Investigation
Framed Space
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In 1912, the architect Rudolph Michael Schindler wrote an architectural manifest entitled “A Manifesto”.(1) It was written in English, the year after he graduated from Technischen Hochschule in Vienna and two years before he left for Chicago and later Los Angeles. The manifest consisted of four parts. The first and oldest part described space as the new medium of architecture, the second and third part described the symbolic function of architecture and space, and the last part described the perception and style of modern architecture.
In the first part of the manifest Schindler declared: “The architectural design concerns itself with ‘space’ as its raw material and with the organised room as its product ... The architect has now discovered the medium of his art: S P A C E.”(2) A little further on, he stated that space also had a symbolic function that took it beyond pure form: “The new monumentality of space will symbolize the limitless power of the human mind. Man trembles facing the universe.”(3)
Schindler’s understanding of space was more than that of a style: Space was both a new medium in itself, with endless potential for the construction of architecture, and a manifestation of the modern progressive man, which offered Schindler a radical position within a larger context of modern architecture. This understanding became more evident in the article “Space Architecture” from 1934, where Schindler wrote: “Modern architecture cannot be developed by changing slogans ... The development of this new language is going on amongst us, unconsciously in some cases, partly realized in some. It is not merely the birth of a new style, or a new version of the old play with sculptural forms, but the subjection of a new medium to serve as a vehicle for human expression.”(4)
Since space to Schindler was the new medium of architecture, what was it then a medium for? According to Schindler, the shift to Space Architecture was not to be taken lightly. It was a battle of modernity in which the former sculptural architecture was compared to “enlarged candy boxes,”(5) and where the ‘competing’ modernity of functions and machines was deemed without soul and more the work of the engineer or efficiency expert than that of an architect. Therefore, space had to be a medium for more than pure formal expression – more than a simple exchange of sculptural materiality for spatial flow. Space Architecture had to affect all of architecture, the entire gamut of architecture’s potential.
Seen in this light, I will propose to take Schindler’s insistence upon space as a medium quite literately and use it as a conceptual framework for an investigation of his rich and widespread production. I will suggest a framework constructed on two levels. First, one grounding concept of space, which he already identified as Space Architecture in 1912 and constantly refined throughout the rest of his life in articles as well as in built projects. Second, several more specific applications, where space served as a medium for his different architectural manifestations of which, I have chosen two: space as manifest and space as module. These two applications of space are potentials or actualizations for the grounding concept of space and can be found throughout Schindler’s entire production – in what he expressed in concrete, glass and wood, and what he expressed in articles, lectures, notebooks and on index cards. By using his application of space as a conceptual framework, we may see Schindler as the practicing architect he really was – by all the things he did and not just as a historical personality.(6) On the one hand, Schindler had a well-grounded concept of space, and on the other, he had a very active and serendipitous application of space, which changed according to his experience and problems at hand.
On the following pages I have included a series of diagrams that show the correspondence between Schindler’s projects and writings on the three major issues of this chapter: Space Architecture, space as manifest and space as module. By connecting Schindler’s texts and projects with lines on a historical scale, it becomes clear that the concept of Space Architecture was present throughout his career, both in writing and in projects. However, the use of space as manifest and as module emerged in specific periods and not necessarily at the same time in writing and in projects.
Space ArchitectureIn the seminal text “Space Architecture” from 1934, Schindler described how his concept of space was founded: “Shortly after my revelation in the mountains, a librarian in Vienna handed me a portfolio – the work of Frank Lloyd Wright. Immediately I realized – here was a man who had taken hold of this new medium. Here was ‘Space Architecture’.”(7) The portfolio that Schindler mentioned was the so-called Wasmuth Portfolio published by Ernst Wasmuth in Berlin 1910.(8) It contained an article by Wright entitled “Studies and Executed Buildings by Frank Lloyd Wright”, written during a visit to Florence in 1910. However, the article gave few, if any, clues to Wright’s concept of space. It contained no outspoken reference to space or to any concept of space. The dominant discussion was on classic Italian architects, how architects, painters and sculptors were alike, natural vs. scholastic styles, opportunities in America, and a description of the three types of his design, which were collected in the portfolio.(9) So Wright’s written agenda in the portfolio was different from the spatial argument that Schindler discovered: Wright was trying to position himself in Europe as one of the leaders of modern architecture and not to ground a new spatial architecture.
