The Media House

Author(s): Beatriz Colomina

Source: Assemblage, No. 27, Tulane Papers: The Politics of Contemporary Architectural Discourse
(Aug., 1995), pp. 55-66
Published by: The MIT Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3171430
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 Beatriz Colomina
The Media House

Like many of us today, I have had difficulties thinking

about what to present here, in this conference "The Politics
of ContemporaryArchitecturalDiscourse."What is that
supposed to mean? Which discourse?Whose politics? We
all agreed to this conference, on this subject, last May. So
my discomfortis, in a way, self-discomfort.No criticism
involved. More like, what was I thinking about?What were
we (the "assemblagers")thinking about? Everythingseemed
much clearer six months away.

BeatrizColominateachesat the PrincetonUniversitySchoolof I askedaroundand the consensus was that we would do

Architecture. whateverwe happen to be workingon, the "politics"- it
would seem - would take care of themselves. So aftermuch
deliberationabout whether I should returnhere to Eileen
Gray'sencounter with Le Corbusierin E.1027, a site that
would have providedme the opportunityto discuss how the
so-called (howeverproblematically)postcolonialtheoryand
feminist theoryof the last ten yearshas informedarchitec-
turaldiscourse,or at least, how it has informedmy own writ-
ing, I decided to do something else. In fact, the theme would
have been appropriateon more than one count, because this
currentobsession of mine, for lack of a betterword, devel-
oped out of a footnote in an article in Assemblage4. And
suddenlywhat was marginalin 1986, an aside, a footnote, in
1992 (as I was preparingthe manuscriptfor my book Privacy
and Publicity,and the old article in Assemblagehad become
the basis for the chapter"Photography") startedto grow and
grow until it reached the point where it could not remain
Assemblage 27: 55-66 ? 1995 by the
there. Afterall, footnotes are not supposedto go on for pages.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology So first,that old footnote jumped into the main text, where,

