Case Study Houses

My current obsession: Case Study Houses of the 40s, 50s and 60s. If you don’t know what these are, here’s the definition I found on Wikipedia:

“The Case Study Houses were experiments in American residential architecture sponsored by John Entenza’s (later David Travers’) Arts & Architecture magazine, which commissioned major architects of the day, including Richard Neutra, Raphael Soriano, Craig Ellwood, Charles and Ray Eames, Pierre Koenig and Eero Saarinen, to design and build inexpensive and efficient model homes for the United States residential housing boom caused by the end of World War II and the return of millions of soldiers.”

So anyway, I’m obsessed. This is basically because a couple of weeks ago, Dr B and I were in the Tate Modern bookshop and came across Taschen’s new box set of Arts and Architecture reprints. It is amazing.

It is also £400.

I’ve spent pretty much every day since trying to work out how I can justify this expense. Current justifications:

• I can afford it if I sell my collection of The Face magazine
• I might possibly want to write about Case Study Houses On Film for a PhD that I might one day want to do maybe
• I like arts and architecture – it’d be stupid not to buy it.

In the meantime, I’ll just scatter a few pictures of the houses on here.