Nevertheless, if space was absent from F.L. Wright’s writing, it was present in his drawings. The portfolio contained drawings of project ranging from Wright’s Home and Studio in Oak Park to Robie House in Chicago, from Unity Temple to Larkin Company and from Prairie Houses to House for Ladies Home Journal. All in simple, yet detailed drawings made especially for this portfolio by Wright’s son Lloyd. What Schindler saw in the drawings was, in the words of the historian of architecture David Gebhard, “a theoretical thesis, which relied on drawings rather than the printed word.”(10) Gebhard continues:
For Schindler and his contemporaries Wright’s Prairie architecture had a reality which was more alive and vital than any buildings which they knew at first hand. The impact of Wright’s designs was due not only to the originality of their form, but equally to Wright’s appreciation of what was needed in the way of presentation ... This volume, Wagner’s Modern Architecture, and Loos’ Ornament and Crime were the main theoretical baggage which Schindler had collected and carried with him when he left for the United States.(11)
What Schindler discovered in the Wasmuth Portfolio defined his understanding of what space could be and showed him a way to develop that understanding even further – by eventually joining Wright at Taliesin, which he did in February 1918 some six years later.(12)
With his article “Space Architecture” from 1934, Schindler established a new status for space. As the primary medium for architecture, space would set modern architecture apart from ancient architecture, where space, in the words of Schindler, was a by-product to keep the masses hovering. Space was now the main expression of architecture – not the sculptural ‘mass-pile’, which set the architect and the sculptor apart. The modern architect would be “dealing with a new medium as rich and unlimited in possibilities of expression as any of other media of art: color, sound, mass etc. This gives us a new understanding of the task of modern architecture. Its experiments serve to develop a new language, a vocabulary and syntax of space.”(13) Space Architecture was a shift in the general understanding of space and as such a new grounding for architecture. It was to have a profound influence on all aspects of architecture itself and of all aspects related to architecture, which “… as an art may have the much more important meaning of serving as a cultural agent – stimulating and fulfilling the urge for growth and extension of our own selves.”(14)
This ‘cultural agent’ was an idea of architecture that Schindler kept throughout his life and could be read in his definition of the architect from 1952, just one year before his death: “The highest intention of the architect will be to combine everything connected with the bldg. into one complete and logical organism. It will task not only to plan a useful structure, but to create a monument of architecture worthy of the human mind and representative of our own culture.”(15) From Schindler’s concept of architecture as ‘one complete and logical organism’ and the idea of architectural space as more than form alone, we may argue that space to Schindler was a medium through which the architect could express almost any issue related to architecture: the value, status and function of space and its formal and aesthetic potential. Space was the new medium for architecture – it was a symbol as well as a formal manifestation and it was broadly founded in a culture of space.
Space as ManifestFrom the very first writings in 1912 to his death in 1953, Schindler used space as a manifestation of modernity. Space was the one character that set him apart from the broad modernism of the International Style and the ‘functionalists’. To Schindler space was both the new language of architecture and the manifestation of modernity. This became evident in a letter to architectural historian and curator Henry-Russell Hitchcock at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1930. Schindler criticized Hitchcock’s recent book(16) for being careless in mistaking Schindler for former business partner, architect Richard Neutra,(17) and for not grasping the importance of a new language in architecture. Schindler wrote:
To link him (Neutra) as you do with the school of Wright both in fact and especially in spirit is just as wrong as to link me with Corbusier. The reverse might be stated with some chance to find supporting arguments … As much as Corbusier is interested in expressing the present moment of our civilization, I am interested in the present growth of a new architectural medium. One deals with subject matter, the other a new language … However the work of the contemporary architect is more of a literary nature than of a three-dimensional one. The more the building is conceived on paper and in words the better it will reproduce. It is a pity that such reproductions seem to be your only approach to the subject. How otherwise could you prefer the enlarged candy boxes of Josef Hoffman to the work of Otto Wagner, a real planner and builder.(18)
Clearly, Schindler was quite serious about his associates; there were clear differences between Wagner and Hoffman, Wright and Le Corbusier, and Schindler and Neutra in defining modern architecture. And what set them apart was the new language of architecture – space. In another letter from July 1935 regarding an exhibition at MoMA, he was even more outspoken when he asked: “Is the exhibition another ‘International Style’ ballyhoo? I am definitely trying to establish an American tradition of modern work and do not want to join a group, which merely copies European functionalism. I should like to know a few names of the other exhibitors …”(19) In September the same year, Schindler wrote again: “You further called it an exhibition of ‘California Architects’. Now it has become one of ‘Neutra and others’. I am quite willing to give Neutra the crown for his ability as a publicity man, but I am not willing to sail under his flag as an architect.”(20)
It was a fierce battle between two different views on architecture and not a constructive discussion on the subject of space in architecture. It was a battle of who had the right to define modern architecture in America – a battle in which, Schindler used space to manifest his own radical position relative to other architects.