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of course, there was more room to move, and it kept grow-
ing. And then, at a certain point, I had to cut it from the
book because it would not stop growing,it was out of con-
trol. So it ended up in Assemblage20, ViolenceSpace. I
thought I had put it to rest. But it did not stop there. It kept
growing.It keeps growingtoday.
The piece somehow straddlesthe historyof Assemblage.I
have been on the editorial board since issue number three.
Many things have changed since the magazine started.
Some of us did not even have "real"(full-time) jobs yet.
Severalpeople on the board now have tenure. Assemblage
is becoming "middle-aged"and somehow it has to face its
own mid-life crisis. I am reminded of what Le Corbusier
sayswhen he stops producing L'EspritNouveau in 1925,
after his breakwith Ozenfant: "Five years is a lot for a
magazine. One ought not to repeat oneself continuously.
Others, younger people will have younger ideas."
Despite the obvious relation between this piece on Eileen
Gray and Le Corbusierand the historyof Assemblage,I
have, in the end, decided against it. Today I will tell an-
other story,much less charged, about how this fall I found
myself in an unusual situation. Unusual for me, accus-
tomed to an audience of architects,of students, of scholars,
and a limited bunch at that. Let's face it, our workad-
dressesa very small and specialized audience, that repre-
sented by the readersof Assemblage,for example. Instead,
this fall I found myself in a foreign territory,so to speak, as
a consultant for MOCA (The Museum of Contemporary
Art) in Los Angeles on a mammoth exhibition being orga-
nized for the end of the century, literally entitled End of the
Century,on the subject of the architectureof this century.
And the question I have for this conference is how do we go
from our specialized discourses,from our specialized,
mostly academic, audiences, to the diverseaudience pro-
vided by a big exhibition, travelingthorough several coun-
tries, through severalcultures, and still retain a critical
position, in a political sense.
The theme of the MOCA exhibition, the architectureof this
century, is big, perhapstoo big. In fact, so absurdlybig that it
becomes interesting.In thinkingabout how to traversethis
enormous field, two routesseemed immediatelyappealingto
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assemblage 27
me: One,anddefinitelyfirstin my mind,wasthe media,the
wayin whichthe architecture of thiscenturyis producedin
the spaceof photographs, publications,exhibitions,congresses
(CIAMs,etc.),fairs,magazines,museums,artgalleries,com-
The otherwasthe house.Yetthe house
petitions,advertising.
understood notsimplyas one typeamongothers,butas the
mostimportant of architectural
vehicleforthe investigation
ideasin thiscentury.
Perhapsno one thingdistinguishes twentieth-century architec-
turemorethanthe centralroleplayedbythe privatehouse.
FromFrankLloydWrightandAdolfLoosto Le Corbusier,
FrankGehry,andMichaelGraves,virtuallyall the major
architectsof thiscentury,on bothsidesof the Atlantic,have
elaborated theirmostimportant architecturalideasthrough
the designof houses.Indeed,andthisis wherethe tworoutes
intersect,mostarchitectsof thiscenturyhavebecomeknown
throughtheirhouses,whethertheywerebuiltor not.
Manyof thesehouseswereactuallyproducedforexhibitions,
publications,fairs,competitions,andso on, ratherthanfor
traditionalbuildingsites.Eventhosehousesthatwerebuilt
foractualclients,on traditionalsites,derivedtheirmain
impactfromtheirpublication,beforeandafterconstruction.
Imagesof thesehouseshavecirculatedaroundin all formsof
media,makinga seriesof polemicalpropositionsaboutthe
reorganization of domesticspacein the twentiethcentury.
These propositions werethen usuallyextendedto other
formsof building.The debateabouthousestypicallybecame
a debateaboutarchitectureperse. Everyaspectof architec-
ture,eventhe city itself,hasbeen rethoughtin this century
fromthe house.
It is interestingin thisrespect,thatMOCAhadinitially
pairedJean-Louis Cohen'sproposalto thinkthe century
throughthe city,withmine to thinkit throughthe house
(otherpeoplebeingresponsibleforotheraspectsof the cen-
tury).The city,publicspace,can neverbe separatedfrom
domesticspace.Whatgoeson in the publicsquareshapesthe
domesticspacethatseemsto be detachedfromit, andvice
versa.Butin the twentiethcentury,the tworealms- private
andpublic - arecompletelyintermingled.This intermin-
glingitselfhasa long historynow.Modernarchitects(those
workingduringthe firsttwodecadesof thiscentury),forex-
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

s:-;:::-::
:::
::
:::::::::?;?
Many of the most influentialhouses of the twentiethcentury
-?~???r?~..?x~???*~.~~:
::::::i::~-i~ were producedfor exhibitions.Think, for example, of Mies van
?~?~
~a~r:rrr:
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: 'ii~iiii;!!i :I~r?.ur,.?w:x,,*irlrw
~*l~?'?~??4~~rir)?rx~X der Rohe'sBrickand Concrete Houses or his Bachelor House
.., :: P~I~X"?X?~~rl~n
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rrr***r'?~?-,?v~,*Rull?k~?
in the Berlin Building Exhibition,the projectsby Le Corbusier,
~u,~;,,.~r?????-~?~C.*~~rh
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Gropius, Taut, and others for the Weissenhofsiedlung in
*rrnrlXI~r?.~.~?IXI~1 h\?rrxC
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Stuttgart,BuckminsterFuller's Dymaxion House, Le
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Corbusier'sL'EspritNouveau pavilion, Marcel Breuer's
~alt ixQr~.-~r?l-:~r
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house for the courtyardof MoMA, the Case Study Houses in
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Los Angeles,the Smithson'sHouse of the Future,as well as
?*???r?*?ri?,,~~??~~-r~~x,.?*;?~*~k*,
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iiiiiiiiiiiiili more contemporaryexamplessuch as Hejduk'swall houses or
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2
So "Whatis a house?"to borrowthe question thatArts6
Architectureasked itself in 1944 as the editorsprepared
themselves to launch its Case Studyprogramin Los Angeles.
In the twentieth century,we are faced with two strikingphe-
nomena (and the Case Study programis paradigmaticof
this): the house is in the media and the media is in the
house. Here we can startto see a way to enter into the houses
of this centuryratherthan to presentthem as a series of
masterpieces.I will now sketch out this phenomenon with a 5
6
series of examples.This is, of course, not meant to be a com-
prehensivesurvey.On the contrary,it is made up with the Consider, for example, the exhibition "Housesfor Sale" at
images that happened to be around my desk last week. I will Leo Castelli Gallery in 1980. Reversingthe traditionalpro-
touch each example only lightly before bouncing to the cess whereby the client commissions an architect to design a
next. These exampleswill show both sides of the relationship house, in this exhibition an internationalgroup of eight archi-
house/media in this century,some of the differentwaysin 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-
ways in which the media has occupied the house. chased separatelyfrom the commission of the project."While

