case study house 1950

Cookie banner

We use cookies and other tracking technologies to improve your browsing experience on our site, show personalized content and targeted ads, analyze site traffic, and understand where our audiences come from. To learn more or opt-out, read our Cookie Policy . Please also read our Privacy Notice and Terms of Use , which became effective December 20, 2019.

By choosing I Accept , you consent to our use of cookies and other tracking technologies.

Share this story

The Case Study houses that made Los Angeles a modernist mecca

Mapping the homes that helped to define an era

Los Angeles is full of fantastic residential architecture styles, from Spanish Colonial Revival to Streamline Moderne. But the modernist Case Study Houses , sponsored by Arts & Architecture and designed between the 1940s and 1960s, are both native to Southern California and particularly emblematic of the region.

The Case Study series showcased homes commissioned by the magazine and designed by some of the most influential designers and architects of the era, including Charles and Ray Eames, Richard Neutra, and Pierre Koenig. The residences were intended to be relatively affordable, replicable houses for post-World War II family living, with an emphasis on “new materials and new techniques in house construction,” as the magazine’s program intro put it.

Technological innovation and practical, economical design features were emphasized—though the homes’ scintillating locations, on roomy lots in neighborhoods like Pacific Palisades and the Hollywood Hills , gave them a luxurious allure.

With the help of photographer Julius Shulman , who shot most of the homes, the most impressive of the homes came to represent not only new styles of home design, but the postwar lifestyle of the booming Southern California region.

A total of 36 houses and apartment buildings were commissioned; a couple dozen were built, and about 20 still stand in the greater Los Angeles area (there’s also one in Northern California, a set near San Diego, and a small apartment complex in Phoenix). Some have been remodeled, but others have been well preserved. Eleven were added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2013.

Here’s a guide to all the houses left to see—but keep in mind that, true to LA form, most are still private residences. The Eames and Stahl houses, two of the most famous Case Study Houses, are regularly open to visitors.

As for the unconventional house numbering, post-1962 A&A publisher David Travers writes that the explanation is “inexplicable, locked in the past.”

Case Study House No. 1

J.R. Davidson (with Greta Davidson) designed this house in 1948 (it was actually his second go at Case Study House No. 1). It was intended for “a hypothetical family" with two working parents and was designed to require "minimum maintenance.”

• Open in Google Maps

Case Study House No. 2

Case Study House No. 2 was designed in 1947 by Sumner Spaulding and John Rex. Arts & Architecture wrote that the home’s layout “achieves a sense of spaciousness and flexibility,” with an open living area and glass doors that lead out to adjoining terraces.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Samuel Dematraz (@samueldematraz) on Oct 28, 2018 at 1:07am PDT

Case Study House No. 7

Case Study House No. 7 was designed in 1948 by Thornton M. Abell. It has a “three-zone living area,” with space for study, activity, and relaxation/conversation; the areas can be separated by sliding panels or combined.

Eames House (Case Study House No. 8)

Legendary designer couple Charles and Ray Eames designed the Eames House in 1949 and even Arts & Architecture seemed kind of blown away by it. The home is built into a hillside behind a row of Eucalyptus trees on a bluff above Pacific Palisades. It's recognizable by its bright blue, red, and yellow panels. The Eameses lived in the house until their deaths. It’s now open to visitors five days per week, though reservations are required.

Entenza House (Case Study House No. 9)

The Entenza House was built in 1949 and designed by Charles Eames and Eero Saarinen for Arts & Architecture editor John Entenza. According to the magazine, “In general, the purpose was to enclose as much space as possible within a reasonably simple construction.”

Case Study House No. 10

Case Study House No. 10 was designed in 1947 by Kemper Nomland. The house is built on several levels to mold into its sloping site. Recently restored, the home sold to Kristen Wiig in 2017.

Case Study House No. 15

Designed by J.R. Davidson in 1947, Case Study House No. 15 has south walls made of huge glass panels. Its flagstone patio and indoor floor are at the same level for that seamless indoor-outdoor feel. According to the magazine, the floorplan “is basically that of another Davidson house, Case Study House No. 11,” which has been demolished.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Samuel Dematraz (@samueldematraz) on Nov 15, 2018 at 6:13am PST

Case Study House for 1953

Craig Ellwood’s Case Study House for 1953 is usually numbered as 16 in the Case Study series . It has a modular steel structure and “the basic plan is a four-foot modular rectangle.” But the interior walls stick out past the exterior walls to bring the indoors out and the outdoors in. The Bel Air house hit the market in November with a $3 million price tag.

Case Study House No. 17 (A)

Case Study House No. 17 (A) was designed by Rodney Walker in 1947. A tight budget kept the house at just 1,560 square feet, “but more space was gained through the use of many glass areas.” The house also has a large front terrace with a fireplace that connects the indoor living room fireplace. The house has been remodeled .

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Case Study House #17, 1947 (@casestudy17) on Jun 11, 2016 at 2:20pm PDT

Case Study House No. 17 (B)

Case Study House No. 17 (B) was designed in 1956 by Craig Ellwood, but “governed by a specific program set forth by the client.” Ellwood took into account the clients' collection of contemporary paintings and made the living room “purposely undersized” to work best for small gatherings. The house was extensively remodeled in the sixties by Hollywood Regency architect John Elgin Woolf and his partner, interior designer Robert Koch Woolf.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by BAUKUNST™ El Arte de Construir (@i_volante) on Aug 13, 2017 at 4:42pm PDT

West House (Case Study House No. 18 [A])

Case Study House No. 18 (A) was designed by Rodney Walker in 1948. The house is oriented toward the ocean, but set back from the cliff edge it sits on to avoid noise issues. As A&A says, "High above the ocean, the privacy of the open south and east exposures of Case Study House No. 18 can be threatened only by an occasional sea-gull." The house features a "bricked garden room" separated from the living room by a two-sided fireplace.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by CaseStudyHouse18A (@casestudyhouse18a) on Oct 6, 2018 at 8:44pm PDT

