Modern as well as neo-modern architecture theories and ambitious social reforms aimed to democratize quality design cultivating some of its most well-known canons. From Jean Prouvé's Citroën worker Shell Dwellings in the 1950s to Kieran and Timberlake’s Cellophane House in the early 2000s, modernist prototypes envisioned industrialization as a tool to reform housing production. Among these initiatives, California Arts and Architecture’s Case Study House Program sought to bring European modernism's tenets to the USA. The program outlined some of the most iconic examples of mid-century modern houses including the grandiose Case Study House 22 (The Stahl House) designed by USC graduate Pierre Koenig. Steel and glass framed a dynamic spatial composition that could be generalized to develop reproducible (in theory) dwellings based on these new materials and methods. Koenig advanced these experimental strategies in his own house, while still studying at USC in the early 1950s. Promoting modernist principles remained Koenig's obsession until the late 1970s.
Convinced of good architecture's potential to serve, Koenig accepted a mandate though the University to work with the Chemehuevi native American tribe for a new tract. From 1970-1976 the project for a series of prefab houses was mired within a process more complex than he initially expected. Working within HUD’s parameters and discussions with the tribe demonstrated the inherent difficulties of providing affordable dwellings go well beyond architectural composition and require political will as well as design talent.
The small 20x20-foot grid Koenig developed could be expanded to a 20x80-foot longhouse type. The prismatic steel structures included appendages for exterior living spaces, carports and used a basic grid to suggest an open variable construction system where kitchen and bath locations could be determined and varied individually. The proposal for the reservation developed upon a specifically modern esthetic using design elements the architect explored in far more luxurious houses. The small modern prototype positioned the potentials of new materials and methods against government prescriptive policies on housing which limited innovation. As Koenig himself observed and related, «in the end the houses were too nice, politicians didn't want the Chemehuevi to have better houses than they had themselves».
For more information see:
deWit, Wim. (2011), Modernism Thwarted: Pierre Koenig's Work for the Chemehuevi Indians. Getty Research Journal, no. 3, p 87-98
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| Chemehuevi prefabricated housing tract, on Lake Havasu, Calif., 1976 |
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