Rost Architects Interview with Alan Hess

In spring of 2021, we had the opportunity to speak with Architectural historian Alan Hess. Alan has written over 20 books on the topic of modern architectural history ranging from Frank Lloyd Wright to Palm Springs Modernism. In this segment we discussed the origins of California Modern Architecture, key players in the movement including Irving Gill, Frank Lloyd Wright, and John Lautner. Watch the video below or read the interview transcript.

Rost Architects Interview with Alan Hess - California Modern Architecture History

Mitchell - Rost Architects   00:00

Today I had the privilege of speaking with Alan Hess, a fellow UCLA alumni. He's an architectural historian, preservationist, author, and lecturer. He's the author of nearly 20 books on mid-century modern architecture, many of them focusing on the work of Frank Lloyd Wright. He's been featured in countless architectural documentaries and is a contributing lecturer at the Palm Springs mid-century modernism week. He's also the commissioner on the California State Historical Resources Commission and serves on the board of the Orange County of Preservation Society.

Alan and I had a great conversation about Los Angeles Modernism. In a subsequent segment, we dive into Palm Springs, modernism.

Alan, thank you for coming in this morning, I just want to get right into it and ask you about your career, how did you get into your work studying mid-century modern architecture?

Alan  01:11

I've always been interested in history, I was a history major in college and that has carried over in my architecture career, I went to UCLA and got a masters there, and met some great historians, and an architect who really introduced me to Southern California, modern architecture. It has been a continuing interest of mine, I see continuities, you don't have to reinvent everything, every decade. In fact, I really believe that the most successful cities around the world, certainly here in California, are those who have recognized their architectural history, and built on it over the years, not just repeating not just doing redoing what had come before. For example, here in California, in San Francisco and Los Angeles, architects realized that there was something special about this area, about the culture, about the climate, about the economy, that influenced their architecture and later generations, and then build on that and improved on the same ideas with the changing times. I had really strong feeling that the best architecture, the best city, design, urban design, comes by recognizing what has gone before and then continuing those ideas into the future.

Mitchell - Rost Architects   02:50

Can you set the stage for us on Los Angeles modernism? What was happening in the world at the time? What was the spirit of the time? Who were the main players that got this movement kick started?

Alan  03:06

Well, first of all, I need to end a myth, that is very prevalent amongst the public, but even trained architectural historians and architects. Over the years we developed this idea, very much mistaken, that European architects came to California and planted the seeds of modernism, which then grew into what we know today. History simply does not support that once you get into the actual buildings, the actual people what their motives were in designing buildings. So, I really want to erase that myth.

Look at some of the facts about what was going on here in California, again, now over 100 years, 120, 130 years even because California was on the edge of everything. It was out in the middle of nowhere. On the edge of the world is what Richard Longstreth titled one of his books about California architecture and the thing was, because it was separated from Europe from New York from the East Coast, and which at that time had the largest population and it was the economic focus of the United States and so forth. But California also had its own advantages, certainly natural wealth, beauty, great climate, connection to the Orient, as well to Asia because Beyond the Pacific. So, a specific atmosphere developed here in California again, going over 100 years ago. This place is often referred to as the Garden of Eden.

Anything can grow here, you can start your new life here, forget about the past and whatever mistakes you've made in the past. There was an atmosphere that you could do anything and then coming along with the 20th century, you have modern technology and all the advances of that steel, and glass and concrete, and plastics. There was a sense of freedom and embracing new ideas that directly influenced the architects who were building here in California at that time. So, this is the foundation for what we see today in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Palm Springs. This is the atmosphere that really encouraged both architects and their clients to try new ideas.

So, you have one of my favorites, Irving Gill. Irving Gill, worked in the Chicago office of Adler and Sullivan, which was in the 1890s, probably the most progressive advanced architecture firm in the country, inventing the skyscraper, the steel frame, all of these things that were so new at that time. Irving Gill was working with Adler and Sullivan, also working with Adler and Sullivan at the same time with Frank Lloyd Wright. So, those two careers are really interesting to follow and really important to understand where we are today in terms of modern architecture.

Mitchell - Rost Architects   07:02

Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't Irving Gill move to California due to a health condition?

