Product Description

This is TASCHEN's 25th anniversary - special edition! This is the pioneering project that sought to bring modernism to the masses. The Case Study House program (1945-1966) was an exceptional, innovative event in the history of American architecture and remains to this day unique. The program, which concentrated on the Los Angeles area and oversaw the design of 36 prototype homes, sought to make available plans for modern residences that could be easily and cheaply constructed during the postwar building boom. Highly experimental, the program generated houses that were designed to redefine the modern home, and thus had a pronounced influence on architecture - American and international - both during the program's existence and even to this day. This compact guide includes all projects featured in our XL version, with over 150 photos and plans and a map of where all houses are (or were) located.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #118071 in Books
• Published on: 2009-09-25
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 96 pages

Customer Reviews

Architectural modernity of the post WW2 era
Interesting to see the post WW2 attempt at modern, low cost and easily mass produced architecture, which at the same time managed to fulfill its brief, as well as being high quality and quiet advanced for its time. The book chronicles the case study house program of the Arts & Architecture magazine, kicking off in 1945, running all the way to 1966.

Each of the case study houses has at least one picture (or drawing, in case it was never actually built) of it, together with a basic description (i.e. concept, materials used), with most of them also coming with a floor plan and some with quite comprehensive pictures of both the interiors and exteriors.

One of the points I would also have liked to see covered is a short chapter, either in the introduction, or as additional material next to the case study house description, in what way and to what extent the designs were influential for fulfilling the original brief - namely to provide ideas for affordable, modern and comfortable living.

While the houses would not look particularly out of place today, the cars parked next to them in the pictures should have looked out of date even then. Shows how comparatively little effort went into car design at the time - the only thing that would have looked contemporary would have been a Citroen DS.

The Case for modern architecture

A sumptuous visual record of this southern Californian house design program. Original published by Taschen in a jumbo edition. This reprint celebrates their twenty-fifth publishing anniversary and it's slightly smaller than the original book but still beautifully printed with English, German and French text.

Each of the thirty-six houses is covered in the same way with:
1 A short introduction by editor Smith
2 The relevant editorial copy from Arts & Architecture magazine about the house.
3 Photos, plans, diagrams and illustrations. Plenty of the photos are by the brilliant Jules Shulman.
4 Contemporary colour photos of some houses.

Some of houses only have a spread or two (the unbuilt ones) while others have several spreads, Pierre Koenig's famous Stahl House (#22) has twenty pages. I have given book only four stars because it is not as complete as it should be, the focus is really a visual history of the Study Houses and that's it! What is missing is any historical and contemporary background and surely the reason the whole project was important was the influence it had on other architects, house builders, planners, the public and manufactures.

To get a perspective you will have to get Elizabeth Smith's earlier book 'Blueprints for Modern Living' published in conjunction with an exhibition in Los Angeles in 1989-1990. As the sub-title to the book says: 'History and Legacy of the Case Study Houses'. I found this a marvelous book though there are only forty-two pages of text and photos on the actual houses the rest of the 256 pages place them in the context of Californian living and mid-fifties American architecture.