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Beatriz Colomina
The Media House
55
assemblage 27
of course, there was more room to move, and it kept grow- me: One, and definitelyfirstin my mind, was the media, the
ing. And then, at a certainpoint, I had to cut it from the way in which the architectureof this centuryis produced in
book because it would not stop growing,it was out of con- the space of photographs,publications,exhibitions,congresses
trol. So it ended up in Assemblage20, ViolenceSpace. I (CIAMs,etc.), fairs,magazines,museums, artgalleries,com-
thought I had put it to rest. But it did not stop there. It kept petitions, advertising.The other was the house. Yet the house
growing.It keeps growingtoday. understoodnot simply as one type among others,but as the
most importantvehicle for the investigationof architectural
The piece somehow straddlesthe historyof Assemblage.I
ideas in this century.
have been on the editorial board since issue number three.
Many things have changed since the magazine started. Perhapsno one thing distinguishestwentieth-centuryarchitec-
Some of us did not even have "real"(full-time) jobs yet. ture more than the central role playedby the privatehouse.
Several people on the board now have tenure. Assemblage From FrankLloydWrightand Adolf Loos to Le Corbusier,
is becoming "middle-aged"and somehow it has to face its FrankGehry, and Michael Graves,virtuallyall the major
own mid-life crisis. I am reminded of what Le Corbusier architectsof this century,on both sides of the Atlantic,have
sayswhen he stops producing L'EspritNouveau in 1925, elaboratedtheir most importantarchitecturalideas through
afterhis breakwith Ozenfant: "Five years is a lot for a the design of houses. Indeed, and this is where the two routes
magazine. One ought not to repeatoneself continuously. intersect,most architectsof this centuryhave become known
Others, younger people will have younger ideas." throughtheir houses, whether they were built or not.
Despite the obvious relation between this piece on Eileen Many of these houses were actually produced for exhibitions,
Gray and Le Corbusierand the historyof Assemblage,I publications, fairs,competitions, and so on, ratherthan for
have, in the end, decided against it. Today I will tell an- traditionalbuilding sites. Even those houses that were built
other story,much less charged, about how this fall I found for actual clients, on traditionalsites, derived their main
myself in an unusual situation. Unusual for me, accus- impact from their publication, before and after construction.
tomed to an audience of architects,of students, of scholars, Images of these houses have circulated around in all forms of
and a limited bunch at that. Let's face it, our workad- media, making a series of polemical propositionsabout the
dressesa very small and specialized audience, that repre- reorganizationof domestic space in the twentieth century.
sented by the readersof Assemblage,for example. Instead, These propositionswere then usually extended to other
this fall I found myself in a foreign territory,so to speak, as forms of building. The debate about houses typically became
a consultant for MOCA (The Museum of Contemporary a debate about architectureper se. Every aspect of architec-
Art) in Los Angeles on a mammoth exhibition being orga- ture, even the city itself, has been rethought in this century
nized for the end of the century, literallyentitled End of the from the house.
Century,on the subject of the architectureof this century. It is interestingin this respect, that MOCA had initially
And the question I have for this conference is how do we go
from our specialized discourses,from our specialized, paired Jean-LouisCohen's proposalto think the century
through the city, with mine to think it through the house
mostly academic, audiences, to the diverseaudience pro-
vided by a big exhibition, travelingthorough severalcoun- (other people being responsiblefor other aspects of the cen-
tury).The city, public space, can never be separatedfrom
tries, through severalcultures, and still retain a critical domestic space. What goes on in the public squareshapes the
position, in a political sense. domestic space that seems to be detached from it, and vice
The theme of the MOCA exhibition, the architectureof this versa.But in the twentieth century, the two realms - private
century, is big, perhapstoo big. In fact, so absurdlybig that it and public - are completely intermingled. This intermin-
becomes interesting.In thinking about how to traversethis gling itself has a long historynow. Modern architects (those
enormousfield, two routesseemed immediatelyappealingto workingduring the firsttwo decades of this century), for ex-
56
Colomina
ample, were completely obsessed with it. Their architecture The House in the Media
is unthinkable outside of this phenomenon and of their
obsession with it. They engaged actively with the media, Exhibitions
using it to transformthe condition of the house. Or more
precisely, the media was alreadytransformingthe condition
of the house and the architectswere only respondingto and
participatingin this ongoing transformation,a process that
continues today when it has become a commonplace to
point out that the contemporaryhouse, with its television,
computer networks,fax machines, and so on, has become a
much more public space than the streetsof the city. 3 4
house. Here we can start to see a way to enter into the houses
of this
this century rather than
century rather than to present them as a series
present them series of
masterpieces. I will now
masterpieces. will now sketch out this
sketch out this phenomenon with a
phenomenon with 5 6
series
series of examples.
