Archinect - News

Edward Killingsworth-designed office building to be converted to essential service center by Studio One Eleven

2020-07-28T20:29:00-04:00

Long Beach-based Studio One Eleven has announced plans to convert a former medical office designed by midcentury modern architect Edward Killingsworth into an "essential service center" that will provide services for needy families as well as food for area residents experiencing food insecurity.

The facility will comprise the new home of St. Francis Center, a group of Secular Franciscans who have operated a neighborhood-serving facility in the area since 1970. The group's facilities temporary shut down in 2017 and are now set to reopen in October 2020 when work on the project is complete.

According to the architects, the renovated structure will "allow St. Francis Center to resume its crucial mission of providing food, clothing and emergency assistance in a nurturing atmosphere." The 5,400-square-foot complex is set to include a commercial kitchen, offices for employment and family consulting services, meeting spaces, and storage to provide clothing to the homeless, according to ...

Rehabilitation of Pierre Koenig's Case Study House #21 will restore its former glory

2019-07-25T14:58:00-04:00

So when neighbors and onlookers noticed drastic work underway on the site in Laurel Canyon, they feared for the future of the iconic home. [...] it appeared Case Study House No. 21 was starting to slip downhill.

Curbed's Bianca Barragan counters the rumors that Pierre Koenig's Case Study House No. 21 was being demolished by its new owners with a detailed report on the preservation efforts that are currently being performed in order to save the historically significant structure and restore it to its original Mid-century modern glory.

A 2006 photo of the interior court yard. Photo: IK's World Trip/Flickr.

Barragan writes that "when contractors lifted up the concrete slab over the living room floor, they found an 18-inch gap between the ground and where the room’s floor had hovered. The soil had subsided, sliding out under the rest of the foundation." An intensive repair of the original foundation from 1959 will put the home on solid footing for decades to come.

Here's your chance to buy Pierre Koenig’s Case Study House #21B

2018-10-12T13:33:00-04:00

The Bailey House, one of the approximately 20 surviving Los Angeles residences from Arts & Architecture magazine’s Case Study House program is once again up for grabs. Designated CSH No. 21, the Hollywood Hills home was built between 1956 and ’58 by Pierre Koenig for psychologist Walter Bailey and his wife Mary, whom Arts & Architecture described as a “contemporary-minded” couple with no children and an informal lifestyle.

Looking to purchase some property in the Hollywood Hills? Something iconic maybe, preferably midcentury? How about a Case Study House? — Lucky you! The Pierre Koenig-designed CSH #21B 'Walter Bailey House' just came back on the market and asks for $3.6 million.

Beverley Thorne, last Case Study architect, dies at 93

2017-12-11T17:16:00-05:00

Beverley "David" Thorne, the last of the Case Study architects and the designer of Dave and Iola Brubeck’s modernist California and Connecticut homes, died December 6 in Sonoma, Calif. He was 93. [...] Bev designed Harrison House, Case Study No. 26, in San Francisco in 1963.

Case Study House #26. Photo via csh26.info.

The Case Study #26 "Harrison House" Thorne designed in San Rafael, California is the only Case Study House in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Eye candy: enjoy these freshly digitized, gorgeous contemporary photos of Southern California's finest midcentury modern architecture

2016-03-25T18:29:00-04:00

No longer confined to collecting dust in storage rooms, over a thousand slides documenting modern architecture's emergence in Southern California have been digitized by the USC Library, and are now available to view for free online.

The approximately 1300 slides were culled from the collections of Fritz Block and Pierre Koenig, which both belong to the USC Libraries. Koenig himself chose which slides he wanted digitized in the late 1990s, for a project that never fully came to pass, but from which a delightfully dated prototype website is still accessible. The slides feature work by various architects, mostly within Southern California.

Check out the full collection here, and a few select images below:

↑ John Lautner's Foster Residence in Sherman Oaks, from Pierre Koenig's collection.

↑ Frank Lloyd Wright's Millard Residence in Pasadena, from Fritz Block's collection.

↑ Pierre Koenig's Schwartz residence in Santa Monica (1996), from Pierre Koenig's collection.

↑ Albert Frey's Frey Residen...

Neutra's Case Study House 20, formerly owned by "The Simpsons" co-creator Sam Simon, is for sale

2015-10-07T12:51:00-04:00

But this is no ordinary celebrity party pad; the unusual property is a showstopper even for the ritzy Pacific Palisades real estate market, and is actually comprised of two different homes. First is Case Study 20 Bailey House, designed by famed architect Richard Neutra and fully restored by Simon. [...] The second part of the estate is a certified LEED Gold, four-bedroom contemporary main house, which Simon built in 2010.

The entire estate, including both Case Study 20 and Simon's 2010 four-bedroom, is listed at $18M.

Why list Case Study houses on the National Register?

2013-08-28T15:05:00-04:00

Adrian Scott Fine, the conservancy’s director of advocacy, spoke with us about the importance of this national recognition, what it means for the historic houses and why an 11th home, Case Study House No. 23A, was deemed eligible to be listed but wasn’t because of the owner's objection.

Previously: LA's Most Famous House Finally Makes the National Register

LA's Most Famous House Finally Makes the National Register

2013-08-20T21:25:00-04:00

The Case Study Houses have finally made the National Register of Historic Places (well, 11 of them have). [...] The LA Conservancy's Modern Committee spent nearly a decade trying to get some of the CSHes recognized and last month the National Park Service officially listed 10 of the houses [...]; an eleventh "was determined eligible for listing but not formally listed due to owner objection," according to the Conservancy.

Reading L.A.: The giant, complex legacy of the Case Study program

2011-09-20T19:59:15-04:00

The Case Study program, in case it still needs any introduction, was a pioneering effort sponsored by L.A.-based Arts & Architecture magazine and its ambitious editor, John Entenza, to develop new and unapologetically modernist prototypes for the postwar American house.