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Description: Women and the Making of the Modern House: A Social and Architectural History
BOOKWomen and the Making of the Modern House: A Social and Architectural History
Alice T. Friedman
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00177
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-15099
In this groundbreaking book, Alice T. Friedman investigates how women patrons of architecture were essential catalysts for innovation in domestic architectural design. By looking at such iconic houses as Hollyhock House (Frank Lloyd Wright), the Truus Schröder House (Gerrit Rietveld), the Edith Farnsworth House (Ludwig Mies van der Rohe), the Constance Perkins House (Richard Neutra), and the Vanna Venturi House (Robert Venturi), she explores the challenges that unconventional attitudes and ways of life presented to architectural thinking—and to the architects themselves. Detailed portraits—fashioned from personal letters, diaries, office records, photo albums, and interviews—of the clients and architects reveal the private passions and struggles that women and men of talent and creativity brought to these projects, and suggest the rich cultural and artistic context in which each house was created. The works considered are thus brought to life through the people who commissioned, designed, and lived in them.
Author
Alice T. Friedman
PublisherYale University Press
Print publication date April 2007 (out of print)
Print ISBN 9780300117899
EISBN 9780300230949
Copyright© 2006 Alice T. Friedman
Illustrations 157
Print Status out of print
Publisher (out of print)
WorldCat
Google Books