examples.This
This is, of course, not meant
course, not meant to be
be a com-
com-
this): the house
prehensive
prehensive is On
survey.
survey. thethe
the
Onoccupiedcontrary,
contrary, media
it and the
is made
it is made up nwith
up thethe
sme
with the Consider, for example, the exhibition "Houses for Sale" at
house.
imagesin that
which the
happened to
medican
sta be around
wayto mythe
intoed enter
deskhouse
last week. I will Leo Castelli Gallery in 1980. Reversingthe traditionalpro-
touch each
touch each example
example only
only lightly before bouncing
lightly before bouncing to thethe cess whereby the client commissions an architect to design a
next. These
next. These examples will show both
exampleswill show both sides sides of
of the
the relationship
relationship house, in this exhibition an internationalgroup of eight archi-
house/media in
house/media in this
this century, some of
century, some of the
the different
different ways
ways inin tects were invited to put their visions of the modern house on
which the house has occupied the media and then some of "sale."The catalogue clarifies that "drawingsmay be pur-
waysin which the media has occupied the house. chased separatelyfrom the commission of the project."While
57
assemblage 27
this exhibition can be read as a purely postmodern phe- had been preparedby both the StuttgartHousewive'sAssocia-
nomena, one of many instances signaling the entrance of tion and Dr. Erna Meyer, who had the year before published
architecture into the art market,the seeds for such an event The New Household:A Guide to Scientific Housekeeping.
had been planted long before... Apparently,of all of the architects, only J. J. P. Oud took these
recommendations seriously. He was proud of his Weissenhof
A crucial issue here is the differ-
kitchen, which he presented as an example of the new ideal
ence between exhibitionsof mod-
of the efficient kitchen. Dr. Meyer, in turn, praisedthe house
els and drawings,which is the
extensively in her lectures and articles as well as in later edi-
language that architectsuse to tions of her book.
talkto other architects,and exhi-
bitions in which houses are actu-
ally built in orderto
communicate to a wider public.
An instance of the firstcould be the De Stijl exhibition in
the Galerie L'EffortModerne in Parisin 1923, where van
Doesburg and van Eesteren'sinfluential models of experi-
mental houses were shown; of the second, Le Corbusier's
Pavillon de L'EspritNouveau in the Expositiondes Arts
Decoratifsof 1925. The firstin what would now be under-
stood as a commercial gallery,the second in a public exposi-
tion, in fact, a fair.With the Pavillon de L'EspritNouveau, 10
the house itself became an
exhibit. The space of the 9
exhibition and the exhibit
Likewise,in the Berlin Building Exhibitionof 1931 full-scale
were the same thing. Indeed, models of houses by Marcel Breuer,Otto Haesler,Mies van der
Le Corbusierexhibited his
Rohe, Lily Reich, KarlVoelker,and otherswere constructed
plans for the city within the within an exhibitionbuilding and surroundedby a materials
-
on-tstructure
*iln g~~ of the pavilion. The
domestic house became the
site for a whole architectural
8 philosophy.
Another example of the house as an exhibit that can be
walked through is the Weissenhofsiedlung in Stuttgartin
1927, which formed partof an even bigger exhibition on
the dwelling organized by the German Werkbundthat II IL
embraced every aspect of the house, from kitchen equip-
ment to construction techniques. Despite the large scale of exhibition.With the Case Study
the overall exhibition, it was the built siedlung itself that Houses in Los Angeles, begun in
had such a dramaticinfluence on popular and professional 1945 and sponsoredby Arts6 Archi-
debates. An importantissue of the exhibition, until recently tectureunder John Entenza, the
overlookedby historians,was the woman's role in the exhibitionof houses was no longer
home. Kitchen design and domestic economy were a major enclosed inside a building, as in
focus of the organizers.They provided each architect with Berlin, or confined to a suburb,as in
guidelines on the design of kitchen and utility areasthat Stuttgart,but scatteredthroughout
I3
58
Colomina
the city. The houses were open to the public for six to eight more sophisticatedCrys-
weeks and then occupied. tal House was built for
the reopening of the fair
in 1934, and featured
Fairs BuckminsterFuller's
prototypeDymaxion car.