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 assemblage 27

this exhibition can be read as a purely postmodernphe- 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-
ence between exhibitionsof mod- kitchen, which he presented as an example of the new ideal
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.
talk to 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 Still exhibition in
the Galerie L'EffortModerne in Parisin 1923, where van
Doesburg and van Eesteren'sinfluential models of experi- -8~~ii~ - ~
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
were the same thing. Indeed, Likewise,in the Berlin Building Exhibitionof 1931 full-scale
models of houses by Marcel Breuer,Otto Haesler,Mies van der
Le Corbusierexhibited his
Rohe, Lily Reich, KarlVoelker,and otherswere constructed
for the city within the
Splans within an exhibitionbuilding and surroundedby a materials
structureof 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 12
embraced every aspect of the house, from kitchen equip-
ment to construction techniques. Despite the large scale of
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 13 13 Stuttgart,but scatteredthroughout

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 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 constructed within fairs.
Take George Fred Keck'sHouse of Museums
Tomorrow built in the Century of Anothercontext for the 18
ProgressInternationalExposition exhibition of the house
in Chicago in 1933. The fair was
intended to depict the effects of throughoutthe centuryhas
been the museum. The Mu-
science and technology on indus- seum of ModernArtin the
try and everydaylife. One of the 14 1930s, under Philip Johnson,
most popular attractionswas a and in the 1940s and 1950s,
series of thirteen model homes built along the Lake Michi-
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.

15
20 21

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-
16 ment in orderto marketwell-designed objects for the home.
In a special issue dedicated to the Idea House II advertise-
ments extolled the virtues of the equipment and materials
17

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 assemblage 27

Even the so-called InternationalStyle exhibition, with which

r-A-7 MoMA launched its departmentof architecture,was prima-
rily an exhibition of houses. This was programmatic.As
Johnson put it in an internal memo during the preparation,
"The most interestingexhibit for the public is the private
house." He singled out the privatehouse as the "vehicle for
the popularizationof the style,"offering more space in the
exhibition to those architects
23 who presented houses. In the
22 end, the exhibition was made
up almost entirely of domestic
being used. In 1949 Kaufman architecture.
initiated the "Good Design" .i
programat MoMA in collabora-
tion with the Merchandise Mart DepartmentStores 29
of Chicago. Subtitled "AJoint What is less known about this famous exhibition is that
Programto Stimulate the Best Johnson and Hitchcock organized a series of lectures
Modern Design of Home Fur-
throughoutthe United States not only in other art institu-
nishing,"the show's were made tions, but also in departmentstores.The exhibition itself was
to coincide with the winter and
displayed in Sears, Roebuck in Chicago, Bullock's in Los
summer housewaresmarketsat 24
the Mart. MoMA, too, produced many publications to Angeles, and many other departmentstores.The modern
house was presented as a product to be sold like any other.
popularize the modern house, including Elizabeth Mock's Those who could not affordthe house itself were offeredsmall
If You Want to Build a House in 1946 and Kaufman'sown
fragments,tokens of modern domestic life, produced by col-
What Is Modem InteriorDesign? in 1953. laborationsbetween designersand manufacturers:furniture,
fabrics,lamps, and other fittings.The departmentstorebe-
25 26 came an ongoing exhibition site for the modern house.
uLtIt In USSA:
#ost-war
rchitecturei

l
I
.....
,f

30

Again, this was not unprecedented. In 1929 the Marshall

Field departmentstore in Chicago had imported a collection
28 of modern furniturefrom France. To attractattention to the
furniture,the store management asked BuckminsterFuller to
27 set up and demonstratea model of a house he had recently