Fields House (Case Study House No. 18 [B])

Case Study House No. 18 (B) was designed by Craig Ellwood in 1958. Ellwood didn’t attempt to hide that the house was prefabricated (the magazine explains that he believed “that the increasing cost of labor and the decline of the craftsman will within not too many years force a complete mechanization of residential construction methods”). The components of the house, however, are “strongly defined with color: ceiling and panels are off-white and the steel framework is blue.” According to A&A' s website, the house has been remodeled.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by MCM Daily (@dc_hillier) on Oct 29, 2018 at 8:32pm PDT

Case Study House No. 20 [A])

This two-bedroom house was meant “to serve young parents who find they can afford just that much,” according to architect Richard Neutra’s description. He also wrote that he used several different kinds of natural wood in the house.

Bass House (Case Study House No. 20 [B])

The Bass House was designed in 1958 by Buff, Straub, and Hensman for famed graphic designer Saul Bass. It's “unique in that it was based upon the experimental use of several prefabricated Douglas fir plywood products as part of the structural concept,” including hollow-core plywood vaults that covered the central part of the house.

Case Study House No. 21

Pierre Koenig designed Case Study House No. 21 in 1958. It was originally completely surrounded by water, with a walkway and driveway spanning the moat at the front door and carport, respectively. The house was severely messed with over the years, but restored in the ’90s with help from Koenig.

Stahl House (Case Study House No. 22)

Pierre Koenig's Stahl House , designed in 1960, is probably the most famous house in Los Angeles, thanks to an iconic photo by Julius Shulman . The house isn't much to look at from the street, but its backside is mostly glass surrounding a cliff's-edge pool. Tours are available Mondays, Wednesdays, and Friday—but book well ahead of time, as they sell out quickly.

Case Study House for 1950

The unnumbered Case Study House for 1950 was designed by Raphael Soriano. It's rectangular, with living room and bedrooms facing out to the view. However, in the kitchen and eating areas, the house “turns upon itself and living develops around a large kitchen-dining plan opening upon a terrace which leads directly into the living room interrupted only by the mass of two fireplaces.” According to A&A 's website, the house has been remodeled.

Frank House (Case Study House No. 25)

The two-story Frank House was designed by Killingsworth, Brady, and Smith and Associates in 1962 and it sits on a canal in Long Beach. A reflecting pool with stepping stones leads to its huge front door and inside to an 18-foot high courtyard. The house sold in 2015 with some unfortunate remodeling .

Case Study House No. 28

Case Study House No. 28 was designed in 1966 by Conrad Buff and Donald Hensman. According to the magazine, “the architects were asked to design a house that incorporated face brick as the primary structural material to demonstrate its particular advantages.” They came up with a plan for two symmetrical wings joined by glass galleries.

Loading comments...

Site search.

• Los Angeles
• San Francisco
• Archive.curbed.com
• For Sale
 in LA
• For Rent in LA
• Curbed Comparisons
• Neighborhoods
• Real Estate Market Reports
• Rental Market Reports
• Homelessness
• Development
 News
• Transportation
• Architecture


PCAD Display Options

Choose Theme:

Select theme to display preview image.

Case Study House 1950, Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles, CA (1949-1950)

AKA: Case Study House for Arts and Architecture Magazine, Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles, CA; Olds, Alan M., House, Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles, CA

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

Designers: Sagar, Carroll, and Associates, Interior Designers (firm); Soriano, Raphael S., Architect (firm); Carroll Adrian Sagar (architect/interior designer); Raphael Simon Soriano (architect)

Dates: constructed 1949-1950

Building Notes

The Case Study House 1950 (purchased by Alan Olds), won an Award of Merit from the American Institute of Architects (AIA) in 1951.

The Olds House has undergone significant alterations.

PCAD id: 5335

Publications

About | License | Contact

The Case Study Houses: 1946-1963

• Show more sharing options
• Copy Link URL Copied!

Here is a list of the 24 Case Study Houses that were built and the architects who built them.

Many of the architects who designed Case Study Houses are dead, including some of the more famous, such as Richard Neutra, Charles and Ray Eames, Eero Saarinen, Quincy Jones and Raphael Soriano.

A dozen are still living, and several are still in practice, including Pierre Koenig in Brentwood and Ed Killingsworth in Long Beach. Craig Ellwood lives in Tuscany, Italy, and teaches one semester a year at Cal Poly Pomona.

Whitney Smith, John Rex and Kemper Nomland Jr. have retired. Ralph Rapson, Calvin Straub and Beverly Thorne have moved from Southern California.

1946: 540 Barrington Ave., Brentwood. J. R. Davidson. The first Case Study House, since destroyed, was small but ingeniously planned, without an inch of wasted space in its innovative open plan.

1947: 857 Chapea Road, Pasadena. Spaulding & Rex. In the second Case Study House, the basic open floor plan, with the living areas separating the parents’ and children’s bedrooms, was developed as a prototype that became the standard for many following houses.

--9945 Beverly Grove Drive, Beverly Hills. Rodney A. Walker.

--7861 Woodrow Wilson Drive, Hollywood. Rodney A. Walker.

--199 Chautauqua Blvd., Pacific Palisades. Rodney A. Walker.

(These three houses, by Walker, pioneered a simplified wood-frame construction made up of standard 3-foot modules intended as a model for low-cost housing.)

--711 San Rafael Ave., Pasadena. Nomland & Nomland. Set in a picturesque eucalyptus grove, this house features a simple shed roof and long walls of glass.

--4755 Lasheart Drive, La Canada Flintridge. J. R. Davidson. This small and simple dwelling is another example of the Case Study House urge to create standard and repeatable plans for low-cost houses.