Experimentalhouses have also
been constructedwithin fairs.
Take George Fred Keck'sHouse of Museums
Tomorrow built in the Century of 18
18
Anothercontext for the
ProgressInternationalExposition exhibition of the house i
in Chicago in 1933. The fair was
throughoutthe centuryhas
been the museum. The Mu-
seum of ModernArt in the
1930s, under Philip Johnson,
and in the 1940s and 1950s,
under Eliot Noyes and Edgar
gan waterfront.Financed by trade organizations,these J. Kaufman,Jr.,devoted enor-
houses were to show the "impactof modern technology on mous attentionto domestic
residentialarchitecture."Keck, who recognized the exposi- architecture.In 1949 MoMA
tion as a great opportunityto promote modern architecture,
built two. The House of Tomorrow, sponsoredby General began to exhibit a series of
Electric and GoodyearTire, was a three-story,twelve-sided fully built houses in its court- 19
house with glass walls and an airplane hanger on the yard,which included designs
by Marcel Breuer,GregoryAin, and FrederickKiesler.In the
ground floor. Pierce Arrowsupplied a Silver Arrowautomo- 1950s the Guggenheim built one of Wright'sUsonian Houses.
bile, which was kept in the garagealongside the "sport Even before MoMA, the WalkerArtCenter in Minneapolis
biplane" supplied by CurtissWright. Keck'stechnologically had built an "IdeaHouse"behind the museum in 1941. A
second "IdeaHouse"was built in 1947.
20 I
But this was not just a high art phenomena. In 1946 the
WalkerArtCenter startedtheir magazine EverydayArt Quar-
terlyto coincide with the launching of their design depart-
ment in orderto marketwell-designed objects for the home.
In a special issue dedicated to the Idea House II advertise-
ments extolled the virtuesof the equipment and materials
I
59
assemblage 27
30
60
Colomina
Advertisements
Manufacturersplayed a crucial role throughout the century
in promoting modern architecture. In every example I have
offered so far this is the case. The discourse around the
modern house is fundamentallylinked to a commercializa-
tion of domestic life. In the end, all these differentforms of
exhibition were advertisements.
61
assemblage 27
would be worthlooking at the role of the modern house in launching this whole architecturaland urban project. Many
Life magazine, for example, which firstpublished Julius modern architects, from Mallet-Stevens to the Eameses, have
Shulman'sfamous photographsof Neutra'sKaufman designed stage sets for movies. This would, in turn, suggest
(Desert) House in Palm Springsand also presentedan amaz- that we reexamine the use of the modern house as a stage for
ing displayof Mies's apartmenthouse on Lake Shore Drive film, as when Abel Gance uses Le Corbusier'sVilla Stein as
in Chicago. Other magazinesto note in this regardinclude backdropfor the horrormovie La Fin de Monde of 1931.
BetterHomesand Gardens,House Beautiful,Fortune,and Mallet-Stevenssaw in film the most effectivemedium for pro-
House and Garden.Some popularmagazinessuch as the
Ladies'Home Journalalso sponsoredarchitecturalcompeti- moting modernarchitecture.He arguedthat it could reach
more people than an exhibitionor a journal:"Itpermitsnew
tions for the modern house. It was in this context that the formsto reachthe most distantcornersof the earth .... Modern
firstpublication of FrankLloydWright'sPrairiehouses took architecturewill no longer amaze, it will be understoodby
place in 1901. everyone;the new furniturewill no longer seem eccentric but
normal."For a long time, Mallet-Stevensonly did stagedesigns.
When his firsthouse was built, the Villa Noailles at Hyeresof
1924, the client, Charlesle Vicomte de Noailles, commissioned
Man Rayto shoot a film using the house as the stageset.
