Entenza House (Case Study #9) by Charles & Ray Eames, Eero Saarinen & Associates
11/01/2018.
[Los Angeles] USA
metalocus, JOSÉ JUAN BARBA
metalocus, JOSÉ JUAN BARBA
"Entenza House" is the ninth of the famous Case Study Houses built between 1945 and 1962 for a society still recovering from the Second World War. John Entenza, the editor of Arts and Architecture magazine, was responsible for initiating the program.
Case Study House No. 9. (1950) / Julius Shulman Photography Archive
Case Study House No. 9. (1950) / Julius Shulman Photography Archive
Case Study House No. 9. (1950) / Julius Shulman Photography Archive
Case Study House No. 9. (1950) / Julius Shulman Photography Archive
Case Study House No. 9. (1950) / Julius Shulman Photography Archive
Case Study House No. 9. (1950) / Julius Shulman Photography Archive
Case Study House No. 9. (1950) / Julius Shulman Photography Archive
Case Study House No. 9. (1950) / Julius Shulman Photography Archive
Case Study House No. 9. (1950) / Julius Shulman Photography Archive
Case Study House No. 9. (1950) / Julius Shulman Photography Archive
Case Study House No. 9. (1950) / Julius Shulman Photography Archive
Case Study House No. 9. (1950) / Julius Shulman Photography Archive
Case Study House No. 9. (1950) / Julius Shulman Photography Archive
Case Study House No. 9. (1950) / Julius Shulman Photography Archive
Case Study House No. 9. (1950) / Julius Shulman Photography Archive
Case Study House No. 9. (1950) / Julius Shulman Photography Archive
Case Study House No. 9. (1950) / Julius Shulman Photography Archive
Case Study House No. 9. (1950) / Julius Shulman Photography Archive
Case Study House No. 9. (1950) / Julius Shulman Photography Archive
Case Study House No. 9. (1950) / Julius Shulman Photography Archive
Case Study House No. 9. (1950) / Julius Shulman Photography Archive
Case Study House No. 9. (1950) / Julius Shulman Photography Archive
Case Study House No. 9. (1950) / Julius Shulman Photography Archive
Caso de Estudio Casa No. 9. (1950) / Julius Shulman Archivo Fotográfico
Case Study House No. 9. (1950) / Julius Shulman Photography Archive
Case Study House No. 9. (1950) / Julius Shulman Photography Archive
Case Study House No. 9. (1950) / Julius Shulman Photography Archive
Image © J. Paul Getty Trust. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2004.R.10)
Floor plan. Case Study House No. 9. (1950)
Axonometric. Case Study House No. 9. (1950)
West Elevation. Case Study House No. 9. (1950)
North Elevation. Case Study House No. 9. (1950)
East Elevation. Case Study House No. 9. (1950)
South Elevation. Case Study House No. 9. (1950)
The Case Study House # 9 was designed by the architects Charles Eames and Eero Saarinen for John Entenza, responsible for initiating the program and also director and editor of Arts & Architecture magazine, who lived and worked there until he sold it to the 5 years of its construction, at which time a series of changes were made on the original design.
Located at 205 Chautauca Boulevard, Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles (USA), whose plot occupies almost one hectare in a meadow overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Like its partners in the "Casas de Estudio" Program, the house was designed not only to serve as a comfortable and functional residence but to show how modular steel construction could be used to create low-cost housing for a society that was still recovering from World War II. With this premise, the architects Eames and Saarinen designed the house in such a way that the landscape was an extension of it, so that the house was related to the landscape and its surroundings.
Located at 205 Chautauca Boulevard, Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles (USA), whose plot occupies almost one hectare in a meadow overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Like its partners in the "Casas de Estudio" Program, the house was designed not only to serve as a comfortable and functional residence but to show how modular steel construction could be used to create low-cost housing for a society that was still recovering from World War II. With this premise, the architects Eames and Saarinen designed the house in such a way that the landscape was an extension of it, so that the house was related to the landscape and its surroundings.
The objective of the original project designed by the architects was to reach the maximum space with the minimum possible structure, the project is developed with the idea of "elastic space" in which the space varies depending on the occasional occupation needs due to guests or the family. After a series of construction difficulties due to delays, the building was completed in 1949, maintaining the original idea of creating a fluid space related to the environment.
The house is structured around four steel pillars, 10 cm wide and 2.13 m high, located in the centre of the project, allowing, in this way, the bracing and transmitting of most of the load to the perimeter belt getting all the interior elements to support a similar and lighter load.
The structure of steel and glass is hidden by drywall panels that line the walls of the house. The roof is made of a single flat slab of concrete while the interior roof is covered with birch wood slats.
The floor of the house with square shape and sides of 16.5 meters. The house is divided by a gap of 90 cm that separates the public rooms from the private ones, where the architects take advantage of these height differences to create a piece of permanent informal furniture.
The entrance to the house, located to the North, is separated from the garage by translucent glass that allows the passage of light from a skylight located in it. In the corridor, we find the entrance to a more private area where there are two rooms, two bathrooms and a study without windows to avoid distractions from the outside.
South of the house is the public space where the architects Eames and Saarinen developed the idea of flexible space through a translucent tobacco shop that separates while connecting all rooms allowing an intimate relationship with the outside. The kitchen and living room are separated by a wardrobe wall while both open to the south.
The photographs presented in this article from Casa Case Study No. 9 (Los Angeles, California), 1950, have been reproduced from the J. Paul Getty Trust. Getty Research Institute of the Julius Shulman Photography archive. While copying has been allowed, the copyright remains the property of the J. Paul Getty Trust. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles.