1948: 6236 N. Deerfield Ave., San Gabriel. Thornton M. Abell. A blank concrete block wall screens the house from its suburban street to create a private interior environment.

--219 Chautauqua Blvd., Pacific Palisades. Richard Neutra. This house continued the innovations Neutra had incorporated in a number of his pre-World War II two-bedroom houses, including the ground-hugging horizontal emphasis and the deep and sheltering roof overhangs.

1949: 13187 Chalon Road, Brentwood. Wurster & Bernardi. An H-shaped plan divides the living from the sleeping wings with a central porch that is also the entry.

--203 Chautauqua Blvd., Pacific Palisades. Charles Eames. The most famous Case Study House, the Eames house uses off-the-shelf industrial structural components in a style that later became known as high-tech.

--201 Chautauqua Blvd., Pacific Palisades. Eames and Saaarinen. Surprisingly restrained in its structural expression, Entenza’s own house lacks the boldness of the Eames house next door.

1950: 1080 Ravoli Drive, Pacific Palisades. Raphael Soriano. In the first study house built of steel, Soriano pioneered the standardized system he used on many later projects.

1952: 1811 Bel Air Road, Bel-Air. Craig Ellwood.

1955: 9554 Hidden Valley Road, Beverly Hills. Craig Ellwood. The house has since been altered.

1957: 1129 Miradero Road, Beverly Hills. Craig Ellwood.

(The design of the three houses above by Ellwood followed in Soriano’s footsteps with steel-framed dwellings that allowed long spans free of columns and clear interior spaces with low partition walls or storage units. The Miradero Road house has been altered.)

1958: 2275 Santa Rosa Ave., Altadena. Straub & Hensman. Adapting the standardized, factory-built systems developed for steel framing, this wood-framed home for famed designer Saul Bass is warmer in feeling than the colder steel houses.

--9036 Wonderland Park Ave., Hollywood. Pierre Koenig.

1959: 1635 Woods Drive, Hollywood. Pierre Koenig.

Koenig, like Ellwood and Soriano, was fascinated by the lightness and openness a steel frame allowed in house design, enhanced by the dramatic possibilities of perching a house on the edge of a precipice.

1960: Three houses: 2329, 2342 and 2343 Rue de Ann, La Jolla. Killingsworth, Brady & Smith. This triad of houses in the hills marked the Case Study program’s move toward planning communities as well as single-family houses. Closely grouped, the homes offer a unique insight into what an entire Case Study House neighborhood or tract might have looked like. The house at 2343 Rue de Ann has been altered.

1962: 82 Rivo Alto Canal, Naples. Killingsworth, Brady & Smith. The most urbane of all the homes, this house on one of the Naples area canals shows how a modern residential design could fit into an urban as well as a suburban environment.

1963: 177 San Marino Dr., San Rafael. David Thorne.

More From the Los Angeles Times

Entertainment & Arts

The Broad expansion: What you need to know about the $100-million project

March 28, 2024

The Broad announces massive expansion that will increase gallery space by 70%

March 27, 2024

Travel & Experiences

This guide to L.A.’s historic streetlights will illuminate your view of the city

America’s first all-metal-and-glass house is reborn in Palm Springs

March 26, 2024

Case Study Houses

Owning institution: uc santa barbara , architecture and design collection, art, design and architecture museum, about this collection.

View our statement on digital primary resources and historical description .

Type of Item

10 items found in this collection

By providing your information, you agree to our Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy . We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services.

THE CASE STUDY HOUSES

• Share on Facebook
• Show more sharing options
• Share on WhatsApp
• Print This Page
• Share on LinkedIn
• Share to Flipboard
• Submit to Reddit
• Post to Tumblr

SURPRISINGLY THE AMERICAN ARCHITECTURAL magazine most often found in the foreign architect’s office or School of Architecture is the California publication Arts & Architecture . In its pages the foreign archi­tect and student is exposed to an array of buildings of a remarkably high degree of quality. (He is also exposed to the writings of two of America’s most gifted critics, Peter Yates, in music, and Dore Ashton, in painting and sculpture). The wide acceptance and influence of Arts & Architecture  abroad has cer­tainly been due to its view of architecture as an art, rather than as a vast business enterprise, the ap­proach which underlies a majority of America’s archi­tectural publications. Related POP ART, USA MUSE AND EGO

One of the magazine’s most influential and far reaching programs has been its sponsorship of a series of Case Study Houses , where new concepts of form, material and structure could be tested out in residential architecture. The program was insti­tuted in 1945 and the first of these experimental houses was built the following year. Since this date, over 25 houses have been constructed and several are at present in the design stage or are in process of being built. Photographs and plans of these case study houses have recently been brought together by Esther McCoy in a single volume entitled Modern California Houses, Case Study Houses 1945–1962 , (published by Reinhold Publishing Corp., New York, 1962, $15.00). Esther McCoy has long been associated with Arts & Architecture . As a critic and historian she has con­tributed immensely to our understanding of 20th century architecture in California. Her writing on the work of Irving Gill, Bernard Maybeck the brothers Charles and Henry Greene and R. M. Schindler has re­vealed to us an almost entirely unknown chapter in the history of modern architecture. As we should ex­pect, this book, its text, the quality of its plates and its design layout are as distinguished as the buildings which it discusses and illustrates.

To fully appraise the Case Study program one should first see it within the context of similar endeavors which have been tried from time to time in this country and abroad. Throughout the 20th century, nu­merous “Idea houses” or “Houses of the future” have appeared in exhibitions and others have been spon­sored by home and women’s magazines. In 1927–28 the internationally famous Weissonhof housing proj­ects featured designs by Le Corbusier, Gropius, Mart Stam, J. J. P. Oud and others. A similar project to encourage the acceptance of modern architecture was instituted before the Second World War by the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis in their first “Idea house,” and continued in a second “Idea house” con­structed in 1947 behind the Center. In 1948 The Museum of Modern Art commissioned Marcel Breuer to build an exhibition house in the Museum court­yard; a second house was commissioned in 1950 to the California architect Gregory Ain. In the 1950’s the Guggenheim Museum, as part of its exhibition of Frank Lloyd Wright, built one of his “Usonian” houses.