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List of illustrations

  • Millard House (La Miniatura)
  • Dana House
  • Dana House, plan, ground floor
  • Wright's Dana House under construction
  • Dana House, entry and living hall, with Richard Bock's sculpture "Flower in the Crannied Wall"
  • Dana House, dining room
  • Renovation of 112 Charles Street
  • 112 Charles Street, plans, second and third floors
  • Raymond-Kingsbury House
  • Raymond-Kingsbury House, front elevation
  • Raymond-Kingsbury House, plans, ground and second floors
  • Van Patten House
  • Van Patten House, plans
  • Goetsch-Winkler House
  • Goetsch-Winkler House, plan
  • Tempe à Pailla
  • Tempe à Pailla, plan
  • Tempe à Pailla, studio end of the living room
  • House for Josephine Baker, model
  • Josephine Baker's château
  • Josephine Baker, Jo Bouillon, and children of the Rainbow Tribe looking at a poster for the Anti-Racism Conference
  • Aline Barnsdall on the beach
  • Hollyhock House
  • Hollyhock House, roof terrace
  • Hollyhock House and Olive Hill, aerial view
  • Theodore Barnsdall
  • Olive Hill as Art-Theater Garden
  • Hollyhock House, plan, ground floor
  • Olive Hill, site plan
  • Hollyhock House, living room
  • Hollyhock House, living room
  • Hollyhock House, dining room with original table and chairs
  • Hollyhock House, garden court
  • Hollyhock House, garden court and exedra
  • Hearst Greek Theatre, Berkeley, California, site plan
  • Olive Hill, preliminary sketches
  • Zuñi Pueblo, with Taaiyalone mesa in background
  • Cranbrook Greek Theatre, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, plan
  • The Roman Theatre according to Vitruvius
  • Barnsdall Theater, interior perspective
  • Barnsdall Theater, model
  • The Little Dipper, Olive Hill, plan
  • Schröder House
  • Tableau 2
  • Schröder House, upper floor, looking toward the boy's and girls' rooms
  • Gerrit Rietveld, seated on an early version of his Red-Blue Chair, and co-workers in front of his furniture-making workshop in Utrecht
  • Truus and An Schräder
  • Frits and Truus Schröder
  • Truus Schröder with her mother-in-law and two of her children, Marjan and Binnert
  • The study at 135, Bilstraat
  • Schröder House
  • Schröder House, on Prins Hendriklaan
  • Schröder House, living/dining area
  • Schröder House, plan, ground floor
  • Schröder House, plan, second floor
  • Truus and daughter Han (sitting in the Berlin Chair)
  • View of the main living area, showing modular cabinet and projector
  • Example of Coloristic Composition in an Interior
  • Spatial Color Composition for an Exhibition
  • Harrenstein House, living room
  • Villa Stein–de Monzie, Garches, France, axonometric views
  • Villa Stein–de Monzie
  • Villa Stein–de Monzie, view from the gate-lodge
  • Villa Stein–de Monzie, garden façade
  • Sculpture class at the Académie Matisse, Hôtel Biron, Paris
  • The salon at 58, rue Madame
  • Harriet Levy, Sarah Stein, and Sylvia Salinger in Paris
  • Michael, Leo, and Allan on horseback in Paris
  • Michael and Sarah Stein at Agay
  • Portrait of Gabrielle de Monzie
  • Sarah Stein
  • Michael Stein
  • Greek temples and cars
  • Villa Stein–de Monzie, preliminary plans
  • Villa Stein–de Monzie, plan, ground floor
  • Villa Stein–de Monzie, plan, fourth floor and roof terrace
  • Villa Stein–de Monzie, plan, third floor
  • Villa Stein–de Monzie, plan, second floor
  • Panoramic view of the Villa Stein–de Monzie and neighboring houses
  • Villa Stein–de Monzie, garage
  • Villa Stein–de Monzie, panoramic view of roof terrace
  • Roof terrace and lookout platform
  • Villa Stein–de Monzie, salon
  • Villa Stein–de Monzie, salon, looking toward stair and terrace windows
  • Villa Stein–de Monzie, kitchen
  • Farnsworth House
  • The Fox River, view from the Farnsworth House
  • Farnsworth House model
  • Farnsworth House, entrance
  • Farnsworth House, living room
  • Farnsworth House, plan
  • Hubbe House (project), Magdeburg, perspective of court seen from living room terrace
  • Advertisement, Pretty as a Picture
  • Advertisement, When Modesty Demands
  • Wie Wohnen? Die Wohnung Werkbund Ausstellung (How to Live? The Dwelling Werkbund Exhibition)
  • Farnsworth House, living area and entrance
  • Farnsworth House
  • Glass House
  • Glass House
  • Philip Johnson Estate, New Canaan, Connecticut, site plan showing the Glass House/Guest House and later buildings
  • Guest House, with the Glass House at left
  • Glass House, plan
  • Guest House, plan, after the 1953 remodeling
  • Guest House, bedroom
  • Perkins House
  • Richard Neutra and the Lovell Health House
  • Perkins House, reflecting pool
  • Miller House
  • Miller House, with reflecting pool at night
  • Bailey House, Case Study House #20
  • Perkins House, studio
  • Perkins House, kitchen
  • Perkins House, interior with reflecting pool
  • Perkins House, exterior with deck and reflecting pool
  • Perkins House, plan, presentation drawing
  • Perkins House, perspective, presentation drawing
  • Perkins House, garden and deck
  • Christmas at the Perkins House
  • Perkins House
  • Perkins House, living room and studio
  • Vanna Venturi House
  • Vanna Venturi sitting at the entrance to her house
  • Vanna Venturi House, plan, ground floor
  • Vanna Venturi House, plan, second floor
  • Vanna Venturi House, studio and "nowhere stair
  • Vanna Venturi House, studio, showing the lunette window and balcony beyond
  • Vanna Venturi House, rear elevation
  • Vanna Venturi House, living/dining area, entry, and stair
  • Vanna Venturi House, dining area
  • Vanna Venturi House, view of the stair, fireplace, and window
  • Vanna Venturi House, rear elevation
  • Nowhere stair
  • Just What Is It that Makes Today’s Homes So Different, So Appealing?
  • Margaret Esherick House
  • Bergren House, rear elevation
  • Bergren House, partial view of front elevation
  • Bergren House, perspectives, sections, and plans
  • Bergren House, perspectives, sections, and plans
  • Bergren House, view of living area with stair and bathroom beyond
  • Bergren House, view from living area toward the kitchen in the original house
  • Drager House, front elevation
  • Drager House, view from the southwest
  • Drager House, plan, second floor
  • Drager House, plan, third floor
  • Drager House, plan, forth floor
  • Drager House, plan, roof
  • Drager House, the stair and hallway leading to the threshold study
  • Drager House, threshold study
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Contents
Alice T. Friedman
Description: Women and the Making of the Modern House: A Social and Architectural History
Women and the Making of the Modern House: A Social and Architectural History
Contents
Author
Alice T. Friedman
PublisherYale University Press
Copyright© 2006 Alice T. Friedman
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00177.001
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-15100
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Introduction
Alice T. Friedman
Description: Women and the Making of the Modern House: A Social and Architectural History
Women and the Making of the Modern House: A Social and Architectural History
When Frank Lloyd Wright sat down to write his autobiography in the late 1920s, he devoted some of his most impassioned and fitful prose to setting the record straight about two women clients — Aline Barnsdall and Alice Millard. Recounting how he had designed and built their homes in the Los Angeles area during the 1920s, Wright explained that the romantic beauty of the California landscape had inspired him to unprecedented flights of artistic imagination. For him Barnsdall’s sprawling home on …
Author
Alice T. Friedman
PublisherYale University Press
Copyright© 2006 Alice T. Friedman
Related print edition pages: pp.9-31
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00177.002
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-15101
Chapter subject tags:Architecture and womenArchitects and patronsArchitecture, Domestic