More information
Architects
Charles and Ray Eames, Eero Saarinen and Associates
Area
1,600.0 ft² (150.0 m²)
Dates
Proyect Year.- 1949
Collaborators
Engineer.- Edgardo Contini
Charles-Ray Kaiser EAMES
The Eameses are best known for their groundbreaking contributions to architecture, furniture design, industrial design and manufacturing, and the photographic arts.
Charles Eames was born in 1907 in St. Louis, Missouri. He attended school there and developed an interest in engineering and architecture. After attending Washington University in St. Louis on scholarship for two years and being thrown out for his advocacy of Frank Lloyd Wright, he began working in an architectural office. In 1929, he married his first wife, Catherine Woermann (they divorced in 1941), and a year later Charles’s only child, Lucia was born. In 1930, Charles started his own architectural office. He began extending his design ideas beyond architecture and received a fellowship to Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan, where he eventually became head of the design department.
Ray Kaiser Eames was born in 1912 in Sacramento, California. She studied painting with Hans Hofmann in New York before moving on to Cranbrook Academy where she met and assisted Charles and Eero Saarinen in preparing designs for the Museum of Modern Art’s Organic Furniture Competition. Charles and Eero’s designs, created by molding plywood into complex curves, won them the two first prizes.
Charles and Ray married in 1941 and moved to California where they continued their furniture design work with molding plywood. During World War II they were commissioned by the United States Navy to produce molded plywood splints, stretchers, and experimental glider shells. In 1946, Evans Products began producing the Eameses’ molded plywood furniture. Their molded plywood chair was called “the chair of the century” by the influential architectural critic Esther McCoy. Soon production was taken over by Herman Miller, Inc., who continues to produce the furniture in the United States today. Another partner, Vitra International, manufactures the furniture in Europe.
In 1949, Charles and Ray designed and built their own home in Pacific Palisades, California, as part of the Case Study House Program sponsored by Arts & Architecture magazine. Their design and innovative use of materials made the House a mecca for architects and designers from both near and far. Today, it is considered one of the most important post-war residences anywhere in the world.
Charles Eames was born in 1907 in St. Louis, Missouri. He attended school there and developed an interest in engineering and architecture. After attending Washington University in St. Louis on scholarship for two years and being thrown out for his advocacy of Frank Lloyd Wright, he began working in an architectural office. In 1929, he married his first wife, Catherine Woermann (they divorced in 1941), and a year later Charles’s only child, Lucia was born. In 1930, Charles started his own architectural office. He began extending his design ideas beyond architecture and received a fellowship to Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan, where he eventually became head of the design department.
Ray Kaiser Eames was born in 1912 in Sacramento, California. She studied painting with Hans Hofmann in New York before moving on to Cranbrook Academy where she met and assisted Charles and Eero Saarinen in preparing designs for the Museum of Modern Art’s Organic Furniture Competition. Charles and Eero’s designs, created by molding plywood into complex curves, won them the two first prizes.
Charles and Ray married in 1941 and moved to California where they continued their furniture design work with molding plywood. During World War II they were commissioned by the United States Navy to produce molded plywood splints, stretchers, and experimental glider shells. In 1946, Evans Products began producing the Eameses’ molded plywood furniture. Their molded plywood chair was called “the chair of the century” by the influential architectural critic Esther McCoy. Soon production was taken over by Herman Miller, Inc., who continues to produce the furniture in the United States today. Another partner, Vitra International, manufactures the furniture in Europe.
In 1949, Charles and Ray designed and built their own home in Pacific Palisades, California, as part of the Case Study House Program sponsored by Arts & Architecture magazine. Their design and innovative use of materials made the House a mecca for architects and designers from both near and far. Today, it is considered one of the most important post-war residences anywhere in the world.
Eero SAARINEN
Eero Saarinen (Rantasalmi, Finland, 1910 - Bloomfield Hills, United States of America, 1961), is an architect of Finnish origin that develops all his professional activity in the United States, country he moved to in 1923, when he was thirteen years old. He studies sculpture at the Academy of the Grand Chaumiére of Paris in 1929 and architecture at Yale University between 1930 and 1934.
In his first years of professional activity, Eero Saarinen works in the practice of his father, the also well-known architect Eliel Saarinen, of which he becomes partner in 1941 along with J. Robert Swanson. At this time he was also professor of architecture at the Cranbrook Art Academy.
After the death of his father in 1950, Saarinen opens his own practice in Birmingham (Alabama) under the name of Eero Saarinen & Associates. Some of his best known works are the General Motors Technical Center in Michigan; The Gateway Arch, in St. Louis; The TWA at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York and the hockey pavilion at Yale University.
The professional career of Eero Saarinen also included his activity as furniture designer, creating well-known pieces.
In his first years of professional activity, Eero Saarinen works in the practice of his father, the also well-known architect Eliel Saarinen, of which he becomes partner in 1941 along with J. Robert Swanson. At this time he was also professor of architecture at the Cranbrook Art Academy.
After the death of his father in 1950, Saarinen opens his own practice in Birmingham (Alabama) under the name of Eero Saarinen & Associates. Some of his best known works are the General Motors Technical Center in Michigan; The Gateway Arch, in St. Louis; The TWA at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York and the hockey pavilion at Yale University.
The professional career of Eero Saarinen also included his activity as furniture designer, creating well-known pieces.