Few of these programs have been able to sustain themselves for any appreciable length of time and it is difficult to say whether they have actually pro­duced their desired result. Even the influential ex­hibition and publication program of the Museum of Modern Art in architecture and design, first under Phillip Johnson in the early 1930’s, and later in the 40’s and early 50’s under Edgar Kaufman has pretty well fallen into a respectable intellectual doldrum in the hands of Arthur Drexler.

That this path is a precarious one is well illustrated by several of the most recent Case Study Houses, especially the Towri House on the Rivo Alto Canal, near Long Beach, and the Triad Development of houses at La Jolla, all by the firm of Killingsworth, Brady and Smith. In each of these houses there is a decided tinge of what has so aptly been labeled “Hollywood Regency.” Not that their forms are in any way eclectic––there is no evidence whatsoever of “French Provincial” or “English Regency” which is the normal mode of the Beverly Hills version of “Holly­wood Regency.” Yet their own involvement with formalism, with forced symmetry and their self-con­scious concern for uncluttered forms and surfaces has created a preciousness which compromises their total architectural statement. Man’s physical frame may well be symmetrical, but this does not mean that he necessarily lives or operates in this way. There is something dramatic about entering a house over a bridge, or via a series of stepping stones over a pool of water, but in the end is this architecture or simply a stage setting? In their house “A” at La Jolla, Kil­lingsworth, Brady and Smith provide this stagey, im­pressive entrance for guests and visitors and then they furnish an entrance for the family directly off the garage area which frankly conveys the informality of the contemporary California scene.

The view of architecture as an intellectual exercise in the realm of pristine sharp-edged forms and pre­cise proportions has long been a dominant theme in the Case Study program (as it has continually cropped up throughout the history of architecture), but in the earlier Case Study Houses by Craig Ellwood and Pierre Koenig the esthetic articulation of planes and volumes defined by precise rectangular shapes had been dominated by the structural form of the building. In Killingsworth, Brady and Smith there is a tendency to play down the structure as the salient motif and in its place to substitute an involvement with form.

The most recent of the Case Study Houses reveals as well a marked shift in the use of materials and the way in which they are exposed. The employment of steel as a relatively new building material in do­mestic architecture was initiated in the Case Study House program by Charles Eames for his own house and studio, built in 1949. The Eames house was the most successful of all the Case Study Houses in that it illustrated how the mass-produced product might be used in domestic architecture. The Eames house used materials, primarily steel and glass, in such a way that their quality of regularity and order never dominated the total form. In the later Case Study Houses of Ellwood and Koenig the steel frame did become the controlling element in the design, forci­bly establishing the surface, the proportion and the volume of the building. In several of the most recent examples of the Case Study Houses this directness of approach to materials and structure has been par­tially abandoned. The materials and structure no longer are an organic part of the design. As Mies van der Rohe, Walter Gropius and even Frank Lloyd Wright have pointed out, good design, especially in our century and here in America, is as much a result of negative self-restraint as it is positive affirmation. Certainly the success of the Eames house was the result of his adherence to the principle of self-re­straint.

Originally the Case Study House program had an­other dominating characteristic and that was its interest in the direct solution of the problems of the mass-produced project house. The first Case Study House by J. R. Davidson was an admirable and highly influential minimal house (of 1100 sq. ft.) and was reproduced as a mass-produced house. The same was true of Summer Spaulding’s and John Rex’s 1947 Case Study House, where a strict modular system was ad­hered to.

By the 1950’s Arts & Architecture had pretty well abandoned any direct concern for mass housing. The houses of the last 12 to 13 years seemed to be based upon the premise of influencing design through osmosis––by creating visual and structural “master­pieces” which will serve as a source of inspiration in the area of project and mass-produced housing. That the Case Study House Project has created significant monuments of the “modern movement” is undeniable and it is hoped that it will continue to do so, but whether this approach, as opposed to its direct in­volvement, can or will affect mass housing (which constitutes well over 90% of all houses built in the U.S.) is open to serious doubt.

–– David Gebhard

Most Popular

You may also like.

We will keep fighting for all libraries - stand with us!

Internet Archive Audio

• This Just In
• Grateful Dead
• Old Time Radio
• 78 RPMs and Cylinder Recordings
• Audio Books & Poetry
• Computers, Technology and Science
• Music, Arts & Culture
• News & Public Affairs
• Spirituality & Religion
• Radio News Archive

• Flickr Commons
• Occupy Wall Street Flickr
• NASA Images
• Solar System Collection
• Ames Research Center

• All Software
• Old School Emulation
• MS-DOS Games
• Historical Software
• Classic PC Games
• Software Library
• Kodi Archive and Support File
• Vintage Software
• CD-ROM Software
• CD-ROM Software Library
• Software Sites
• Tucows Software Library
• Shareware CD-ROMs
• Software Capsules Compilation
• CD-ROM Images
• ZX Spectrum
• DOOM Level CD

• Smithsonian Libraries
• FEDLINK (US)
• Lincoln Collection
• American Libraries
• Canadian Libraries
• Universal Library
• Project Gutenberg
• Children's Library
• Biodiversity Heritage Library
• Books by Language
• Additional Collections

• Prelinger Archives
• Democracy Now!
• Occupy Wall Street
• TV NSA Clip Library
• Animation & Cartoons
• Arts & Music
• Computers & Technology
• Cultural & Academic Films
• Ephemeral Films
• Sports Videos
• Videogame Videos
• Youth Media

Search the history of over 866 billion web pages on the Internet.