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1. No Ordinary House: Frank Lloyd Wright, Aline Barnsdall, and Hollyhock House
Alice T. Friedman
Description: Women and the Making of the Modern House: A Social and Architectural History
Women and the Making of the Modern House: A Social and Architectural History
In the spring of 1916 the American heiress Aline Barnsdall (1882–1946; fig. 1) left Chicago for California in search of a theater where her newly formed company could begin preparations for the coming season’s dramatic productions. With a characteristic flurry of activity, she crisscrossed the country, making hasty arrangements to secure the services of the actors, directors, and designers she intended to hire for her new venture. Her list included not only many of the recognized talents of the …
Author
Alice T. Friedman
PublisherYale University Press
Copyright© 2006 Alice T. Friedman
Related print edition pages: pp.33-63
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00177.003
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-15102
Chapter subject tags:Architects and patronsWright, Frank Lloyd, 1867-1959Architecture, DomesticArchitecture and women

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2. Family Matters: The Schröder House, by Gerrit Rietveld and Truus Schröder
Alice T. Friedman
Description: Women and the Making of the Modern House: A Social and Architectural History
Women and the Making of the Modern House: A Social and Architectural History
No matter how many times one has visited the Schröder House in Utrecht, the Netherlands (plate 1), the sight of it at the end of Prins Hendriklaan is always a happy surprise. Compared to its somber neighbors, dark brick row houses that line the street in an orderly series of doors and windows, the Schröder House seems fresh, playful, and filled with the promise of new discoveries, as if it had been assembled from the parts of a child’s building toy. Metal strips, lengths of wood, and bits of …
Author
Alice T. Friedman
PublisherYale University Press
Copyright© 2006 Alice T. Friedman
Related print edition pages: pp.65-91
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00177.004
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-15103
Chapter subject tags:Architecture, DomesticArchitecture and womenRietveld, Gerrit Thomas, 1888-1964Architects and patrons

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3. Being Modern Together: Le Corbusier’s Villa Stein–de Monzie
Alice T. Friedman
Description: Women and the Making of the Modern House: A Social and Architectural History
Women and the Making of the Modern House: A Social and Architectural History
Looking back on her life in Paris with the famous Steins, their friend Harriet Levy, a fellow Californian, remembered the sound of people talking. The four Steins (fig. 1) — Michael (1865–1938), his wife Sarah (née Samuels, 1870–1953, known as Sally), Leo (1872–1947), and Gertrude (1874–1946) — all loved to talk, and they talked (and wrote) incessantly — about art, about books, about themselves, their feelings, their lives. Cut off, albeit by choice, from San Francisco’s close-knit, voluble …
Author
Alice T. Friedman
PublisherYale University Press
Copyright© 2006 Alice T. Friedman
Related print edition pages: pp.93-125
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00177.005
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-15104
Chapter subject tags:Architects and patronsArchitecture, DomesticLe Corbusier, 1887-1965Architecture and women

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4. People Who Live in Glass Houses: Edith Farnsworth, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and Philip Johnson
Alice T. Friedman
Description: Women and the Making of the Modern House: A Social and Architectural History
Women and the Making of the Modern House: A Social and Architectural History
The Farnsworth House (1945–51; plate 1), in Plano, Illinois, by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886–1969) is one of a handful of modern buildings that always seem extraordinary: it is among the most frequently illustrated of all twentieth-century houses, yet like Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye (1929–30) and Wright’s Fallingwater (1936), the sight of the Farnsworth House still takes ones breath away. Countless architecture students have memorized its canonic image, its plan, the name of its architect, …
Author
Alice T. Friedman
PublisherYale University Press
Copyright© 2006 Alice T. Friedman
Related print edition pages: pp.127-159
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00177.006
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-15105
Chapter subject tags:Architecture, DomesticMies van der Rohe, Ludwig, 1886-1969Johnson, Philip, 1906-2005