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 Colomina

.. .
designed for mass produc- The most literalform of this is
tion. It was the firstpublic actual advertisements,as those
presentationof the of the companies involved in
Dymaxion House. Fuller the Pavilionde L'Esprit
gave a series of lectures Nouveau. Likewise,the
about the house in which Werkbundhad been founded
he stressedits technical as an alliance of designersand
merits (earthquake,flood manufacturers,and the Case
and tornado proof);he also 31 Study Houses were subsidized
stated that it was equipped with all the latest media technol- by the manufacturerswhose
ogy (television unit, radio, loud speakers,and microphone). materialswould be publicized. An interestingreversaloccurs
when architectureoffersitself as the stage for an advertise-
ment, as when Le Corbusier'sbuilding in the Weissenhofsied-
lung in Stuttgartof 1927 acted as
32 the backdropfor a Mercedes Benz
ad. While the car conspicuously
placed in Le Corbusier'sphoto-
34 graphsof his houses providedthe
context for an "advertisement"of
the contemporarygood life that he
wanted to associatewith his archi-
3 tecture, the houses at Stuttgart
became the context for an adver-
Even manufacturerstransformedtheir showrooms into tisement of luxurycars.
36
galleries for the exhibition of houses. Priorto the exhibition
of the Endless House at MoMA in 1960, Kiesler had exhib- Magazines
ited a full-scale model of his Space House in the show-
The commercializationof the modern house becomes evident
rooms of the Modern Age Furniture Co. in New Yorkin
in the productionand disseminationof modern architecturein
1933. Similarly, Robert McLaughlin, a graduatefrom
the popularmagazines.All the developmentsof the architec-
Princeton Universityand founder of American Houses, a
ture of the centurywere sooner or later representedthere. It
company dedicated to the mass production of houses, intro-
duced the "Motohome,"a prefabricatedhouse at
Wanamaker'sdepartmentstore in New Yorkin 1935, all
wrappedin cellophane and tied up with a huge red ribbon.
;'?- ;?- ; ; ;-?_:il ~l : -i li :; :' : -:ia :; : ?j;:-i ~- i: :;- i :;lbi ': j :~l~iB

tow::::::I::i::::r:j::
": ' :" ... i~ :

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 different forms of
exhibition were advertisements.

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 assemb.lage 27

would be worthlooking at the role of the modern house in
Life magazine, for example, which firstpublished Julius
Shulman'sfamous photographsof Neutra'sKaufman
(Desert) House in Palm Springsand also presentedan amaz-
ing displayof Mies's apartmenthouse on Lake Shore Drive
in Chicago. Other magazinesto note in this regardinclude
BetterHomesand Gardens,House Beautiful,Fortune,and
House and Garden.Some popularmagazinessuch as the
Ladies'Home Journalalso sponsoredarchitecturalcompeti-
tions for the modern house. It was in this context that the
firstpublication of FrankLloydWright'sPrairiehouses took
place in 1901.
launching this whole architecturaland urban project. Many
modern architects, from Mallet-Stevens to the Eameses, have
designed stage sets for movies. This would, in turn, suggest
that we reexamine the use of the modern house as a stage for
film, as when Abel Gance uses Le Corbusier'sVilla Stein as
backdropfor the horrormovie La Fin de Monde of 1931.
Mallet-Stevenssaw in film the most effectivemedium for pro-
moting modernarchitecture.He arguedthat it could reach
more people than an exhibitionor a journal:"Itpermitsnew
formsto reachthe most distantcornersof the earth.. . . Modern
architecturewill no longer amaze, it will be understoodby
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.

