Rudolph Schindler (architect)
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| Rudolph Michael Schindler | |
| Personal information | |
|---|---|
| Name | Rudolph Michael Schindler |
| Nationality | Austrian / American |
| Birth date | September 10, 1887 |
| Birth place | Vienna, Austria |
| Date of death | August 22, 1953 |
| Place of death | Los Angeles, California |
| Work | |
| Significant buildings | Kings Road House, Lovell Beach House |
Rudolph Michael Schindler (born Rudolf Michael Schindler, 1887–1953) was an Austrian-American architect who worked in Los Angeles during the mid-20th century. He is often associated with the fringes of the modern movement in architecture, but although he worked and trained with some of its foremost practitioners, his inventive use of complex three dimensional forms, warm materials, striking colors, and tight budgets have placed him as one of the true mavericks of 20th century architecture. His work mostly escaped widespread publication during his lifetime, but has developed a critical resurgence since the 1980s.
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[edit] Early history
Rudolf Michael Schindler was born on September 10, 1887, to a middle class family in Vienna, Austria. His father was a wood/metal craftsman and importer; his mother was a dressmaker. He attended the Imperial and Royal High School from 1899 to 1906, and enrolled in the Wagnersschule of Vienna Polytechnic University, graduating in 1911 with a degree in architecture. Schindler was most impressed by professor Carl König, despite the presence of many other famous notables like Otto Wagner, and particularly Adolf Loos. Most notably, in 1911, he was introduced to the work of Frank Lloyd Wright through the influential Wasmuth Portfolio.
Schindler also met lifelong friend and rival Richard Neutra at the university in 1912, before completing his thesis project in 1913. (Their careers would parallel each other: both would come to Los Angeles through Chicago, be recognized as important early modernists creating new styles suited to the Californian climate, and sometimes both would work for the same clients).
In Vienna, Schindler acquired experience in the firm of Hans Mayr and Theodore Mayer, working there from September 1911 to February 1914. Schindler then moved to Chicago to work in the firm of Ottenheimer, Stern, and Reichert (OSR), accepting a paycut to be in the progressive American city, home of Frank Lloyd Wright. He found New York, which he visited along the way, crowded, unattractive, and commercial. Chicago was more redeemable, however, with less congestion, and access to the architectural work of Henry Hobson Richardson, Louis Sullivan, and Frank Lloyd Wright.
[edit] Schindler's Early Career, and Frank Lloyd Wright
Schindler continued to attempt contact with Wright, writing letters despite his clumsy English, and finally met him for the first time on December 30, 1914. Wright had little work at this stage, was still plagued by the destruction of Taliesin and the murder of his mistress earlier that year, and did not offer Schindler a job. Schindler continued work at OSR, keeping himself occupied with trips and study, notably familiarizing himself with the early tilt up slab work of Irving Gill. Wright was able to hire Schindler when Wright obtained the commission for the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, a major project that would keep the architect in Japan for several years.
Schindler's role was to continue Wright's American operations in his absence, working out of Wright's Oak Park studio. Schindler met and married his wife Pauline Gibling (1893-1977) in 1919, and in 1920 Wright summoned him to Los Angeles to work on the Barnsdall House.
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Schindler had already taken on several private commissions while in Los Angeles, but notably completed what many think is his finest building, his Kings Road House (also known as the Schindler house, or Schindler-Chace house), as an office/house for two men and two women by late spring 1922. And had started to take on several projects of his own.
During this time, fractures started to appear in the Schindler-Wright relationship. Schindler complained, with some validity, of being underpaid and exploited.
Schindler claimed he was being excessively underpaid, and was, as well as his architectural affairs, running Lloyd Wrights businesses, such as the rental of the Oak Park houses. Of the houses Wright built in this period, the Hollyhock House was undoubtedly the most significant, which Schindler did most of the drawings for, and oversaw the construction of, while Frank Lloyd Wright was still in Japan. The client, Aline Barnsdall, subsequently became a client of Schindler himself, designing a number of small projects for her on Olive Hill, and a spectacular beachside 'translucent house' in 1927, which remains one of the great unbuilt projects of the 20th century.
As Schindler was applying for a Los Angeles architects license in 1929, he mentioned his extensive work on the architectural and structural plans of the Imperial Hotel. Wright, however, refused to validate these claims. Eventually, disputes over whose work was whose spiralled, until Schindler released a flyer for a series of talks with Neutra, advertising himself as "in charge of the architectural office of Frank Lloyd Wright for two years during his absence". Wright refuted this claim, and the two split in 1931, and never reconciled until 1953, less than a year before Schindler's death.
[edit] Solo work
Schindler's early buildings are usually characterized by concrete construction. The Kings Road House, Pueblo Ribera Court, Lovell Beach House, Wolfe House and How house are the most frequently identified projects. The Kings Road house was to work as a studio and home for Schindler, his wife, and friends Clyde and Marian DaCamara Chace. The floor plan worked itself around several L shapes, and the construction features included tilt up concrete panels cast on site, which contrasted with the more 'open' walls of redwood and glass. It has largely become the symbol of Schindler's architecture.