Mobile Apps

• Wayback Machine (iOS)
• Wayback Machine (Android)

Browser Extensions

Archive-it subscription.

• Explore the Collections
• Build Collections

Save Page Now

Capture a web page as it appears now for use as a trusted citation in the future.

Please enter a valid web address

• Donate Donate icon An illustration of a heart shape

Modern California Houses Case Study Houses 1945 1962

Bookreader item preview, share or embed this item, flag this item for.

• Graphic Violence
• Explicit Sexual Content
• Hate Speech
• Misinformation/Disinformation
• Marketing/Phishing/Advertising
• Misleading/Inaccurate/Missing Metadata

plus-circle Add Review comment Reviews

6 Favorites

DOWNLOAD OPTIONS

In collections.

Uploaded by ArnoldZiffel on February 8, 2023

SIMILAR ITEMS (based on metadata)

• More! Get Newsletter Join Mod Squad Volunteer Books/Resources Sponsorships Get A Speaker About Us

Enjoy browsing, but unless otherwise noted, these houses are private property and closed to the public. So don't go tromping around uninvited! CTRL-F to search within the page.

RAPHAEL S. SORIANO, FAIA (1904-1988)

Born in Rhodes, Greece, to a Sephardic Jewish family, Soriano attended the College Saint-Jean-Baptiste there before emigrating to the United States in 1924. After settling with relatives in Los Angeles, Soriano enrolled in the University of Southern California's School of Architecture in 1929 and graduated in 1934. In 1930 Soriano became an American citizen and in 1931 he secured an internship with Richard Neutra , working alongside fellow interns Gregory Ain and Harwell Hamilton Harris . This was followed by a brief internship with Rudolph Schindler in 1934 then Soriano quickly returned to his unpaid position at Neutra's office. With America in the midst of the Depression, Soriano managed to find work with the County of Los Angeles on several WPA projects. By 1936 he completed his first independent commission, the Lipetz house, which was included in the 1937 Paris International Architectural Exhibition.

With US residential and commercial construction largely curtailed by America's involvement in the World War II, Soriano took up lecturing at USC and contributing designs to various competitions featuring proposals for post-war housing. In 1953 Soriano relocated from Los Angeles to Tiburon CA where he lived with his wife Elizabeth (Betty) Stephens and her two daughters Margaret and Lucille Coberly. By 1955 Soriano designed the first mass-produced steel house, built by developer Joseph Eichler . Their work won two awards from the AIA Northern California Chapter.

The last designs of Soriano's to be built were eleven All Aluminum Homes on Maui in 1965. He won an AIA Distinguished Achievement Award and the USC Distinguished Alumni Award, both in 1986. Late in life he was an instructor at the College of Environmental Design at Cal Poly Pomona, where his archives are. Soriano died broke and for several decades his gravesite had no marker. That was corrected around 2017, photo below by Michael Locke. Bio adapted from Wikipedia. Research by Catherine Westergaard Cramer.  Incredible bibliography by John Crosse.

About 1935 - Dormitory for 50 Unemployed Men for the Regional Planning Commission of Los Angeles County, Los Angeles CA. This unbuilt dormitory was Soriano's second project for the Work Progress Administration. He designed a Community Theater for Los Angeles in 1935 that was also unbuilt.

1936 - Indigent Housing Project, City of Los Angeles Regional Planning Commission. Unbuilt. His third WPA project. By this point Soriano's design principles were well-established: cost-efficient construction either in wood or concrete, a practical plan with maximum space efficiency, a functional household organization for minimum work, built-in furniture, response to climate, and a strong inside- outside relationship that expanded living spaces to the exterior.

1936 - The Emanuel M. and Helen Lipetz House, 1843 North Dillon Street , Los Angeles CA. Overlooks Silver Lake. The house created a sensation in Paris where it won the prestigious Prix de Rome in 1937. The main feature is a semicircular music room for Helen Lipetz's grand piano and up to 20 guests with continuous windows comprised nearly one-third of a total 2300 square feet. Sold in 2007 to William (Bill) Macomber and Anne (Annie) Weisman. They removed the 1950s alterations and worked with architects Fung and Blatt on a restoration: builder Granger Faulk; interior design Amy Sklar. Third photo by Julius Shulman; first, second, fourth by Michael Locke. In 2021, there was another remodel by Barbara Bestor , who designed a new house for the family on an adjacent lot.

1936 - The Harry Hartman House, 861 El Campo Drive, Los Angeles CA. Unbuilt.

1936 - The Harry Blackman Duplex, Los Angeles CA. Unbuilt. 1,000 square foot apartment with a separate 500 square foot upstairs unit over the back of the building, reached by a detached exterior stair. A four-car garage was to be located in the back.

1937 - The Dodie Priver House I, 1830 North Dillon Street , Los Angeles CA. Commissioned in 1936. Designed for a young working couple, this 500 sf studio house was built of redwood siding on the highest point of a very steep lot. The low cost ($2,000) yielded maximum space and functional efficiency. In the 1940s, it was destroyed and Sumner Spaulding designed a 4,000 sf estate for executive Edwin Loeb, with 1948 alterations by Richard Neutra .

1937 - The Leonard DeLorenzo Remodel, 1501 Summitridge Drive , Beverly Hills CA. Located on Lot 15, Tract 7996. One closet and bed in master bedroom and one bed in the studio of an existing home. Sold to J. and M. Walsh.

1938 - The William and Pauline Ross House, 2123 Valentine Street , Los Angeles CA. A game room and utility room on the lower level were cut into the slope and the living room and kitchen faced the street with a continuous band of 3' x 5' steel sash windows. Sold in 1947 to Albert Nazaki, a former USC classmate of Soriano's, who died in the 1980s. His wife lived there until 2007; sold to Gareth A. and Christine Marie Kanter. Bottom photo by Michael Locke.