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42

40 In fact, one can repeatedlysee a shift through the century

from the representationof modern architecturein the media,
41 to its use as a prop for the media.
Film Once the famous Shulman photo-
Le Corbusier thought film graphsof the Pierre Koenig Case
was the ideal medium to Study House presented an ideal
representhis houses. In image of modern domestic life,
1929 he made a film with the house became the stage set for
Pierre Chenal called over a hundred movies. As the
L'Architectured'aujourd'hui, owner put it to me last summer,
in which he moves from his the house is still producing a
villas of the 1920s to his steady income. The house is both
plans of the city. Yet again, a product to be consumed and a
the house is the vehicle for source of income. 44

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Television
Similar argumentscan be
made about television, start-
ing with Wright, running
throughTV series on archi-
tecture, and the use of the
modern house as the set for
domestic dramas.Once
again, the Museum of Modern Arttook a particularinterest
in television. In relationto the "Good Design" program,
EdgarKaufman,Jr.,appeareddaily on MargaretArlen's
MorningShow for two weeks in early 1954. Furthermore,the
museum, with the help of a television productioncompany,
planned a game show entitled "Good Design at the Table."
Media in the House
The waythe house occupies the media is directlyrelatedto
the waythe media occupies the house. At one level, the archi-
tectureis transformedby the media in which it is exhibited.
On anotherlevel, the design of the house concernsthe media
itself. PeterBlakedescribedhis Pinwheel House of 1955 as a
camera:"Mostvacationhousesare designedto workroughly
like a camera:a box glazedon one side, with the glasswall
pointedat the view. The designerfelt thathe could makethe
projectmore interestingif he could find a wayto open the
house to a varietyof viewswith a possibilityof shuttingout a
view occasionally .... Becausethis house can be adjustedto
any orientationand any view or combinationof views,it is a
universalvacationhouse for almostany site."
This is an idea that was alreadyin Le Corbusier, who
equated the window with the camera and argued that, like a
camera, you could take your house anywhere. Le
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Colomina
Corbusier'scamera turns out to be cinematographic.As has
often been noted, the promenade architecturaleis cinematic.
Furthermore,specific details like the horizontalwindow are
unthinkable outside of cinema.
Today we find architectsengaging
directly with televisions and comput-
ers. Think, for example, of the apart-
ment designed by Donna Robertson
and RobertMcAnulty for the exhibi-
tion "Room in the City" at City
Gallery, New York,in 1987. In this
project, the flaneur'sperception of
the nineteenth-centurycity is under-
stood to have been replaced by an
47 aimless cruising through television
channels. The television is a window
through which the spectacle of the city can be seen in a state
of distraction.But this window is not only about receiving a
view. The antenna alongside the satellite dish allows the
house to broadcastits intimacy to the outside, in an age in
which the home video is no longer the video seen in the
home but the video of the home seen in public. Television
not only bringsthe public indoors, it also sends the private
into the public domain.
A number of architects, among them Liz Diller and Ricardo
Scofidio and Michael Webb, are rethinkingthe house as part
of the ongoing attempt to rethink
the modern technologies of commu-
nication, beginning with the car.
48 49
63
 assemblage 27

