Structure Type: built works - dwellings - houses - model houses

Designers: Edward Larrabee Barnes (architect); Henry Dreyfuss (industrial designer)

Dates: constructed 1946-1947

Downey, CA

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A young Edward Larabee Barnes was invited by the established industrial designer, Henry Dreyfuss, to collaborate with him on a prefabricated house design to be produced after World War II by the Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Corporation, the firm that had produced over 10,000 B-24 "Liberator" bombers between 1941-1945. After the war, the company looked for other ways to use its industrial facilities, housing being one of them. Like a war plane, the Vultee House was to have used panels with a paper honeycomb interior structure and aluminum exterior surfaces. A prototype one-bedroom design was created at the factory, and two- and three-bedroom models were actually built, but not in large numbers. Vultee's activity was contemporaneous with the General Panel Corporation House development by Konrad Wachsmann (1901-1980) and Walter Gropius (1883-1969), also occurring in Southern CA.

PCAD id: 17166