Alan  07:06

Yes, in the late 1890s, he moved to San Diego, and started his career there. Now, it took eight years or so before he hit his stride. San Diego probably has the best weather in California. It was a smaller city at the time and had a port and had a decent economy. What he learned with Louis Sullivan was to think in new ways. He developed, using concrete, a new type of architecture, which was modern, had nothing but very little to do with historical architecture. It expressed concrete, he was one of the first to really develop, tilt up concrete structures, which was a new fabrication method made possible by the developing concrete industry at that time. But then, he also combined it with the culture of California and San Diego, and particularly the Hispanic culture and mission style, which had come much earlier. His designs reflected the place at the time and the climate. For example, the missions would have long arcades to create shelter from the sun, and if they were Adobe, they were masonry, much like concrete, that was perfect material for the hot and the cold of this area. Gil took all of these elements that were happening in California, and basically invented a new architecture, a new style, a new way of expressing all of this for the modern period. He designed for indoor-outdoor living. For example, many of his houses, the living rooms had sliding glass doors, wood framed at the time, but they would slide completely off the wall of the house so that the living room was at one with the terrace or the patio. He would have trellises with vines growing up on them to take advantage of the beautiful growing season here. Gill really understood the modern materials and the way people wanted to live in this new spirit of California and he developed architecture for that. So, Gill is incredibly important.

Gill, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Lloyd Wright, Frank Lloyd Wright's son, were all responding to these local conditions. They were creative architects, they were looking for new ideas, new inspiration, new resources to do something new with to challenge them. So, this is what was going on in California. California was an incubator for modern progressive architectural ideas. It is one of the traditions that I think we can follow today in architecture.

Mitchell - Rost Architects   11:18

Absolutely! There is a presumption that the Europeans like Neutra, Schindler, and Frey, brought the industry or the international style over and embedded it into the culture. However, Architects like Irving Gill, Frank Lloyd Wright and John Lautner were all doing work in California and they came from Chicago. John Lautner, one of my favorite examples worked for Wright in Taliesin. He came to Los Angeles and actually did not like the city, but then starting his career here. Can you tell us a little more about Lautner and his career?

Alan  11:57

Yes, Lautner had a love hate relationship with Los Angeles. He actually could not have been John Lautner anywhere else. So, there was a lot about Los Angeles that inspired him and made him what he was. But yes, coming from the Upper Peninsula in Michigan on the shores of Lake Superior with gorgeous landscape forests and rock outcroppings, then transitioning to the desert climate of Los Angeles was very different, but he made the best of it. One thing also about Neutra, Schindler, Frey, and there were many other immigrants from Europe. It's always interesting that in the 20s, and especially in the 30s, when the Nazis came into Germany, so many artistic people came to Los Angeles. Some of them ended up in the New York area, one or two in Chicago, one or two in San Francisco, but most of them came to Los Angeles. What you get in at the time was on the edge of nowhere, it was Hollywood and a couple of oil fields; it wasn't a big city, certainly nothing like Manhattan. Yet, all of these really creative architects came and settled here. Again, this myth that modernism was imported, in Los Angeles, is simply untrue. If you look at the work of Neutra, Schindler, Frey, after they moved to California, it changed. They learned from what they were seeing in California and the climate too, and they were excited about it. So, I often say that California was a muse to these architects, and really shaped what they did, they would not have done what they had, if they had ended up in some other place.

Mitchell - Rost Architects   14:17

Right, I think the story you told about Frey, where he was working with Corbusier in Europe is very interesting. Corbusier called Frey “the American” because of his interest and passion for American culture. I think that just shows how a lot of Europeans were viewing America at the time, the land of opportunity, they wanted to come there. They were excited about what was happening, I think that pulled many of these people out of Europe.

Alan  14:42

Yes, of course, America escaped the ravages of World War One, which really set Europe back. There wasn't that much building going on in Europe, of a creative nature, but America was prospering and America had Henry Ford as well. After World War One, the American public was being put on wheels, the best introduction to the modern era you could possibly imagine. It wasn't just for the upper classes. But it was where American basically could afford a Model T and it would transform their lives in so many different ways and transform their cities and transform their architecture. This is the thing that was going on in America that attracted these really creative young, modern Architects like Neutra. Albert Frey, Rudolph Schindler, and others to come to America and to this new way of life. America had the industry, and the use of new materials, prefabricated, steel houses, and on and on. The potential for creative architect was incredible and things were actually being built here. So, that's what really drew a lot of these ambitious, young architects to come to America, and particularly to California at that time.

