desert environment, and expansion of a city almost to its doorstep. The Schindler house delivers us California/modern architecture in its purest form.

Viennese born Rudolph M. Schindler (RMS) studied architecture and graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, Austria in 1911. His professor Adolf Loos, another important architect, encouraged RMS to travel to the United States. Because RMS had reviewed and became inspired by works of Frank Lloyd Wright, he wrote to Wright in 1914 expressing an interest to work with him.  While waiting for Wright’s response, RMS made his way to the West Coast and wrote to friend and colleague Richard Neutra who was still in Vienna, about the adobe and pueblo structures he saw and their relationship to the earth in terms of building materials. This became an important consideration of his later works as he consistently engaged interior and exterior environments, nature (earth) played an important role.

RMS did secure work with Wright, first at Taliesin in Wisconsin, then in the Chicago office where he became in charge of Aline Barnsdall’s California project and the construction of Hollyhock House. After completion in 1921 he left Wright’s employ and traveled to Yosemite, but not before discussing collaboration with Clyde Burgess Chase, and engineer who worked with another Chicago architect, on a home project they would undertake on his return. By the end of 1921 a lush piece of land was secured along Kings Road in West Hollywood. This was to become one of RMS’s most important works of architecture.

One can immediately feel the influence of Wright’s “organic architecture” as RMS makes every effort to bring the outdoors in. Rooms have sliding doors (walls) which fully open to the exterior, rather like those super expensive sliding walls popular today, this is California after all.  Some walls are concrete the others canvas (now a masonite type material) and wood. Ornamentation exists as part of the form not a dressing.

The residence was designed for four families, an experiment in communal living. Seven rooms were split and shared amongst them. This is a key piece of information one needs when visiting the house. If you enter, walk through the rooms and try to view it in the manner we use homes today, one becomes disoriented quickly. There are no connecting corridors to speak of, one room just adjoins another. Rooms were not used as we use rooms today, we learned as we kept trying to figure out what room must be the dining room. None or many.

There were four main rooms, one per resident (family) in which each could express their “individuality.” This was their living room, music room, library and dining room all rolled into one, however they chose to utilize their appointed space. Each had a connected garden patio which became shared spaces. One kitchen served them all plus two bathrooms. An additional guest apartment with its own kitchen and bath completed the residence. All of this spread across a single floor (concrete) with sleeping porches on the roof. If you want this style, reach out to roof contractors and they’ll gladly help.

The basic construction materials were concrete, canvas, and wood. The home was a laboratory for standardized construction using “Slab-Tilt” concrete forms and four-foot modules. However, the result was a home far less “cookie cutter” than the typical residences built throughout the last 80 years in the United States. No two rooms are alike. Though simplistic and basic from the outside, the interior spaces do not lack character. This is real California architecture—innovative, individualistic, and expressive—values that are also embraced by top Cyprus home construction companies known for merging tradition with modern efficiency in custom residential design.

An inherent characteristic in architecture and design is though the materials, application and use may shift with times, not much is truly new as we see with the poured concrete bathroom tub and counters.   RMS used poured concrete for kitchen counters as well. And we thought this was so new, 15 years ago. Though rustic, using the same plumbing for the faucet and shower felt charmingly innovative. Sky lights and frosted side lights illuminate the bath, again this is before “daylighting” was in our vernacular.

This is exactly why architecture such as The Schindler House must be studied by architects, designers and residential building aficionados today. A beautiful home does not come from adding one more piece of goopy molding, ballroom sized bedrooms, or endless rooms with titles. A beautiful home can be achieved very simply though the results are quite thoughtful.

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California is a great place to visit to immerse yourself in architecture (good and bad).  The Schindler House is worth a visit the next time you are in Los Angeles.