38
39
43
42
62
Colomina
46 48 49
63
assemblage 27
64
Colomina
Figure Captions house, and behind it, Lily You Want to Build a House, 38, 39. BuckminsterFuller,
Reich'shouse. 1946 Wichita House, designed for
1, 2. "What is a House?" Pages
from Arts &Architecture, July 12. LilyReich House, Berlin 26. Cover of Henry-Russell mass production on Beech Air-
1944. Hitchcockand Arthur Drexler, craft assembly lines in 1944, as
Building Exhibition, lady's
bedroom Built in USA:Post-war Architec- published in Fortune, 1946
3. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe,
sketch for a glass house on a 13. Charlesand Ray Eames on ture, 1952 40. FrankLloydWright, Ladies'
Home Journal House, 1901
hillside, 1934, first published in the steel frame of the Eames 27. Twitchell and Rudolph,
PhilipJohnson's Mies van der House, Case Study House 8, House for W. R. Healy, 1950, 41. Robert Mallet-Stevens, de-
Rohe of 1947, a book made to LosAngeles,1949 published in Drexler, Built in sign set for Marcel L'Herbier'sLe
coincide with the Mies exhibi- 14. Gilbert Rohde, industrial USA:Post-war Architecture Vertige, 1926
tion at MoMA
designer, "Unit for Living"re- 28. Cover of EdgarJ. Kaufman, 42, 43. Man Ray,stills from Les
4. Mies van der Rohe with the flected in mirror,New York Jr., What is Modern Interior Mysteres du Chateau du De,
FarnsworthHouse model, Mu- World's Fair, 1940 Design?, 1953 1928, filmed in Mallet-Stevens's
seum of Modern Art exhibi- 15. George Fred Keck, House 29. Installation view of "Mod- Villa Noailles
tion, 1947 of Tomorrow, Centuryof ern Architecture- Interna- 44. Pierre Koenig, Case Study
5, 6. Coversof the first and sec- Progress International Exposi- tional Exhibition"(otherwise House 22, LosAngeles, 1959.
ond editions of the exhibition tion, Chicago, 1933 known as the International Photograph by JuliusShulman in
catalogue Houses for Sale, Leo 16. House of Tomorrow, ga- Style exhibition) in the Mu- 1960.
CastelliGallery,New York, 1980 seum of Modern Art, 10 Febru-
rage with biplane 45. EdgarJ. Kaufman,Jr., and
7. De Stijl exhibition, Galerie ary-23 March 1932 Margaret Arlen during
17. House of Tomorrow,interior
L'EffortModerne, Paris, 1923, 30. Installationview of the same Kaufman'sguest appearance on
view of gallery with models of 18. Keck,CrystalHouse, Cen- exhibition in Bullocks-Wilshire the Morning Show, 1954
experimental houses by Theo tury of ProgressInternational department store, LosAngeles, 46. Peter Blake, Pinwheel House,
van Doesburg and Cornelisvan Exposition,Chicago, 1934, with 23 July-30 August 1932
Eesteren. Right: model of BuckminsterFuller'sDymaxion Long Island, 1955
31. BuckminsterFullerwith the 47. Robertson + McAnulty,
Maison Rosenberg; back right: car
model of the Dymaxion House Room in the City, 1987
model of Maison d'Artiste; left: 19. EdgarJ. Kaufman,Jr., di-
model of Maison Particuliere. 32. FrederickKiesler,Space 48. Diller + Scofidio, Slow House,
rector of the Department of
House, 1933. The shell of the 1991
8. Le Corbusier,Pavilion de IndustrialDesign, Museum of
house was in continuous ten-
L'EspritNouveau, Exposition Modern Art, New York, 1951. 49. Michael Webb, Drive-In
sion, a construction principle
des Arts Decoratifs, Paris, 1925, 20. Gregory Ain, Women's House, 1988
interior view showing, on the developed to reduce dead load
Home Companion, exhibition and to eliminate column sup- 50. LaCasatelematica (the
right, a diorama of the Ville house in the Museum of Mod- port. The column seen here Telematic Home), International
Contemporaire de 3 millions ern Art's courtyard, 1950 could not be removed from the
d'habitants and, on the left, a Fairof Milan, 1983
21. FrederickKiesler,plan of exhibition floor.
diorama of the Plan Voison de 51. Thomas Leeser,Twin House,
Paris the Endless House for the Mu- 33, 34. Space House, details of 1991
seum of Modern Art, 1960 the carpet and the twine curtain
9. Grete Schutte-Lihotzky, 52. Cover of Five Architects,
FrankfurterKuche, 1926, 22, 23. "Climateat your fin- 35. "Twindow."Advertisement 1972
model kitchen for low-income gertips" and "Daily Livingis for picture window in a stan-
53. Peter Eisenman, House II,
housing estates designed by Pleasanter," Idea House II, dard house, 1958
ErnstMay in Frankfurt Walker Art Center, 1947 Hardwick,Vermont, 1969. This
36. Advertisement for house, which was actually built,
10. J. J. P. Oud, kitchen, 24. Lobbyentrance to "Good Mercedes Benz, Model 8/38 is made to look in the photo-
Weissenhofsiedlung, Stuttgart, Design" exhibit, Merchandise 37. RichardNeutra, Kaufman graph as if it were a model.