1938 - The Spencer Austrian House, 3056 Landa Street , Los Angeles CA. Two stories, with the first floor housing a two-car garage and a rental studio apartment with its own entrance. The walls of the studio were covered with African mahogany and oak flex wood. Featured in Architectural Forum , October 1939. Sold to Yael Aflalo. Sold in 2015 to Thomas Olsen. Bottom photo by Michael Locke.

1939 - The Louis J. and Bessie Spiegel Gogol House, 2190 Talmadge Street , Los Angeles CA. The owner requested that all rooms save the library be on one floor. Roof decks provided the only outdoor living space since the house covered most of the lot. On the main floor three bedrooms on the east side and a combined living/dining area with a southern facade made entirely of glass enclosed a roof deck. A library was situated on top of the first floor and a 2,000 square foot deck on top of that. Most of the furniture was built-in. Has minor alterations. Sold to Richard M. and Priscilla R. London. Sold in 2003 to Peter Stumpf. Sold in 2011 to Douglas Levine. Sold in 2021 to Richard Saiz. Bottom three photos by Michael Locke.

1939 - The Newton Stevenson House, 2339 Baxter Street , Los Angeles CA. Unbuilt. Wood house on concrete footings. The three-bedroom house was to have steel casement windows between 4" x 4" posts and the exterior was to be clad in redwood.

1939 - The J. A. Meyers House, 1607 Angelus Avenue , Los Angeles CA. Two bedrooms, small bath, and roof deck on the second floor, a large living room that opened up to a terrace on the first. A small dining alcove and kitchen sat opposite, next to a utility room and integrated street facing garage. Sold in 1997 to Raquel Elfassi. Second photo by Michael Locke.

1940 - The Antonio J. and Carmela G. Polito House, 1650 Queens Road , Los Angeles CA. Two-story house on top of a two-car garage. Featured in Architectural Record , February 1946 . Great views of the Hollywood Hills and downtown Los Angeles. Minor alterations in 1945. Sold in 2004 to Steven Hamilton. Sold in 2013 to Jared Stein. First color photo by Michael Locke. Last three photos by Jim Simmons .

1940 - The Dean and Marion Robertson Kimpson House, aka the Kimpson-Nixon House, 380 Orlena Avenue , Long Beach CA. Soriano drew this during his six-month stay in the hospital after being hit by a car. Designed for a flat lot near the Pacific Ocean, this small house boasts broad ocean views from the second story and an exquisite view of a lagoon from the first. A spacious terrace, protected by a windbreak of sandblasted glass, adjoins the living and dining room. Transferred to Howard B. and Gladys M. Nixon. Sold to John Howard Bloomingdale. Sold in 2012 to Alan and Stephanie Pullman. Second photo by Michael Locke.

1940 - The Abram Koosis House, 1941 Glencoe Way , Los Angeles CA. An exterior staircase led to a small balcony, from which the house was entered. A concrete garage was later added and cut into the sloping site at the lower street level (second photo). A stylistically similar two-story guest unit was added by architects Gordon Bird and William Rietkerk in the 1960s with Soriano's blessing (third photo). Bird and Rietkirk lived in the house for over 40 years and sold it in 2005. According to Rietkirk, their drafting room was below the living room. Sold in 2012 to Shaked Berenson. Top photo of the original house by Julius Shulman.

1940 - The Glen Lukens House and Studio, 3425 West 27th Street , Los Angeles CA. Soriano designed this for a USC Professor of Ceramics who was later part of John Entenza's Arts and Architecture editorial board. The u-shaped plan is organized around a raised terrace, linking the living with the working quarters and giving both direct access to the outside. The workroom was located on the east side of the deck, just opposite the owner's bedroom and study. The story goes that Glen Lukens was teaching a night ceramics course at UC and invited one of his students, Frank Gehry , over to see the house/studio Soriano was building for Lukens and to meet the architect. This site visit pushed Gehry toward architecture as a career, saying to writer Susan Morgan:

"Glen changed the course of my life. He was building a house with architect Raphael Soriano, and he had a feeling that I might like to see the process, so he dragged my over there one day. Soriano was there, wearing an all-black outfit with a black beret, giving directions in his accented English (he was from Rhodes), and telling men how to put up steel. I really got into it. The next day Glen called me into his office. He said, 'You know I have this hunch. Will you go along with me?' I said, 'Whatever you say, boss.' He signed me up (and paid for) a night school architecture class. The class was the first time I did something that got people saying, 'Hey there's something going on here.' They like what I did and I enjoyed it, and the school skipped me into the second year."

The house began to deteriorate in 1967 when Glen Lukens died and was nearly destroyed in the 1980s (middle photo). Sold in 2010 to Michael R. Chapman who commissioned Barry Milofsky of M2A Architects for a restoration. Sold in 2019 to Simisola Akinmurele. For sale in 2022. First photo by Julius Shulman; bottom photo by Michael Locke.

1941 - The D. R. Drury Addition, 3852 Olympiad Drive , View Park CA. Many sources describe this as a ground-up Soriano project, however, project files in Soriano's archive indicate it was a two-story addition to an existing house. Sold in 2012 to Maria Gonzales and Jeffrey Haber. Top photo by Michael Locke.

1941 - The Richard Strauss House, aka the Waring-Lewis House, aka the Stauss-Lewis House, 10255 Bannockburn Drive , Los Angeles CA. Also addressed 3131 Queensbury Drive. Commissioned in 1940. Soriano designed much of the built-in furniture, including bookshelves running under the windows and beds with storage space behind the headboards. Featured in LA Magazine and Elle magazines. Sold in 1990 to Merrill Shindler. Restored in the 1990s by Michael Berman. Sold in 1997 to architect Daun St. Amand, who did an addition on the front, bottom two photos by Michael Locke. B/W photos by Julius Shulman.

1941 - The Robert Triest House, 3432 Wonder View Square, Los Angeles CA. Unbuilt. Similar to the Lipetz house with a large, half-circular living room. Another house was built on this site in 1963.