S Yet again, this is not simply In each moment of the twentieth

a high art phenomenon, century,the house has been made
but one anticipated by
EISENMAN to standfor differentthings and in
GRAVES
popular culture and exhib- GWATHMEY each case this polemical use of the
ited throughoutworld fairs home depends on a particularuse
in "housesof the future" HEJDUK of the media. Even that architec-
MEIER
that were not necessarily turewhosewholephilosophy
50 designed by signaturear- turnsaround its formalcomposi-
chitects. Think of the 52 tion uses the media. Take, for
Daily Mail annual "IdealHome" exhibition, symptomati- instance, the enormouslyinfluen-
cally sponsoredby a newspaper,but also of built develop- tial workof the New YorkFive in the 1970s. The firstthing we
ments, like Levittown,which were organized around the notice is that this workis all houses. The second thing we
television. Levittownwas the firstgeneric house designed notice is that it is all media. A bunch of young architects
with a built-in television set. presenttheir drawingsand models in a famous book alongside
More recently, in the last ten years,there has been an escala- Colin Rowe'sand Kenneth Frampton'sanalyses,a book that
will have many translations.In fact, the book emerged out of a
tion in reconfiguringthe house aroundthe computer.A new series of discussionssponsoredby MoMA. The influence of
generationof architectsis emerging who design with and this work,and the pleasurethat we still take from it, cannot be
about the computer.Their workis exhibitedon CD-ROM
or encountered in virtualrealityinstallations.The plans of separatedfrom this publicity campaign.
Thomas Lesser'sTwin House, for example, began as tradi-
tional drawings,but were then digitized and transformedin
the computer. Likewise,the three-dimensionalimages have
been transformedto lie somewherebetween a model and a
computer image. Havingbeen digitized, the house then
comes to life within the computer. Even though the house is
to be built on a particularsite for particularclients, it already
occupies the space of the computerand will carrythe traces
of this occupation when it is finally constructed.
We find ourselvesat the end of the centuryfaced with a 53 54
formidabletransformationin the dominant formsof percep-
In conclusion, afterour quick, bouncy ride through a few
tion, perhapsof similardimension to that encountered by
those living in the early examples, I hope that it is clear that the architectsof this
century have alwaysactively engaged in an interdisciplinary
yearsof the century.As discourse that uses the media to blur the line between high
then, speculationsabout and low culture, art and commerce, and that the house is
the condition of the
their polemical vehicle. To think about the architectureof
house are being pre-
the twentieth century will be to rethinkthe house/media
sented as speculationson
interface.
cultural life in general.
The question of the
house is todayunder-
stood as a question of
identity politics. 51