1927 Mart, Chicago, presented in
collaboration with the Mu- (Desert) House, Palm Springs, 54. Lawrence Kocherand Albert
11. Berlin Building Exhibition, 1946. Photograph by Julius Frey,Week-end House (project),
1931. On the left is the Board- seum of Modern Art, 1950
Shulman published in Life, 1932
ing House, on the right, Mies's 25. Cover of Elizabeth Mock, If April 1949.
65
assemblage 27
Figure Credits and Ray Eames, Eames Design: 22, 23. EverydayArt Quarterly5 37. Life (11 April 1949).
The Workof the Office of Charles (Fall 1947).
1, 2. Arts6 Architecture(July 1944). and Ray Eames (New York:Harry
40. FrankLloyd Wright,Studies and
25. Elizabeth Mock, If You Want to ExecutedBuildings (1910; Palas Park,
3. Philip Johnson,Miesvan der N. Abrams, 1989).
Build a House (New York:Museum Ill.: PrairieSchool Press, 1975).
Rohe (New York:Museum of Mod-
14. The ArchitecturalForum (July of Modern Art, 1946).
ern Art, 1947). 41. RobertMallet-Stevens:Architec-
1940).
4. Mies Reconsidered:His Career, 26, 27. Henry-RussellHitchcock ture,Furniture,InteriorDesign (Cam-
15. The ArchitecturalForum (July and ArthurDrexler, Built in USA:
Legacy, and Disciples (Chicago: Art bridge, Mass.:MIT Press, 1990).
1933). Post-warArchitecture(New York:
Institute of Chicago, 1986). 42, 43. Robert-Mallet-Stevens,
16. George Larson,Chicago Archi- Museum of Modern Art, 1952).
5, 6. B. J. Archer, ed., Houses for architecte(Brussels:Archives
tectureand Design (New York: 28. Edgar J. Kaufman,Jr.,What Is d'ArchitectureModerne, n.d.).
Sale (New York:Rizzoli, 1980; 2d
HarryN. Abrams, 1993). Modern InteriorDesign? (New York:
ed., 1981). 44. Arts ( Architecture(February
17. The ArchitecturalForum (Feb- Museum of Modern Art, 1953).
7. Yve-AlainBois and Bruno 1960).
ruary 1934). 29, 30. Terence Riley, The Interna-
Reichlin, eds., De Stijl et 18. Narciso Menocal, Keck& Keck, tional Style: Exhibition 15 and the
46. Arts6 Architecture(June 1955).
l'architectureen France (Brussels:
Architects(Madison: Alvehjem Museum of ModernArt (New York: 50. Gianfranco Bettetini et al., La
Mardaga, 1985). Museum of Art, 1980). casa telematica, exhibition catalogue
Rizzoli, 1992).
8. Le Corbusierand PierreJean- (Milan: InternationalFair, 1983).
19, 24, 45. The Museum of Modern 31, 38, 39. Fortune 33 (April 1946).
neret, Oeuvrecomplete,vol. 1, 1910- Art at Mid-Century:At Home and
1929 (Zurich:Girsberger,1930). 32. D. Bogner, FrederickKiesler 47-49, 51. Courtesy of the architects.
Abroad(New York:MoMA, 1994).
(Vienna: Locker Verlag, 1988). 52, 53. Five Architects(New York:
9, 10. Das neue Frankfurt5 (1926- 20. The Architectureof GregoryAin
33, 34. ArchitecturalRecord(Janu- Wittenborn, 1972).
27). (Santa Barbara:Art Museum, Uni-
ary 1934). 54. ArchitecturalRecord(January
11, 12. Sonja Giintha, Lily Reich versityof California, Santa Bar-
1885-1947 (Stuttgart:Deutsche bara, 1980). 35. The SaturdayEvening Post (26 1934).
Verlags-Anstalt,1988). 21. Ulrich Conradsand Hans April 1958).
13. Photographby John Entenza. Sperlich,FantasticArchitecture 36. A6V (Monografiasde
John Neuhart, Marilyn Neuhart, (London:ArchitecturalPress, 1963). Arquitecturay Vivienda) 6 (1986).
66