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5. Southern California Modern: The Constance Perkins House, by Richard Neutra
Alice T. Friedman
Description: Women and the Making of the Modern House: A Social and Architectural History
Women and the Making of the Modern House: A Social and Architectural History
The story of the Constance Perkins House in Pasadena, California (plate 1), one of Richard Neutra’s “acknowledged gems,” began with a verbal sparring match between architect and client that was typical of both of them. In 1952 Perkins, a professor of art at Occidental College, organized a conference there on the art and architecture of the Southwest, and she invited the most distinguished people she knew to serve as panelists. These included Grace McCann Morley, director of the San Francisco …
Author
Alice T. Friedman
PublisherYale University Press
Copyright© 2006 Alice T. Friedman
Related print edition pages: pp.161-187
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00177.007
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-15106
Chapter subject tags:Architects and patronsArchitecture and womenNeutra, Richard Joseph, 1892-1970Architecture, Domestic

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6. It’s a Wise Child: The Vanna Venturi House, by Robert Venturi
Alice T. Friedman
Description: Women and the Making of the Modern House: A Social and Architectural History
Women and the Making of the Modern House: A Social and Architectural History
Given the tastes and interests of her architectural “parents,” it should have surprised no one that the Vanna Venturi House in Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania (1961–64; plate 1; fig. 1), the first-born child of the Postmodern movement, turned out to be a girl — not a stalwart son destined to go forth into the world boldly proclaiming a new architectural vision, but a rather pretty, mercurial daughter who, wreathed in diffidence and irony, made a case for change through the subtle art of persuasion. …
Author
Alice T. Friedman
PublisherYale University Press
Copyright© 2006 Alice T. Friedman
Related print edition pages: pp.189-213
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00177.008
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-15107
Chapter subject tags:Architecture, DomesticArchitects and patronsArchitecture--Aesthetics

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Conclusion: The 1980s and 1990s
Alice T. Friedman
Description: Women and the Making of the Modern House: A Social and Architectural History
Women and the Making of the Modern House: A Social and Architectural History
Much has changed in the lives of American and European women in the wake of the women’s movement of the 1970s. Thanks to the “second wave” of feminism, more women work outside the home, attaining higher levels of economic, professional, and educational achievement than their mothers or grandmothers could have imagined possible. Moreover, through the sustained efforts of activists, researchers, and educators at both the grassroots and professional levels, women have gained greater control over …
Author
Alice T. Friedman
PublisherYale University Press
Copyright© 2006 Alice T. Friedman
Related print edition pages: pp.215-230
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00177.009
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-15108
Chapter subject tags:Architecture and womenArchitecture, DomesticArchitects and patrons

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Acknowledgments
Alice T. Friedman
Description: Women and the Making of the Modern House: A Social and Architectural History
Women and the Making of the Modern House: A Social and Architectural History
Many people and institutions have helped make this book possible. As I was embarking on the project I was awarded a fellowship at the Bunting Institute, Radcliffe College, and I am very grateful to the former director, Florence Ladd, and to my “sister fellows” at the institute for helping me clarify the ideas and focus the questions from which my research developed. Special thanks are due to Eve Blau, Wini Breines, Karen Hansen, and Salem Mekuria for their advice and encouragement. At every …
Author
Alice T. Friedman
PublisherYale University Press
Copyright© 2006 Alice T. Friedman
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00177.010
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-15109
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Index
Alice T. Friedman
Description: Women and the Making of the Modern House: A Social and Architectural History
Women and the Making of the Modern House: A Social and Architectural History
Index
Author
Alice T. Friedman
PublisherYale University Press
Copyright© 2006 Alice T. Friedman
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00177.011
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-15110
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Photograph credits
Alice T. Friedman
Description: Women and the Making of the Modern House: A Social and Architectural History
Women and the Making of the Modern House: A Social and Architectural History
Photograph credits
Author
Alice T. Friedman
PublisherYale University Press
Copyright© 2006 Alice T. Friedman
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00177.012
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-15111
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Women and the Making of the Modern House: A Social and Architectural History
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