Another expression of this spatial manifest was a lecture series on ‘Contemporary Creative Architecture’ that Schindler offered to a wide range of societies and clubs in the greater Los Angeles area in 1930. The pamphlet reads: “A new architecture has come into being in our time and is moving toward fulfillment … It is not a mere style. It is profoundly based. But it is necessary that it be understood for an imitative pseudo-modernism blurs the clear line and confuses the layman.”(21) Schindler’s spatial manifest was not just aimed at exhibitions for the connoisseurs at MoMA, but also at lectures for the layman. In a letter that was mailed with the pamphlet to five clubs in the Los Angeles area, Schindler wrote:
The more I see of the reaction the so-called ‘modern architecture’ causes at large, the more I can perceive the confusion this new style is creating in the minds of the public and the experts. Nobody seems able to distinguish between sincere contemporary work and the atrocities of the fashionable fakers. It is urgently necessary to explain the real meaning of the movement and to give the public a vocabulary thru which to understand it intelligently … I am not a professional lecturer but find myself forced to undertake such educational efforts as a matter of self defense.(22)
Nowhere, in the letters and pamphlets that I have quoted here, were any in depth discussion of space as a new language for architecture; space was used as the distinguishing character that separated the two groups of modern architects. Therefore, we may argue that Schindler used space as a manifest to construct a radical position in modern architecture. The insistence upon space was in sharp contrast to the ‘beaux art’ architects, who came before him and the International Style and the ‘functionalists’, with whom he competed. This is evident in the first formulations about modern architecture in 1912, which positioned Schindler in the European avant-garde but also in his ‘self defense’ against ‘pseudo-modernism’ in the lecture series of the mid 1930s, and in the controversy surrounding the 1932 MoMA exhibition on the International Style(23) – the one that let Neutra in and left Schindler out.
We could even say that Schindler succeeded in his project. The use of space as a manifest of modernity was acknowledged in his exclusion from the exhibition. Schindler was not a part of the group, and space was the decisive factor – it became his architectural imperative.
Space as ModulesIn 1944 Schindler wrote an article entitled “Reference Frames in Space”, in which he gave a rather late introduction to the Unit System he began using some 26 years earlier – most likely in the Log House from 1916-17. The article was published two years later in 1946 in the American magazine Architect and Engineer. In the same file as Schindler kept his manuscript for “Reference Frames in Space”, he also kept a doctoral dissertation (1937) and an article (1945) by Frederick Heath, Jr., and an article (1945) by J.W. McCracken. Heath and McCracken were both engineers, who had specialized in modular building methods and advocated for the introduction of a unit standard that could serve as equilibrium for a growing number of industrialized building parts. This was all part of a national effort to develop the American building technology – Project A62 – of the American Standards Association.(24) Heath and McCracken went as far as to suggest completely new units of measure: the Dex and the MCXI, respectably. Both units equaled 40 inches, were based on a 4-inch module and were meant to integrate the different building parts that were on the market at that time. However, none of these new units offered any help to Schindler. In the article, he proposed his own Unit System based on a 4 feet standard unit – somewhat bigger than the 40-inch unit that Heath and McCracken had proposed for Project A62. What Heath, McCracken and Schindler all shared though, were the aim to create a fundamentally new system of reference – as the uniting concept of all projects.
