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Building History

One of the most well-photographed residences built in the United States during the second half of the twentieth century; the Stahl House, the twenty-second dwelling in the Case Study House series, occupied an 86-foot x 150-foot lot, one side of which sloped sharply. Architect Pierre Koenig (1925-2004) configured a closed fenestration toward the street, to insulate the house from traffic noise. The rear, oriented to the city below, was all glass set in twenty-foot modules, allowing a 240-degree view of the city; the house's steel frame allowed for roof overhangs to extend 8 feet, effectively shading the windows; Koenig's steel and glass box, permeable to the benevolent Southern California climate and perched above the orderly array of lights below, captured the public's imagination and continues to stand as the apotheosis of one kind of suburban ideal--a house strikingly clean, yet open to nature, set above the congestion and noise of the urban scene.

The building, and its photography by Julius Shulman, became emblematic of a luxurious, indoor-outdoor way of life in Los Angeles in which the swimming pool seemed part of the living room. It was a powerful symbol of the good, if hedonistic, life in 1960s Southen CA. Like much domestic architecture of the Post-war Era, the house had a blank public face, but opened up entirely once a guest was admitted to its rear sanctum. The house's rear transparency provided a complete view of the owner's contemporary good taste, where its Modernist interior furnishings dissolved into the stunning panorama of the Los Angeles basin. The building's only visual limiting feature being its extended flat roof that drew the eye outward to the commanding view. For decades thereafter, the Stahl House became a backdrop for hip, advertising photo shoots, (particularly after the renaissance of mid-century modernism in the 1980s and 1990s), images that often suggested the decadent lifestyles of the wealthy in Southern CA. An example of this would be the article "Nude Recreation: Day Tripping at a Nudist Resort," published in Razor in 2003, which featured a drawn image of the pool and projecting glazed living area of the Stahl House as well as a cartoon of smiling nude woman playfully holding her bikini top and bottom in her hands. (See Anna Radakovich, "Sex Files: Nude Recreation Day Tripping at a Nudist Resort," Razor, 06/2003, page unknown.)

PCAD id: 1837