Mitchell - Rost Architects   16:16

Perfect! Can you talk a little bit about Frank Lloyd Wright’s textile blockhouses? How did Wright start embedding himself into California and how did he develop his work in California?

Alan  16:31

Yes! He is such a fascinating character, and a great architect. He understood all of these things, the new trends in technology, the new trends in culture, and the ongoing trends of American life. It's basically the integration of nature with human life, which goes back to Walt Whitman, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Thomas Jefferson. This idea was deeply embedded in American life. So, brilliant young architect in Chicago, he helps to invent the prairie style. This is late around 1900; through in 1920 or so but then he gets this great commission to build the Imperial hotel in Tokyo. So, he spends most of the teens going back and forth between Tokyo and his home in Chicago or outside Chicago. But during that time, he really loses touch with American architecture, which is going in a different direction, actually, by that time. So, by the time the hotel opens, he has almost been forgotten. Still extremely talented, still very ambitious, obviously but what does he do? He then thinks about moving to Los Angeles, a new city, progressive, they're building things, etc.

So, he does for a time settle in Los Angeles, works with his son, Lloyd Wright, who is already here, had worked for Irving Gill, initially in 1912, in San Diego. But Wright is interested in bringing his ideas from Chicago and Louis Sullivan to California, except adapting them, changing them. Now, I hope your audience has an idea of what a prairie style house is! It is designed for Chicago and Chicago weather so that you cut out the sun in the blistering hot, humid summers, but which lets the sun in during the very cold, windy winters as well. So, he invents a modern architecture that is responding to climate of a particular area comes out to Los Angeles, very different climate, Mediterranean climate desert climate as well. He becomes interested in this new material of concrete, what are its possibilities? As we talked, Irving Gill was developing certain directions down in San Diego and Los Angeles at the time; Wright becomes interested in this concrete block system. He called it the textile block system because you have square concrete blocks, but then they were woven together with steel rebar, so it was like a fabric hence the name Textile Block houses.

Now, he works on the development of this with his son, Lloyd Wright as well, Lloyd needs to get some credit for that too. But right designs a series of these concrete block houses in Los Angeles, late teens, early 20s, including the Freeman house in Hollywood, the Lard house in Pasadena, the NS house in Hollywood as well, and developing this, really startling new idea. Now, the concept was the same. The fundamental organic idea Wright had was architecture should respond to climate, place, topography, plant life, etc. Except when you're in a different climate, it should look different. So, that's why there's a difference between his earlier prairie houses, and then these concrete block houses in Los Angeles. So, it just goes back to this idea of what makes good architecture. It is knowing, understanding and then being creative about the local conditions, including the client and what they want and what their lifestyle is.

Mitchell - Rost Architects   21:21

Right! Wasn't there some kind of speculation that he took a trip to South America and was exposed to Maya architecture, prior to working in the textile blockhouses?

Alan  21:30

Well, that is again, a good trend, a good idea, which actually distinguishes American modern architecture, often from European modern architecture. In Europe, modern architects were mostly actually socialists, in Europe, of course, you have monarchies and a whole political system, which modern modernists have of all sorts, including modern architecture which architects wanted to overthrow. The kings and the monarchs were the old system, it was oppressive. It led to wars.

Mitchell - Rost Architects   22:11

Based on a lot of representation as opposed to kind of a pared back architecture focused on truth and also authenticity, I know that Notre and one of his autobiography talked about Vienna, when he was growing up, he saw the government in Vienna, and how the architecture and all these kind of rituals and traditions at the government there were just so fake, for lack of a better term. That's why I think he sought truth, and probably one of the fundamental reasons why he expressed that through his architecture.