Schindler’s Unit System was different from that of Heath and McCracken. It was not just an anteriority(25) that could frame the understanding of space, but also an interiority that could structure the design space and the production of the built space – a systematic frame that would ‘liberate’ the space architect “in order to develop his mental image.”(26) Schindler wrote about the architect that:
He wants to be relieved of hours of measuring, figuring and checking. He needs a unit of dimension, which is large enough to give his building scale rhythm and cohesion. And last, but most important for the ‘space architect’, it must be a unit which he can carry palpably in his mind in order to be able to deal with space forms freely but accurately in his imagination.(27)
In the same article, he gave the answer to the wishes of the space architect: “... a Unit System. Such a system replaces the confusing figures representing inches, centimeters, and their fractions by a standard unit which is established right on the plan by a grid of lines which fixes the location and size of building parts visually and at a glance.”(28) Therefore, not only did Schindler construct frames in the built space by the use of his Unit System – he also constructed a specific frame of mind for the architect to deal with his design space. R.M. Schindler had already expressed these different potentials and constraints of a Unit System in the 1916 “Church School of Art” lectures. In his notes to the lecture he wrote: “Form in general shall have no rules but its expr(ession) … Arch(itect) to choose his own ‘unit’ out of different conditions … Net not only squares, but sometimes rectangular 3 dimensions … Unit shape to be used for details not as ornament.”(29)
In the Schindler collection at University of California in Santa Barbara a set of boxes contain index cards, which Schindler kept as reference for writing up contracts and project descriptions, paraphrases and everyday wisdom, accumulated throughout a whole life. One can imagine that he kept the boxes in his office next to the jars with screws, bolts and clips of materials that Esther McCoy mentions in her book Five California Architects.(30) On one he wrote: “The plans are based on a system of unit lines which define all necessary dimensions.”(31) On another be wrote: “This contractor shall provide a substantial fence around the building on which each unit line shall be marked by means of a nail and a number. All measurements shall be taken from lines stretched between these nails.”(32)
As one goes through the index cards, it becomes clear that the one basic ‘tool’ that Schindler used to transform his ideas of space into rooms, was the Unit System. In the everyday routine of the office, it did more than just provide the recognizable topography of the drawings. It translated these spaces by providing topography of the building site as well. The Unit System defined all measurements with numbers and letters running on each side of an orthogonal grid identifying every position on the site. As he used 4-feet lines on his scale drawings these were keyed to numbers and letters. His building instructions specified that battens should be placed in a continuous belt around a site during construction; numbers and letters of the unit lines were transferred to the batten, and a nail was set at each location so that the craftsman could find any position of the building.
The unit lines were also an aid to Schindler in dealing freely and accurately with complicated forms. He found that the larger unit of measurement helped in giving his structures scale, rhythm and cohesion as mathematical computations were not necessary.(33) Further, the index cards may testify to the practical application of his ideas of space and his strategy of architectural production. Schindler did not only use a three-dimensional frame or grid as an aesthetic tool for designing, he also used it as a tool for organizing and managing the practical building process. In other words, the Unit System formed a bridge between his conceptual design space, the instructive space of his drawings, and the construction space of the building site – all brought together by a single understanding of space.
Schindler developed these ideas further in an article from 1945, entitled “A Prefabrication Vocabulary and the ‘Panel-Post’ Construction”, where he in 34 paragraphs described the reasons for using the Unit System and ‘reference frames in space’. The main points were reduction of cost for the builder, flexibility for the user and aesthetic freedom for the architect. Schindler further mentions:
3) PURPOSE: Intensified prefabrication transmits the bulk of building work into the factory. The consequent increase of efficiency and the use of machinery reduce COSTS, and furnish a better product … 16) FLEXIBILITY: The system shall permit additions and subtractions of partitions and rooms, and the change of size and location of all openings at any time. This demand will eliminate the ‘Stressed skin’ construction since alterations of this kind would upset their structural system … 32) SPACE FORMS: It shall be possible to build rooms of varying heights to permit architectural articulation in the house. Since real contemporary work is ‘Space Architecture’ this requirement is basis for our architectural development.(34)
With the Panel-Post Construction Schindler established a complete building system – or strategy – for integrating prefabricated building parts in low-cost housing projects by the application of Space Architecture. This was an issue that he had already tested in the design for the Schindler Shelter in 1933-34, which served as a highly industrialized and rapid solution to the great housing needs in the New Deal era, and later in the Schindler Frame from 1947. Schindler tried several times to promote these systems, as when he in January 1934 wrote to Mr. Walter N. Marke: “I am sending you six sheets which should explain the Schindler Shelter scheme sufficiently ... I am showing several types, which can be varied thru secondary alterations ... It will not be difficult for me to make each of two hundred proposed houses an individual.”(35) And three days later to the Commitee for Subsistance Farms where he mentioned the features of the Schindler Shelter: “… Easily built anywhere, by anybody … a flexible plan which allows individual treatment of each house … reduces maintenance to a minimum … reduce the contrast between housekeeping in the town and in the country.”(36)
Schindler’s Design SpaceIn his book Schindler from 1971, the historian of architecture David Gebhard had a small chapter called “Schindler’s ‘de Stijl’”. In this chapter, Gebhard described the likeness between the Dutch design/art group De Stijl from 1910-30 and Schindler’s projects after 1925. Gebhard found a formal likeness as – “a limited array of motifs which he (Schindler) repeats again and again, on scales ranging from large wall units to small details and furniture.”(37) The term ‘De Stijl’ is hereafter used by Gebhard as an additive for many formative design agents as composition, phase, mode, walls, volumes, aesthetic, shell, packaging, sculpture and pattern. They are all very appropriate for describing Schindler’s architectural expression, beginning with the Lovell Beach House (1925-6), reaching a high point with the white ‘plaster-skin’ buildings Buck House (1934) and Fitzpatrick House (1936), and ending with the Harris House (1942).
