Mid2Mod: John Rex

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Sunday, January 2, 2011

Case Study House Program

In January of 1945, Arts & Architecture magazine announced the Case Study House Program. Several of the country’s most talented and innovative architects proposed to study, plan, design and construct eight houses in Southern California. Their mission was to gather a mass of material that would eventually define the post-war house.

The studies began with analysis of land in relation to work, schools, neighborhood conditions and individual family need. Each house was to be designed within a specified budget, and the architects were answerable only to the magazine, which posed as “the client” during the design phase.

The plan was to feature all eight of the houses in Arts & Architecture, with the architect(s) explaining the design and choice of materials. Upon completion, each house was to be open to the public for six to eight weeks. The houses would be completely furnished under a working agreement among the architect, the designer and the furniture manufacturer.

However, several of the designs remained unbuilt, because the architects had to find actual clients who could afford construction, since banks at that time were not yet loaning on flat-roofed modern houses. In all, 28 Case Study houses and two apartment buildings were built between 1945 and 1964.

Original 8 Case Study Houses

Number	Architect(s)	Year	Status	Location	Issue
1	J. R. Davidson	1948	Intact	North Hollywood, CA	Feb 1945
2	Sumner Spaulding, John Rex	1947	Intact	Arcadia, CA	May 1948
3	Wurster, Bernardi and Emmons	1949	Intact	Mandeville Canyon, CA	Aug 1947
4	Ralph Rapson		Unbuilt		Mar 1949
5	Whitney R. Smith		Unbuilt		Sept 1945
6	Richard Neutra		Unbuilt		Apr 1946
7	Thornton M. Abell	1948	Intact	San Gabriel, CA	Oct 1945
8	Charles Eames	1949	Intact	Pacific Palisades, CA	Jul 1948