Alan  22:45

Yeah. So, that that was part of the spirit of European modern architecture was to overthrow that oppressive past. So, they didn't want to have anything to do with history. America was different and Wright was looking for models here in the New World, which could be incorporated into a new, fresh, appropriate architecture and one of that was the architecture of the Yucatan of Mayan and Aztec architecture, which was hundreds of years before that time. But which also grew out of this unique environment of North and South America. So, yes, his concrete blockhouses do draw on the architecture of the mind, which are wonderful buildings, very impressive, their civic architecture, they're monumental, the pyramids and so forth. But they have this wonderful texture on that was cut stone. But Wright then translates that into the new material of concrete. So, his concrete block houses have these wonderful intricate patterns on the concrete blocks, which create, capture the sunlight, create shadow and sun and again, bring alive the building for this particular area. So, yeah, Wright was not averse to learning from borrowing from history. As I mentioned, the same way you'll learn from the missions of the Franciscan as well and didn't copy them but use them as an inspiration appropriate for his 20th century architecture.

Mitchell - Rost Architects   24:51

That's an interesting relationship with Gill with the early Spanish settlers in the mission architecture and then Frank Lloyd Wright, his relationship with the South American architecture, how both of those pieces of architecture or let's call it their buildings are hybrids of a modern aesthetic and then something from the past.

Alan  25:14

Yeah, certainly in California, far from New York and the centers of architecture and cultural power, there wasn’t any same kind of forbidden. You had to ignore history right here. You could incorporate it into your architecture without me being afraid of being censured for that.

Mitchell - Rost Architects   25:37

Sure! So, can we transition into one of Wright's protégées, John Lautner and talk about his career trajectory and how he spent his time at Taliesin, and then how he embedded himself in the Los Angeles architectural scene?

Alan  25:53

Yeah. I've written a book about John Lautner, I knew him as well had a chance to get to know him and interview him and then finally write a book about him. I really do think that being a native of Southern California; I had an insight into what his work was all about. There were others, much more famous architectural historians who had wanted to write about him. But Lautner knew that they did not really get him, he didn't want to be appropriated by them for their purposes. But he was quite friendly with me because I understood that what was special about his work here. So, anyway, he was born in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, beautiful setting, out in forest, he got this integral understanding of nature of rocks and forests, and for example, the quality of light in a forest, where the sunlight dapples down onto the ground and so forth. So, in the early 1930s, Frank Lloyd Wright writes his autobiography, and that he is starting a school of architecture, Taliesin, he calls it after his home in Wisconsin and Lautner is intrigued by this. He's in college at that point, but he decides to go into architecture and to join this fellowship of Taliesin, and he is part of the second year, second class that comes through a number of really great architects were attracted to right at that time.

Alden Dow, Edgar Tafel, Bob Mosier, several others who went on to be very prominent, but Lautner was one of them. So, Lautner spends about five or six years at Taliesin. The course of study there was basically just to do stuff. It wasn't housework included to write housework, cooking, plumbing. Lautner became very good at plumbing, actually, and when Wright needed a new road, they would get the graders out and they would build the road needed a wall, new wing, whatever they would learn by doing. But then Frank Lloyd Wright was right there beside them, benefiting from it, but that time at Taliesin is that he didn't do much, he didn't design that much. But he said he was absorbing this atmosphere and what Wright was saying and then doing this stuff with Wright, literally, and at a certain point about 1937, I think it is 1938 that he decides to go on his own. He is married. He has a family along the way. So, he feels it's time to leave Taliesin to make it on his own. So, he tries to decide where to move to. He thinks about Boston, which is a fascinating thing. What would Lautner have done in Boston? But he ends up in Los Angeles which is the perfect place for him to because of the creative thinking of clients and the building going on and so forth. He also has a gets a job early on supervising one of Frank Lloyd Wright's houses, the Sturges house in Brentwood, which is being built at that time. So, he continues his association with Wright. He supervises on a number of other projects that Wright had going here, so, he had a little bit of income coming in, and he also gets a couple of commissions from people who had gone to Frank Lloyd Wright discovered that the design would be too difficult or too expensive to build. So, Wrights used to say, I have this fellow student, John Lautner, you might try him and Lautner being young, hungry architect, designs, some houses for former Wright's clients.