However, the comparison to De Stijl has a more interesting dimension than a simple stylistic similarity. The philosopher Yve-Alain Bois has suggested describing De Stijl by two operations or methods: elementarization and integration. According to Bois, these two operations saturated all that defined De Stijl – the journal ‘De Stijl’ (October 1917-1932), the group of people, and the idea of sharing a single generative principle across all arts without compromising their individual integrities. Bois writes about the two operations: “Elementarization, that is, the analysis of each practice into discrete components and the reduction of these components to a few irreducible elements. Integration, that is, the exhaustive articulation of these elements into a syntactically indivisible, nonhierarchical whole.”(38)
We could argue that the idea of De Stijl corresponds with the two levels of spatial understanding that I suggested in the beginning of this chapter. That a single integrating principle, Space Architecture, could be applied to a wide range of architectural activities or elements in Schindler’s production. Bois’ two concepts may be applied to the design spaces of ‘reference frames in space’ and the Unit System, which both are ways to ‘break up’ a design problem into discrete elements, and a way to bridge a spatial idea and the construction of a real room.
With more reason, maybe, they could also be applied to Schindler’s ideas about integration and architecture as a ‘logical organism’, which could connect all things related to architecture. The idea of a single generative principle could be applied to Schindler’s spatial flow between furniture and architecture in the Wolfe House, the Fitzpatrick House and even the Freeman House, which he re-designed for Wright. It could also be applied to the encompassing idea of the Kings Road House and its garden. This has been described by architectural historian and independent researcher Kathryn Smith as one geometric abstraction of the building extended to the garden – from the massive concrete chimneys to the dematerialized screens, from the massive hedges toward the street to the waving bamboo.(39)
Elementarization and integration does also resound several of Schindler’s own descriptions of his design process. In his lecture from the 1921 “About Architecture”, he stated, with a clear reference to ‘the organic’ materiality of Wright and Louis H. Sullivan:
Structure. As a cascade is formed by the water seeking its way between obstruction – the structure forms a cascade for – space – ... There are no separate rooms – one room flows into the other – they move towards each other, interlock and contrast & repulse each other – always as part of a whole, space.(40)
Further, in a letter to Museum of Modern Art in 1943 about the advantages of Space Architecture, he writes: “This lead to a few characteristics I like to mention: A new relation between the inner room and the out of doors (1921) ... It leads to the use of furniture as a space forming part of the building.”(41) And finally in the article “Visual Technique” from 1952 about the integration in his own house: “To break this tradition I wowe my Kings Road house out of untreated structural materials (concrete, redwood, insulate panels, and glass) each to contribute its natural texture and color.”(42)
By using Bois’ two operations or methods from De Stijl we get closer to a description of Schindler’s design space – how he analyzed a problem as discrete elements or operands and then integrated or embedded them in his design space, which would eventually produce the final built space. We could argue that many of Schindler’s architectural procedures – primarily the reference frames in space and Unit Systems – solved specific tasks related to his design space. They provided a module or topology of the drawing by constructing a shared notion of the location and parts of the project. This, in part, led to the analysis and selection of operands for the design space. It was a tool for the practical organization and management of the building process and it was an active tool for the positioning of different elements, providing a tool for composition, direction and form by bringing objects and spaces into a tight relationship based on symmetry, parallels and angles.
Schindler’s embedded spaces were uniting tools that encompassed the entire project space, providing location, placement and expression at all levels of the project, from the initial layout on the site to the final architectural expression in detailing and materials.
