The How House, by Rudolph Schindler

 

Austrian architect and former Frank Lloyd Wright apprentice Rudolph Schindler built several beautiful small homes around Los Angeles after leaving Wright’s emply, this one –built in 1925 for a man nicknamed “the Millionaire Hobo” – helping point the way perhaps towards Wright’s Usonian Homes starting a decade later.

This historical masterwork is considered to be one of RM Schindler’s greatest achievements because of the evolution of ideas it engendered, not only for the balance between the interior and exterior environments, but also for his revolutionary method of framing its magnificent structure. Schindler found that the standard system was not suitable for contemporary dwelling and developed the ‘Schindler Frame’ by cutting off all studs though-out the house at door height, “to create a continuous visual and structural horizontal line.”

Built of poured concrete, glass and cedar boards and windows, all laid to a horizontal grid, the house was for LA a very early modern open plan making full use of its site – it is built on the slop to leave the level part of the site to become the front yard.

You can pick it up for a lazy $2.5 million.

Read much more about the house at architect Steve Wallet’s site:

1. RM Schindler's How House, 1925: Part 1 of 4, Introduction
2. RM Schindler's How House, 1925: Part 2 of 4: A change in orientation
3. RM Schindler's How House, 1925: Part 3 of 4, Many interesting things
4. RM Schindler's How House, 1925: Part 4 of 4, Form

[Pics by Curbed.Com, Kilmer Design, Steve Wallet Architect, WarrenLawson1,

   

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