But the thing is, as he moved when he moves to Los Angeles, after all these years of absorbing, suddenly it starts bursting out because he does get these commissions, it's fascinating. The early earliest work is reflective of Frank Lloyd Wright's work. But very soon on, Lautner takes these organic architectural ideas of Wright in new directions. He really takes to heart the idea that you don't repeat yourself, you don't repeat somebody else. You don't copy somebody else, you start with these ideas, and you develop them. That's why Lautner is so famous, so well respected today. Because virtually each of his houses is an interesting, unique idea, which he then works out to have just a remarkable degree. Now, he's known today as architects of big, beautiful, very expensive, luxurious houses, which he did later on in his career to finally but the fact is, in the early years, from the 1950s, into the 1960s, he is doing small houses for middle class families, custom houses, but 1500 square feet or 2000 square feet. They are normal average houses on normal size lots, but each of them is just this incredible idea that Lautner is working out. On my favorites is the Carling house 1949, finished the same year as Charles Eames’s house out in Pacific Palisades, which of course, is very famous. Both are steel structures. It takes standardized metal beams and columns trusses and puts them together into beautiful house lockers, ideas. How do you build on a steep site?

So, he creates a system with steel masts and you put three of them on the Carling house site, and then suspend the roof from those mass interesting but the mass in steep sights. So, the mass can be given certain foundations, but still create then a level interior for the house. It's a brilliant solution and so, that's Lautner’s career. Early on in 1960, he meets up with a fascinating Southern California character, and client, Ken Reiner, who I also got to know, he is fascinating man, he made huge amount of money in aerospace. He developed a clip, which would clip together the metal panels of an airplane and made a lot of money from that invention, but he always had new ideas going along. So, he meets up with Lautner. Lautner and Reiner are just two peas in a pod, a lot of energy looking for new ideas being inventive and Reiner had money. So, Lautner is designing his house, which becomes known as Silver Top on Silver Lake, one of the Lautner’s masterpieces.

Mitchell - Rost Architects   34:34

This is the one with a cantilever driveway.

Alan  34:37

Yes, it is an interesting story on that cantilever driveway, up steep site. There's nothing in the Los Angeles building codes that would permit that, but Lautner designs it, he has some really good structural engineers working with him all the way along as well, engineers who are excited about doing something new and original and innovative. This is a Southern California pattern sure that we are seeing. But Reiner had the money not only for the house, but for a lawsuit. So, he told the planning department that, I'm going to build this, I don't care. So, he did a test where they built this driveway, and then they loaded it with sandbags to the weight that would be required and then beyond, and it didn't fall down, it's still there today. So, yeah, Lautner could not have had a better, more supportive client than Reiner.

Mitchell - Rost Architects   35:50

Didn’t Frank Lloyd Wright do the same thing on his Johnson Wax where he loaded those columns end it took three times the amount that it was meant to bear?

Alan  36:00

Yeah, because that was such an unusual thing, that kind of tree shaped columns. As a matter of fact, Lautner was at Taliesin, and was there in Wisconsin on the day that they did that. So, yeah, he learned from the master there.

Mitchell - Rost Architects   36:21

So, in relationship Silver top to the Chemosphere, was Chemosphere after Silver Top or was that before?

Alan  36:27

Chemosphere was a started about the same time but was finished much sooner, another fascinating idea how to build on a steep site. So, he constructed a single column, which could add a foundation to it and then this circular house, balanced on top of that column. Of course, it's one of most famous houses in Los Angeles now above Mulholland Drive. But it's interesting in the way that Lautner has been seen in popular culture. Because that house, when published, it looks like a flying saucer which of course, during the Space Age was a really interesting thing. It's not what inspired Lautner to do it, but it has shown up here in a number of movies as the home of either a villain or some wacko, degenerate, or a murderer or whatever. There's this idea of that archetype is popular, it's another myth, that popular architecture of that sort, far out architecture was only for the fringe, for people who maybe were a little questionable in some way. In fact, the chemistry or house was built for an aerospace engineer; Leonard Malin was very actively involved in building the house. He had a family, had three or four children. It was a family home. It wasn't for a James Bond villain. It was for an average Southern California family in the mid-century. But they were open to that sort of idea.

Mitchell - Rost Architects   38:22

Wasn't his other house in Palm Springs? It was shown in a James Bond movie.

Alan  38:31

Diamonds are forever.

Mitchell - Rost Architects   38:32

Yes, that's the same kind of theme carried out. So, what do you feel is Lautner’s biggest impact or his legacy on Los Angeles? Was it the spirit of experimentation that he instilled in the local culture?