1941 - The W. B. Langsdorf House, 766 Hillcrest Avenue, La Cañada Flintridge CA. Unbuilt. Steel sash windows and steel sliding doors were set into 4x4 wooden posts along the building elevations. An English- style estate was later built on this site.

1942 - The Carl Elmer Ebert House #1, 12000 Iredell Street , Studio City CA. Three bedrooms, a studio, a workroom, and a 700 square foot dining/ living space. The children's room served as a large play area and could be converted into three bedrooms. Much of the cabinetry and furniture was onsite. The house has since been expanded. Sold in 2001 to Judith T. and Donald S. Broder. Bottom photo by Michael Locke.

1942 - The 194x House. Unbuilt. For the September 1942 issue of Architectural Forum , several architects were invited to develop a house of the future, the New House for 194x. WWII had precipitated the development of new, advanced construction methods and materials and had given a tremendous impetus to create mass produced houses. The small house was the common denominator of the competition. Soriano summed up his idea of a Mobile Utility Section in a drawing of an umbrella with a deck chair beneath. This image would be characteristic of his future work. A central mechanical core with kitchen, bath, and utility room supported a wide cantilevered roof that covered a combined living and dining room on one side and bedroom with patio on the other. The structure was of resin-bonded plywood and was based on a 5' module. The roof trusses were designed to fold back so they could be moved easily by truck. It required no foundation but slid onto a 10' x 12' trench that contained plumbing and utility connections. The walls, made of glass or sandwich panels finished in plactic or wood, were placed into floor and ceiling channels and snapped in place; they could be easily removed if necessary. Furniture was completely sectional and based on a 4' module.

1943 - The Plywood House, aka Arts and Architecture 1943 Postwar Living Competition Entry. Unbuilt. Soriano's second wartime housing prototype won 3rd prize. The sections could be rearranged and added to, enabling a structure to expand from 500 to 1,000 square feet or beyond to fit any any family's needs and budget. Each segment came equipped with prefabricated furniture, wiring, plumbing, light fixtures, heating, and ventilation. In a variation of Buckminster Fuller's Dymaxion House, the two bathrooms and kitchen were stamped out of stainless steel. Fiberglass laminate or light sheet metal could be substituted for the plywood membrane.

1946 - The Garden Studio Apartments. Unbuilt. This group of apartments was designed for a 100' x 320' site. The ground-floor spine of the comblike complex consisted of fifteen double garages grouped in threes; and above were ten studio apartments in groups of two, each opening to its own private terrace. Passageways led to five two-story units consisting of six apartments, each with a combination living/dining space, kitchen, bedroom, bath, and private garden or balcony. All building blocks faced south and were separated by 26' wide garden strips. The light steel structure was based on the module of the unit apartment.

1946 - The John Laiken Beach House, 22026 East Pacific Coast Highway , Malibu CA. Unbuilt. Soriano designed a two-story wood building whose design maximized ocean views with wide expanses of glass and multiple outdoor decks. He took into account the flow patterns of the occupants - for example, providing access that did not reqjuire tracking through the house after swimming. The guest quarters had private access and shared a communal patio with main house.

1946 - The Fritz Lang House Remodel and Addition, 1501 Smithridge Drive, Los Angeles CA. Unbuilt.

1946 - The George Tidmarsh House, La Jolla CA. Unbuilt. George Tidmarsh, Vice President of Los Angeles-based airplane manufacturer Consolidated Vultee, had worked with Soriano on the 1942 House 194x competition. In 1946 he asked Soriano to design his own house. The result was an early example of the use of modular steel construction for a single-family house; it gave Soriano the flexibility of working with non-load-bearing walls. The design is similar to the Katz house, which was realized a year later.

1946 - The A. Leonard Remodel. A remodel of an existing building. Likely unbuilt.

1946 - The Edward Lipson House, 3744 Longridge Drive , Sherman Oaks CA. Unbuilt. On a long, sloping, suburban lot, Soriano designed the lavish, 5000sf, one-bedroom house for a couple. The project included spacious amenities for guests and entertainment, maid's quarters, generous parking, a large paved terrace, a swimming pool, and changing facilities. All principal rooms of the single-story house were oriented away from the street and opened through wide glass expanses onto an enclosed outdoor living area. Adjacent to a small entrance courtyard was a long central gallery, lit by a corrugated glass exterior wall, that gave direct access to the living/dining room, the kitchen, and the master bedroom. Soriano's concept again revolved around an 8' x 24' modular system that simplified construction and kept costs to a minimum. The house was framed with light steel joists and 4" pipe columns. Featured in Arts and Architecture . Another house (not by Soriano) was built on the site in 1948.

1947 - The Milton Katz House, 6949 Mammoth Avenue , Van Nuys CA. Original address was 13750 Hart Avenue. Commissioned in 1942. Soriano derisively renamed the Katz house the "Gato" house (cat in Spanish) after differences arose between him and his clients. The design began in 1942, but completion was delayed five years due to the construction halt during WWII. The design was Soriano's first residential steel structure. Mentioned in Progressive Architecture for a 1948 competition for small houses. Won an award from the AIA Southern California Chapter. Porch enclosed in 1957. Sold to Herman Miller, who commissioned architect Kenneth Wormhoudt to “add a carport and convert the existing carport to entry and storage” in 1968. Miller also added a pool in the same year. Sold in 1979 to Gloria Writer, who was still owner as of 2023. B/W photos 6 and 7 courtesy of Gloria Writer. Color photos by Michael Locke.

1947 - The M. S. Priver House II, Los Angeles CA. Unbuilt. The dining/living area and the master bedroom opened onto an enclosed outdoor living space occupying the north wing toward the rear were the kitchen and breakfast areas, working room, and maid's room, which included a bath and separate entrance. The carport was placed on the west side next to the entrance to allow a quick departure for the doctor's inevitable emergency calls.