64

This content downloaded from 194.27.149.30 on Thu, 16 Apr 2015 11:43:19 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Figure Captions
1, 2. "What is a House?" Pages
from Arts &Architecture, July
1944.
3. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe,
sketch for a glass house on a
hillside, 1934, first published in
PhilipJohnson's Mies van der
Rohe of 1947, a book made to
coincide with the Mies exhibi-
tion at MoMA
4. Mies van der Rohe with the
FarnsworthHouse model, Mu-
seum of Modern Art exhibi-
tion, 1947
5, 6. Coversof the first and sec-
ond editions of the exhibition
catalogue Houses for Sale, Leo
CastelliGallery,New York, 1980
7. De Stijl exhibition, Galerie
L'EffortModerne, Paris, 1923,
view of gallery with models of
experimental houses by Theo
van Doesburg and Cornelisvan
Eesteren. Right: model of
Maison Rosenberg; back right:
model of Maison d'Artiste; left:
model of Maison Particuliere.
8. Le Corbusier,Pavilion de
L'EspritNouveau, Exposition
des Arts Paris, 1925,
Decoratifs,
interior view showing, on the
right, a diorama of the Ville
Contemporaire de 3 millions
d'habitants and, on the left, a
diorama of the Plan Voison de
Paris
9. Grete Schutte-Lihotzky,
FrankfurterKOche,1926,
model kitchen for low-income
housing estates designed by
ErnstMay in Frankfurt
10. J. J. P. Oud, kitchen,
Weissenhofsiedlung, Stuttgart,
1927
11. Berlin Building Exhibition,
1931. On the left is the Board-
ing House, on the right, Mies's
This content downloaded from 194.27.149.30 on Thu, 16 Apr 2015 11:43:19 UTC
house, and behind it, Lily
Reich's house.
12. LilyReich House, Berlin
Building Exhibition, lady's
bedroom
13. Charlesand Ray Eames on
the steel frame of the Eames
House, Case Study House 8,
LosAngeles, 1949
14. Gilbert Rohde, industrial
designer, "Unit for Living"re-
flected in mirror,New York
World's Fair, 1940
15. George Fred Keck, House
of Tomorrow, Centuryof
Progress International Exposi-
tion, Chicago, 1933
16. House of Tomorrow, ga-
rage with biplane
17. Houseof Tomorrow,interior
18. Keck,CrystalHouse, Cen-
tury of ProgressInternational
Exposition,Chicago, 1934, with
BuckminsterFuller'sDymaxion
car
19. EdgarJ. Kaufman,Jr., di-
rector of the Department of
IndustrialDesign, Museum of
Modern Art, New York, 1951.
20. GregoryAin, Women's
Home Companion, exhibition
house in the Museum of Mod-
ern Art's courtyard, 1950
21. FrederickKiesler,plan of
the Endless House for the Mu-
seum of Modern Art, 1960
22, 23. "Climateat your fin-
gertips" and "DailyLivingis
Pleasanter," Idea House II,
Walker Art Center, 1947
24. Lobbyentrance to "Good
Design" exhibit, Merchandise
Mart, Chicago, presented in
collaboration with the Mu-
seum of Modern Art, 1950
25. Cover of Elizabeth Mock, If
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
Colomina
You Want to Build a House,
1946
26. Cover of Henry-Russell
Hitchcockand Arthur Drexler,
Built in USA:Post-war Architec-
ture, 1952
27. Twitchell and Rudolph,
House for W. R. Healy, 1950,
published in Drexler, Built in
USA:Post-war Architecture
28. Cover of EdgarJ. Kaufman,
Jr., What is Modern Interior
Design?, 1953
29. Installation view of "Mod-
ern Architecture- Interna-
tional Exhibition"(otherwise
known as the International
Style exhibition) in the Mu-
seum of Modern Art, 10 Febru-
ary-23 March 1932
30. Installationview of the same
exhibition in Bullocks-Wilshire
department store, LosAngeles,
23 July-30August 1932
31. BuckminsterFullerwith the
model of the Dymaxion House
32. FrederickKiesler,Space
House, 1933. The shell of the
house was in continuous ten-
sion, a construction principle
developed to reduce dead load
and to eliminate column sup-
port. The column seen here
could not be removed from the
exhibition floor.
33, 34. Space House, details of
the carpet and the twine curtain
35. "Twindow."Advertisement
for picture window in a stan-
dard house, 1958
36. Advertisement for
Mercedes Benz, Model 8/38
37. RichardNeutra, Kaufman
(Desert) House, Palm Springs,
1946. Photograph by Julius
Shulman published in Life,
April 1949.
65
38, 39. BuckminsterFuller,
Wichita House, designed for
mass production on Beech Air-
craft assembly lines in 1944, as
published in Fortune, 1946
40. FrankLloydWright, Ladies'
Home Journal House, 1901
41. Robert Mallet-Stevens, de-
sign set for Marcel L'Herbier'sLe
Vertige, 1926
42, 43. Man Ray,stills from Les
Mysteres du Chateau du De,
1928, filmed in Mallet-Stevens's
Villa Noailles
44. Pierre Koenig, Case Study
House 22, LosAngeles, 1959.
Photograph by JuliusShulman in
1960.
45. EdgarJ. Kaufman,Jr., and
Margaret Arlen during
Kaufman'sguest appearance on
the Morning Show, 1954
46. Peter Blake, Pinwheel House,
Long Island, 1955
47. Robertson + McAnulty,
Room in the City, 1987
48. Diller + Scofidio, Slow House,
1991
49. Michael Webb, Drive-In
House, 1988
50. LaCasatelematica (the
Telematic Home), International
Fairof Milan, 1983
51. Thomas Leeser, Twin House,
1991
52. Cover of FiveArchitects,
1972
53. Peter Eisenman, House II,
Hardwick,Vermont, 1969. This
house, which was actually built,
is made to look in the photo-
graph as if it were a model.
54. Lawrence Kocherand Albert
Frey,Week-end House (project),
1932