Alan  38:49

Well, again, one of the important things about Southern California architecture in general is that it is a variety of different ways of looking at architecture. Today, unfortunately in some ways, we narrowed down the idea of what Mid Century Modern architecture was about to boxy architecture, flat roofs. In fact, what Lautner proves, and many other examples is that it was a spirit of creativity, of flowering of new ideas because Lautner was not into building boxes. He created these organic forms, and flowing forms. He got in to concrete architecture, in particular, because that allowed him to create these flowing forms, but it wasn't just to create a fantastic shape. Lautner was always creating space and that’s something he got from Wright. You design the space for whatever the purpose is, sleeping spaces, dining spaces, view spaces to take in the views of some of these great sites that he was able to build on. So, when we think of Southern California architecture, we shouldn't just think about one style. We have to think about all of these styles. Lautner certainly is one of the great examples of that.

Mitchell - Rost Architects   40:26

Yeah, I know in your paper on LA modernism, you went through modernism from its conception all the way to brutalism and post modernism and it was amazing to see the different buildings that were built and occurred during that time period. Yet, it's not just one type of building or one a static, there's a large array of buildings that were completed during that time.

Alan  40:49

If I might add to that, that is part of the value of this modern history today because architects today have so much to build on so many different directions, creative directions, in their architecture, because of this history of Wright and Lautner and Schindler and Neutra and many others.

Mitchell - Rost Architects   41:11

I feel like one of the reoccurring themes between a lot of the modernists to with Lautner, Neutra, and Frey. I had this discussion about a month ago, about how they designed it from the inside out. So, they're thinking about the human experience and how a person walks through the house, and they're almost thinking of this. They're almost designing as a cinematographer of a movie based upon experience in the industry. Now, sometimes that's not really the basis for design, unfortunately, sometimes, I think we can get caught thinking of building from the exterior as a formal exercise, but not really thinking about how the human experience is going to be. So, if we're going to extract a nugget of wisdom from them, I would say that would definitely be one of the top of my list.

Alan  42:06

Yeah, I would agree. Lautner is a great example of that and it concerns me a bit because his buildings are so photogenic. People say that something is noticeable, like silver top or the Arango house down in Mexico, which Lautner designed, as well. But what makes those houses wonderful is that Lautner design that interior space first, he frankly didn't care what it looked like on the outside that much. But he cared very much and put a lot of attention into those living spaces. Over the years, I knew a number of Lautner clients who stayed in the houses for decades and they just loved it. It supported their way of life so wonderfully because he did put that much attention into the spaces.

Mitchell - Rost Architects   43:11

It's interesting how many architects now feel like almost forfeit the opportunity to design and articulate the interior of a home or a building. I think, in general, we need to kind of recapture that scope and be more thoughtful about how the interior is in our homes and buildings work.

Alan  43:30

I'll never forget my experience at Lautner’s Mauer house number of years ago; I was writing for homebuilding magazine, got a chance to spend a whole day there, just experiencing this space how Lautner had considered every single detail. It was a foggy morning, but then the sun came through and warmed up the space. It moved through the house through the day until the evening when it because the sun went down. But then the lights of the city in the distance came on and you can see this is all part of this experience of the house. There is a fireplace over in an nook as well creating a focal point, all of these details to make a beautiful living space at one with nature, which was always important to Lautner. Design makes all the difference.

Mitchell - Rost Architects   44:36

Well, good. I feel like that's a good place to kind of wrap this one up, Alan can you give the listeners a way to contact you?

Alan  44:51

My website is www.Alanhess.net. I've written 20 books. You can Google those as well. They are available on Amazon and other places as well. So, yeah, I'm giving talks involved with modernism week in Palm Springs, been involved with the Los Angeles Conservancy and written for their website on Southern California architectural history.

Mitchell - Rost Architects   45:23

Perfect. Well, thanks, Alan. I appreciate it and we'll move into the next segment. Thanks. Okay, well, thanks for watching the episode. If you'd like to learn more, you can go ahead and visit us at www.Rost architects.com and if you'd like to see other episodes of the podcast, go ahead, and click right here to learn more. Thanks, guys.