In a search to create more inexpensive architecture, Schindler abandoned concrete, and turned to the plaster-skin design. This type of construction characteristic of his work throughout the 1930s and 40s, but his interest in form, and space never changed. He developed his own platform frame system, the Schindler Frame in 1945. His later work uses this extensively as a basis for experimentation.
[edit] Selected projects
- 1922: Schindler House[1], West Hollywood, CA
- 1922-26: Lovell Beach House[2], Newport Beach, CA
- 1923: Pueblo Ribera Court, La Jolla, CA
- 1928: Wolfe House, Avalon, Catalina Island, CA (demolished 2002)
- 1933: Oliver House, Los Angeles, CA
- 1934: Buck House, Los Angeles, CA
- 1937: Rodakiewicz House, Los Angeles, CA
[edit] Recognition
Schindler's early work, such as the Kings Road House, and Lovell Beach House went largely unnoticed in the wider architectural world. As early and radical as they were for modernism, they may have been too different for people to recognize, and Los Angeles was only a minor speck on the architectural map. Schindler was not included in the hugely influential International Style exhibit of 1932, while Neutra was. To add insult to injury, Neutra was incorrectly credited as the Austrian who worked on the Imperial Hotel with Wright. His first real major exposure came in Esther McCoy's 'Five California Architects' of 1960. His work is undergoing somewhat of a modern revaluation, for its inventiveness, character, and formal qualities, which are bringing it to a new generation of younger architects.
[edit] Quotes
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"Can't you give me two lines, just two lines of recommendations without any hints at 'what a great man the boss is' and what poor fishes they are in comparison" - Schindler to Wright, while attempting to apply for his architects license.
"My dear Rodolph Schindler: ... I am in receipt of a letter from the Board asking if you had made designs for me. The answer to that is, -- No you didn’t. Nobody makes designs for me. Sometimes if they are in luck, or rather if I am in luck, they make them with me. ... Nevertheless, I believe that you now are competent to design exceedingly good buildings. I believe that anything you would design would take rank in the new work being done in the country as worthy of respect." Wright to Schindler, July 1929
"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." – Schindler to Mrs. Frantl at MOMA in response to an upcoming exhibition, September 1935
"I consider myself the first and still one of the few architects who consciously abandoned stylistic sculptural architecture in order to develop space as a medium of art. ... I believe that outside of Frank Lloyd Wright I am the only architect in U.S. who has attained a distinct local and personal form language." – Schindler to Elisabeth Mock at MOMA, August 1943
"He has built quite a number of buildings in and around Los Angeles that seem to be admirable from the standpoint of design, and I have not heard of any of them falling down". - Wright
"He has a good mind, is affectionate in disposition, and is fairly honorable I believe. Personally, though strongly individual, he is not unduly eccentric and I, in common with many others, like him very much" - Wright
"Personally, I appreciate Rudolph. He is an incorrigible Bohemian and refuses to allow the Los Angeles barber to apply the razor to the scruff of his neck. He also has peculiarly simple and effective ideas regarding his own personal conduct. I believe, however, that he is capable as an artist. I have found him a too complacent and therefore a rotten superintendent. The buildings that he has recently built in Los Angeles are well designed, but badly executed. I suspect him of trying to give his clients too much for their money. I should say that was his extreme fault in these circumstances of endeavoring to build buildings" - Wright
"Rudolph was a patient assistant who seemed well aware of the significance of what I was then doing. His sympathetic appreciation never failed. His talents were adequate to any demands made upon them by me" - Wright at Schindler's Memorial Exhibition of 1954.
[edit] Notes
- ^ Smith, Kathryn (2001). Schindler House. Harry N. Abrams. ISBN 0810929856.
- ^ Sarnitz, August E. (Dec., 1986). "Proportion and Beauty-The Lovell Beach House by Rudolph Michael Schindler, Newport Beach, 1922-1926". Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 45 (no. 4): 374-388.
[edit] Other sources
- Darling, Michael, and Elizabeth A.T. Smith, eds. (2001). The Architecture of R.M. Schindler . Harry N. Abrams. ISBN 0810942232.
- Sheine, Judith (2001). RM Schindler. Phaidon Press. ISBN 0714839140.
- Leclerc, David (October 1996). "Schindler: La maison Wolfe". L'Architecture d'Aujourd'hui 307.
- March, Lionel; Judith Sheine, eds. (1995). RM Schindler: Composition and Construction. Academy Press. ISBN 185490423X.
- Gebhard, David (1971). Schindler. Viking Press. ISBN 0670620637.
- reprinted in 1980 by Peregrine Smith
- reprinted in 1997 by William Stout Publishers
- McCoy, Esther (1960). Five California Architects. Reinhold Publishing.
- reprinted in 1975 by Praeger
[edit] External links
- Schindler's archive is kept at the Architecture & Design Collection (ADC) at the University Art Museum at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB).
- Map with pictures of Rudolf Michael Schindler work around Los Angeles at platial.com
- Photos of "Schindler House" - West Hollywood, CA [1]