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(1) In the Architectural Drawing Collection at University of California, Santa Barbara (ADC/UCSB), there is a manuscript of Schindler’s architectural manifest, which bears the title “Article 1”. It is the first part of the manifest and was later labeled “1.”. There is some discrepancy to when the text “A Manifesto” was written. “Article ‘1’” that is the first part of “A Manifesto” was written in 1912. “Art. 3 1913” is mentioned in the Church School Lectures from 1916, and is consistent with the third part of Schindler’s manifest. It would be safe to say that “A Manifesto” was written between 1912 and 1914, when Schindler leaves for the US. To avoid any confusion, the date used to identify “A Manifesto” throughout the dissertation is 1912.
(2) Schindler, R.M. (1912), “Article ‘1’” (unpublished manuscript), ADC/UCSB, n. p. “A Manifesto” is reprinted in Gebhard, David (1971), Schindler, San Francisco, CA: William Stout Publishers. Here, the phrase ‘organized room’ is quoted as ‘articulated room’, see p. 147.
(3) Schindler, R.M. (1912), “A Manifesto,” in Gebhard (1971), op. cit., p. 148.
(4) Schindler, R.M. (1934), “Space Architecture,” in Gebhard (1971), ibid., p. 150.
(5) Schindler, R.M. (1930), “Letter to Mr. Hitchcock, January 1930” (unpublished), ADC/UCSB, n. p.
(6) This investigative framework must be seen as an alternative to an historical description of his person or stylistic progression, which seems to dominate the Schindler literature.
(7) Schindler, R.M. (1934), “Space Architecture,” in Gebhard (1971), op. cit., 149. The revelation in the mountains refers to Schindler’s ontological experience that he described in his manifest from 1912.
(8) Wasmuth, Ernst, ed. (1910), “Ausgeführte Bauten und Entwürfe von Frank Lloyd Wright,” available from http://www.lib.utah.edu/digital/digcol.html.
(9) Wright, Frank Lloyd (1910), “Studies and Executed Buildings by Frank Lloyd Wright” (Wasmuth Portfolio)’ in Frank Lloyd Wright Collected Writings Vol. 1 1894-1930, ed. Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer (1992), New York, NY: Rizzoli. The three types of design were: the low-pitched hip roofs, the low roofs with simple pediments countering on long ridges and those topped with a simple slab.
(10) Gebhard (1971), op. cit., p. 11.
(11) Ibid.
(12) Schindler worked with Wright from February 1918 to 1922; first, at Taliesin and from December 1920 in Los Angeles, when Wright was in Tokyo to finish The Imperial Hotel. They mostly worked together on Wrights site specific ‘textile block houses’, which both in their ‘in situ’ way of construction and their spatial flow had a great influence on Schindler’s later work. Many things has been written about the relationship between Wright and Schindler, and about whom to accredit the most influence on Schindler – Frank Lloyd Wright, Otto Wagner or Adolf Loos. To me that is a discussion that often ends up in a superficial comparison of artistic styles or in a very personal analysis of who said and did what. My only note to that is that, when going through Schindler’s own writing and correspondence, it became clear to me that Wright had a much more influential position than what has been argued in accounts of Schindler’s production after his death. Wagner and Loos are hardly mentioned after the 1932 dispute over MoMA’s exhibition and the lecture series Schindler held in the mid 1930s. Wright had a profound influence on Schindler both on a personal level, when they argued about salaries, on a professional level, when Schindler needed a recommendation to practice, and on an architectural level, when Schindler writes to MoMA that only he and Wright were real space architects. This is an area that I will move through with caution and where I do not wish to repeat others. Rather I will investigate ‘Space Architecture’ through the concept of design space that we just have unfolded.
(13) Schindler (1934), ‘Space Architecture’, in Gebhard (1971), op. cit., p. 149.
(14) Ibid.
(15) Schindler, R.M. (1952), index cards (marked 692.40612) (unpublished), ADC/UCSB, n. p.
(16) Henry-Russell Hitchcock published Modern Architecture; Romanticism and Reintegration in 1929, which came to be the first definition of modern architecture and ‘international style’ in the United States. It was his first book and was to be followed by International Style: Architecture since 1922, which was published in connection to the International Style exhibition at MoMA in 1932 that he did together with Philip Johnson.