Figure Credits
1, 2. Arts6 Architecture(July 1944).
3. Philip Johnson,Miesvan der
Rohe (New York:Museum of Mod-
ern Art, 1947).
4. Mies Reconsidered:His Career,
Legacy, and Disciples (Chicago: Art
Institute of Chicago, 1986).
5, 6. B. J. Archer, ed., Houses for
Sale (New York:Rizzoli, 1980; 2d
ed., 1981).
7. Yve-AlainBois and Bruno
Reichlin, eds., De Stijl et
l'architectureen France (Brussels:
Mardaga, 1985).
8. Le Corbusierand PierreJean-
neret, Oeuvrecomplte, vol. 1, 1910-
1929 (Zurich:Girsherger,1930).
9, 10. Das neue Frankfurt5 (1926-
27).
11, 12. Sonja Giintha, Lily Reich
1885-1947 (Stuttgart:Deutsche
Verlags-Anstalt,1988).
13. Photographby John Entenza.
John Neuhart, Marilyn Neuhart,
This content downloaded from 194.27.149.30 on Thu, 16 Apr 2015 11:43:19 UTC
and Ray Eames, Eames Design:
The Workof the Office of Charles
and Ray Eames (New York:Harry
N. Abrams, 1989).
14. The ArchitecturalForum (July
1940).
15. The ArchitecturalForum (July
1933).
16. George Larson,Chicago Archi-
tectureand Design (New York:
HarryN. Abrams, 1993).
17. The ArchitecturalForum (Feb-
ruary 1934).
18. Narciso Menocal, Keck& Keck,
Architects(Madison: Alvehjemn
Museum of Art, 1980).
19, 24, 45. The Museum of Modern
Art at Mid-Century:At Home and
Abroad(New York:MoMA, 1994).
20. The Architectureof GregoryAin
(Santa Barbara:Art Museum, Uni-
versityof California, Santa Bar-
bara, 1980).
21. Ulrich Conradsand Hans
Sperlich, FantasticArchitecture
(London:ArchitecturalPress, 1963).
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
assemblage 27
22, 23. EverydayArt Quarterly5 37. Life (11 April 1949).
(Fall 1947).
40. FrankLloyd Wright,Studies and
25. Elizabeth Mock, If You Want to
ExecutedBuildings (1910; Palas Park,
Build a House (New York:Museum
Ill.: PrairieSchool Press, 1975).
of Modern Art, 1946).
41. RobertMallet-Stevens:Architec-
26, 27. Henry-RussellHitchcock ture, Furniture,InteriorDesign (Cam-
and ArthurDrexler, Built in USA:
bridge, Mass.:MIT Press, 1990).
Post-warArchitecture(New York:
42, 43. Robert-Mallet-Stevens,
Museum of Modern Art, 1952).
architecte(Brussels:Archives
Jr.,What Is
28. EdgarJ. Kaufnman, d'ArchitectureModerne, n.d.).
ModernInteriorDesign? (New York:
44. Arts 5 Architecture(February
Museum of Modern Art, 1953).
1960).
29, 30. Terence Riley, The Interna-
46. Arts 6 Architecture(June 1955).
tional Style: Exhibition 15 and the
Museum of ModernArt (New York: 50. Gianfranco Bettetini et al., La
casa telematica, exhibition catalogue
Rizzoli, 1992).
(Milan: InternationalFair, 1983).
31, 38, 39. Fortune 33 (April 1946).
47-49, 51. Courtesy of the architects.
32. D. Bogner, FrederickKiesler
(Vienna: LockerVerlag, 1988). 52, 53. Five Architects(New York:
33, 34. ArchitecturalRecord(Janu- Wittenborn, 1972).
ary 1934). 54. ArchitecturalRecord(January
35. The SaturdayEvening Post (26 1934).
April 1958).
36. A&V (Monograffasde
Arquitecturay Vivienda) 6 (1986).
66