Oscar Niemeyer's LA house for Joseph and Anne Strick

2012-12-07T13:23:00-05:00

... he did design one house in the US, "where he was long banned because of his leftist political associations," according to an Architectural Digest story from 2005. The 1963 Strick House sits on Santa Monica's architecture-packed La Mesa Drive, and it was designed via post--Niemeyer never visited the site or met Joseph and Anne Strick, who commissioned the house (Joseph was a filmmaker best known for his adaptation of Ulysses and in fact divorced Anne before the house was even finished).

Eric Chavkin shared an interesting story about this house in the comments from the news post announcing Niemeyer's death...

I wrote this a couple of years ago

Go Oscar go...102 years.

In 1964 Oscar Niemeyer designed a residence for the art doc and film director and also producer Joe Strick. I got to meet Joe Strick as he was partners with a friend of mine, screenwriter and director Fred Haines, who I invited and they arrived to party at the book launch of Voluptuous Panic held at Adam Parfrey's Echo Park house.

That was fun evening. Of course Parfrey and I asked Strick about working with Niemeyer but the owner and architect never did meet only corresponded.

Funny how it goes; Inventor and new cinema filmaker Stick hires a world famous architect Niemeyer to design a modern home in Los Angeles, then the Brazilian architect's only residence in North America. During construction Strick and his wife divorce. The property is sold and later forgotten, almost demolished, b...

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Oscar Niemeyer's LA house for Joseph and Anne Strick