(17) Here I refer to the failed enterprise of Neutra and Schindler (Architectural Group for Industry and Commerce), to their dispute over the rights to the League of Nations competition in 1926 and to their battle of positions in modern architecture. But also to two former friends that end up sharing a room at the Cedars of Lebanon Hospital in 1952, shortly before Schindler’s death. With Wright the issues were similar but even more personal. Unpaid bills and no salary when Wright was in Japan and Schindler took care of the office in Los Angeles. Malign letters concerning lack of appreciation and mudslinging, ending with a note from Schindler’s wife Pauline in November 1941, saying that Wright had stopped by, and that Wright “once wrote you a letter which he considers the one black mark of his life. Wants you to forgive him.” According to Judith Sheine, they never meet again and did only shortly correspond before Schindler’s death in the summer of 1953, on the initiative of Pauline.
(18) Schindler, R.M. (1930), “Letter to Mr. Hitchcock, January 1930” cit., n. p.
(19) Schindler, R.M. (1935), “Letter to Miss. E. Fantl July 5th 1935” (unpublished), ADC/UCSB, n. p.
(20) Schindler, R.M. (1935), “Letter to Mrs. Fantl September 17th 1935” (unpublished), ADC/UCSB, n. p. On the original letter, David Gebhard has remarked in handwriting: “Neutra & Others An exh. of models, plans, photos of recent work of cal. modern arch., with special emphasis on R.J.N. (Neutra) is announced by n.y. mus. of mod. art for oct. 2 to 24 (1935).”
(21) Schindler, R.M. (1930), “Lecturing on Contemporary Creative Architecture 1930” (unpublished pamphlet), ADC/UCSB, n. p.
(22) Schindler, R.M. (1930), “Letter to Friday Morning Club, Jan 18. 1930” (unpublished), ADC/UCSB, n. p. The five clubs were quite diverse in character: Friday Morning Club, Ebell Club, City Club, Women’s Club Hollywood and Engineers Club.
(23) The full title of the exhibition was Modern Architecture – International Exhibition while the book that followed the exhibition was entitled The International Style: Architecture since 1922. Refer also to note 16.
(24) The effort was sponsored by the American Institute of Architects and the Producer’s Council, under American Standard Association’s Project A62. This is the background for the pamphlet by the Producers Council, which Schindler mentions in the beginning of “Reference Frames in Space”.
(25) I use the terms ‘anteriority’ and ‘interiority’ with reference to Peter Eisenman to whom we will return later.
(26) Schindler, R.M. (1944), “Reference frames in space” (manuscript), ADC/UCSB (later published in Architect and Engineer, 1946).
(27) Ibid., p. 1-2.
(28) Ibid., p. 1.
(29) Schindler, R.M. (1916), “Church School of Art, lectures 1916” (unpublished), ADC/UCSB, Section VI, p. 4 & 4,5.
(30) McCoy, Esther (1960), Five California Architects, New York, NY: Reinhold Publishing Corporation, p. 150.
(31) Schindler, R.M. (n. d.), index card: “Concrete Work – Unit System” (692.305-41), ADC/UCSB, n. p.
(32) Schindler, R.M. (n. d.), index card: “Concrete Work – Unit System” (692.305-41), ADC/UCSB, n. p.
(33) McCoy (1960), op. cit., p. 171, c. 1.
(34) Schindler, R.M. (1945), “A Prefabrication Vocabulary” (manuscript) ADC/UCSB (later published in Architectural Engineering, Technical News and Research, 1945), n. p. There is an alternative set of drawings of the Kings Road House, which shows a potential reorganization of the building, but not to the extent that it is, describes in paragraph 16 in his article.
(35) Schindler, R.M. (1934), “Letter for Mr. Walter N. Marke” (unpublished), ADC/UCSB, n. p.
(36) Schindler, R.M. (1934), “Letter for Commitee for Subsistance Farms” (unpublished), ADC/UCSB, n. p. Schindler’s misspelling.
(37) Gebhard (1971), op. cit., p. 75.
(38) Bois, Yve-Alain (1990), Painting as Model, Cambridge, MA: OCTOBER Book, The MIT Press, p. 103.
(39) Smith, Kathryn (2001), Schindler House, New York, NY: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers, p. 36-7.
(40) Schindler, R.M. (1921), “About Architecture” (lecture manuscript), ADC/UCSB, n. p.
(41) Schindler, R.M. (1943), “Letter to Elisabeth Mock (MOMA) August 10 1943” (unpublished), ADC/UCSB, n. p.
(42) Schindler, R.M. (1952), “Visual Technique” (manuscript), ADC/UCSB, n. p.
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