In conjunction with the exhibition Sympathetic Seeing: Esther McCoy and the Heart of American Modernist Architecture and Design, the MAK Center for Art and Architecture at the Schindler House is pleased to open the Lovell Beach House (R.M. Schindler, 1926) in Newport Beach for public tours on Sunday, October 16 as a fundraiser. 

Don't miss this EXTREMELY RARE opportunity to visit the Lovell Beach House, 1926, in Newport Beach, AND be part of a small group guided into the house by one of these esteemed speakers:

• Thom Andersen, Filmmaker, Professor of Film and Video at CalArts
• Frances Anderton, Writer, Host of KCRW's DnA: Design and Architecture, Los Angeles Editor of Dwell magazine
• John Crosse, Historian of Southern California Architecture
• Jocelyn Gibbs, Curator of Architecture and Design Collection at Art, Design & Architecture Museum, UCSB
• Greg Goldin, Architecture Critic
• Christopher Hawthorne, Los Angeles Times Architecture Critic
• Craig Hodgetts, Architect
• Barbara Lamprecht, Architectural Historian
• Sylvia Lavin, Architectural Historian, Director of MA/PhD Program in Critical Studies at UCLA School of Architecture and Urban Design
• Mark Mack, Architect, Professor at UCLA School of Architecture and Urban Design
• Andrea Lenardin Madden, Architect, 1996 MAK Center Architect in Residence
• Susan Morgan, Writer, Co-curator with MAK Center director Kimberli Meyer of Sympathetic Seeing: Esther McCoy and the Heart of American Modernist Architecture and Design.
• Judith Sheine, Professor and Chair of Architecture Department at Cal Poly Pomona, Architect, Author of numerous books on R.M. Schindler
• Paulette Singley, Architectural Historian, Professor at the School of Architecture at Woodbury University
• Linda Taalman, Architect, Professor at the School of Architecture at Woodbury University
• Wim de Wit, Head of the Department of Architecture & Contemporary Art at the Getty Research Institute

In conjunction with the exhibition Sympathetic Seeing: Esther McCoy and the Heart of American Modernist Architecture and Design, the MAK Center for Art and Architecture at the Schindler House is pleased to open the Lovell Beach House for public tours this Sunday as a fundraiser.

Nearby will be the MAK Center's headquarters on the beach, where a canopy will offer shade, refreshments will be served, and Frisbees will be provided.

Sunday, October 16, 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.
Tickets will grant guests admission to the house at designated times.

Tickets:
$80/Friends of the MAK Center
$100/General public
Please note that all ticket sales are final

To purchase tickets, visit MAKCenter.org
Or call (323) 651-1510


About the Lovell Beach House
Dr. Philip Lovell was a naturopath, an anti-drug practitioner who advocated natural methods of healing and preventative care through exercise and a vegetarian diet.  Among the methodologies he espoused were massage, heat and water cures, open air sleeping and regular nude sunbathing. Author of several books, he was best known for his weekly "Care of the Body" column, published in the Los Angeles Times. Leah Lovell was sister to Harriet Freeman, Frank Lloyd Wright's client, and ran a Kindergarten with Pauline Schindler based on the principles of liberal educator Angelo Patri.

The site for the Beach House was a level lot along the Balboa Island boardwalk in Newport Beach. Space was at a premium and it was necessary to separate the house from vehicular and pedestrian traffic and to preserve ocean views. Schindler's solution was to raise the house above the street, providing a play yard and parking facilities at ground level. But rather than employing stilts or pilotis, the architect created a structural skeleton based on five free-standing concrete frames, shaped like square figure-eights. These not only support the house's two-story volume, but provide the infrastructure that supports plaster walls, floors and roof. Completely exposed to view, the concrete frames give the house its distinctive appearance and allowed Schindler to base his design on the shaping of space, rather than on structural exigencies.

The spatial scheme of the house is centered on a soaring two-story glass-fronted living room that maximizes views in two directions. A balcony hung across the room's interior provides access to top floor bedrooms and a covered outdoor sleeping porch that extends the length of the house. A sun deck is provided on the roof and kitchen, dining, bath and support facilities are arrayed at the street side of the house. Complicated rectangular patterning formed by walls, mullioned windows and balconies reference de Stijl and Wrightian sources, which the architect echoed in the furnishings he designed for the interiors.

Unlike the 1921-22 Kings Road House, which remained unpublished until 1932, the Beach House received immediate recognition in both the European and American press and in several books on modern architecture. Celebrated at the time for its formal and spatial innovations, the Lovell Beach House remains one of Schindler's signature accomplishments.