AKA: General Panel System House, Los Angeles, CA

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

Designers: General Panel System Corporation, Burbank (firm); Walter Adolph Georg Gropius (architect); Konrad Ludwig Wachsmann (architect)

Dates: constructed 1947-1948

1 story, total floor area: 2,600 sq. ft.

6643 Lindenhurst Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90048-4611

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Konrad Wachsmann and Walter Gropius established the General Panel Corporation, New York, NY, for which they designed a prefabricated system of house design that they called "Panel Houses" in the late 1940s. Wachsmann located the General Panel Company Factory in Burbank, CA, in 1946. Another General Panel System House was built in Nichols Canyon, Los Angeles, in 1949. Hilde Marshall worked as an assistant to Los Angeles architect, Raphael Soriano, and at Arts and Architecture magazine during the time that John Entenza was the editor. Wachsmann was teaching in the Department of Architecture at the University of Southern California at this time; he did not accept a fee for the Marshall House's design, but, rather, used it as a pedsgogical tool, giving tours periodically to USC students.

The Marshall Duplex contained 2,600 square feet and was set on a 6,200-square-foot lot. The Marshalls could not afford to build a large house, yet they could not build a small dwelling on the property without devaluing the lot. Konrad Wachsmann learned that zoning would allow a duplex on the property, a solution that enabled rental income and the construction of a larger house.

PCAD id: 6937