Case Study House No. 21

About this property

The Bailey House, or Case Study House No. 21, is a steel-framed modernist house in the Hollywood Hills, designed by Pierre Koenig. It was registered as Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument #669, with the endorsement of then-owner Michael LaFetra, the Los Angeles Conservancy, as well as Pierre and Gloria Koenig. In January 1945 John Entenza, the editor and publisher of Arts & Architecture magazine, announced the Case Study House Program (CSHP). The program was envisioned as a creative response to the impending building boom expected to follow the housing shortages of the Great Depression and World War II. Entenza encouraged participating architects to use donated materials from industry and manufacturers to create low-cost, modern housing prototypes that might foster a dialogue between architectural professionals and laymen. The highly publicized program ran from 1945 to 1964, spanning thirty-six individual designs, many of which were never constructed. The initial program announcement stated that "each house must be capable of duplication and in no sense be an individual performance" and that "the overall program will be general enough to be of practical assistance to the average American in search of a home in which he can afford to live." After returning from four years of fighting in WWII, Pierre Koenig was introduced to the CSHP through the ongoing publication of the avant-garde designs in Arts & Architecture magazine. By 1948 Koenig's interest in modern architecture led him to transfer from Pasadena City College to the School of Architecture at the University of Southern California where he studied under Richard Neutra and Gregory Ain. In 1950, while enrolled at USC, Koenig designed and built his first steel-framed house for himself and his family. Koenig's first involvement with the Case Study House Program occurred while working in the office of Raphael Soriano on the Case Study House 1950 project. In 1956 he worked briefly with Archibald Quincy Jones on a steel house in San Mateo, California for the prominent property developer Joseph Eichler. Eichler and John Entenza were well acquainted and both were developing a keen interest in the potential of lightweight steel construction for residential architecture. Koenig's hands-on experience with steel construction and his mastery of the new arc welding process on the San Mateo house would prove influential for the rest of his architectural career. Entenza saw great potential in Koenig's design work of the time and offered him a tentative invitation to participate in the CSHP when he "found the right house and the right client." This period marked the beginning of what historian Esther McCoy would later identify as the second phase of the Case Study House Program, represented by "a concerted effort… to bring architecture into relationship with the machine."

Location

Categories

Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

More in Los Angeles County

Historic places, battles, and census history across Los Angeles County.

More historic places in California

Browse all historic places in California.

Conflict records

Explore 19,000+ military engagements across American history.

California history

Colonial settlement, territorial period, and statehood narrative.