1947 - The Martis Abrams House, 10781 Sunset Boulevard , Los Angeles CA. Commissioned in 1946. Unbuilt. Utilized a pipe-column light structural steel frame and Lattissteel infill walls, articulated as a diagonal wall. The program included living room, dining room, library, baths, bedrooms, and a dressing room.

1947 - The Lipps House. Unbuilt. 2,300 square foot, 2-bedroom house using 12' bays. The front and side facades were stucco, while the back facade was fully glazed.

1947 - The Faust House Library Addition. Unbuilt.

1948 - The Jerome Rosenthal House Addition, 2038 Benedict Canyon Drive , Beverly Hills CA. Sold to T. L. Steinberg. Sold in 1993 to Ellen Brown. Sold in 1993 to Mehrdad Azarmi. Sold in 2005 to Johnathan Kim. Sold in 2017 to Nicholas Cordasco III.

1948 - The Charles Moore House, aka Minore House, 275 Epinard Avenue, Playa del Rey CA. Epinard Avenue does not show on current maps, so it may have been renamed. Unbuilt. Similar to the 1947 Katz house design.

1950 - The Julius Shulman House and Studio, 7875 Woodrow Wilson Drive , Los Angeles CA. Commissioned in 1947. Shulman was a famous architectural photographer. The one-story house with adjacent studio was Soriano's first exposed steel frame house. Garrett Eckbo was the landscape architect. Sold in 2010 to Jonah Lehrer and Sarah Liebowitz, a year after Shulman's death. Restored by Lorcan O'Herlihy Architects. Featured in Architectural Record Houses of 2015 . Black and white photo by Julius Shulman. Bottom two photos by Michael Locke.

1950 - The David Noyes House, aka the Alexandra Curtis House, aka the Experimental House, aka Noyes/Curtis House, 111 Stone Canyon Road , Los Angeles CA. Commissioned in 1949. The 4500 square foot, L-shaped house was initially designed for Noyes who later filed a malpractice complaint against Soriano. Sold to Alexandra Curtis after construction was completed. The main structure was made entirely of steel and prewired prefabricated cabinets used as interior walls. The corrugated steel deck roof was erected in only eighteen hours creating one large, flexible interior space. Featured in Architectural Record Houses of 1956 . Architect Ronald W. Aarons remodeled the house in 1981 and added a foyer, two-story master suite, den, bath and library in 1991. Sold in 1986 to Alvin and Adelaide Toffler. Deeded to the Adelaide Toffler Living Trust. Wolfgang Wagener Associates added further improvements in 1999. Sold in 2020 to The Stone Canyon Trust and the Zein and Samar Obagi Trust. Renovated in 2022 by David Thompson and Asssembledge+. Color photos by Michael Locke.

1950 - aka Case Study House for 1950, 1080 Ravoli Drive , Pacific Palisades CA. Commissioned in 1949. Allen M. Olds was the builder. As in the Curtis house, the structure was a modular steel frame based on a 10' x 20' planning grid, supporting a corrugated steel deck roof. Sold in 1994 to John Gordon who commissioned contractor Fred Dennis to add a second story in 1995, rendering Soriano's original concept unrecognizable. Bottom photo by Michael Locke.

1950 - The Fred and Esther McNabb house, Prospect and Cobb Avenue, Sausalito CA. Unbuilt. This design was Soriano's first modular steel house in Northern California. The 3,200 square foot house had a structure based on the 10' x 20' Case Study House module.

About 1950 - The Dr. Sheftel House, location unknown. This was another variation on the 1950 Case Study House theme. Only a sketch design in the Soriano archives survives. Unbuilt.

1951 - The Ed Krause House, 8513 La Sierra Avenue , Whittier CA. Commissioned in 1949. The single-story pavilion had a 43' spanning post and tapered beam steel structure based on a 10' interval. The exterior walls were recessed 3' from the exterior columns and infilled with glass, masonry, and corrugated fiberglass. The front facade facing the carport was closed, with only a narrow band of windows just below the roof line. Sold in 1993 to John G. and Ronda R. Cano. Renovated in 2009 by Marmol/Radziner . Bottom photo by Michael Locke.

1952 - The David and Rita Schrage / Hellauer House, 2648 North Commonwealth Avenue , Los Angeles CA. Commissioned in 1950. One of the few Soriano steel structures still close to its original state. Steve and Marion Dodge bought the house in 1987 and restored it with Soriano's advice. There's a huge train set in the back yard. In early 2011, the Dodges pledged the house to Cal Poly Pomona College of Environmental Design. Their $3M bequest includes funding for the future maintenance of the house. Bottom three photos by Michael Locke.

1951 - The David Middleton House, Berkeley CA. Commissioned in 1950. Unbuilt. 20' x 40' building footprint, the smallest variation on the Case Study House.

1952 - The Lucile Colby Apartments, 1312 Beverly Green Drive , Beverly Hills CA. Commissioned in 1950. Colby commissioned Soriano to build a ten- unit apartment building with a penthouse for herself. While the design began at the same time as the Case Study House, delays in construction held up completion until 1952. Each apartment functioned as a self- contained unit, with a private entrance and garden. The owner's penthouse occupied the entire upper floor of the northern part; its main rooms opened to a roof deck. Soriano received a national AIA award for this building. Although it was a commercial success and housed many members of the entertainment community over the years, the building was destroyed in 1988. A higher density, traditional stucco apartment building now stands on the site.

1953 - The Soriano House, Tiburon CA. Soriano designed this house and studio for himself and his wife, Elizabeth, on a hilly site overlooking the San Francisco Bay, with views of Angel's Island. Their move to Tiburon represented a new start personally as well as architecturally. Taking the modular floor plan organization and steel structure Soriano had developed for the Case Study House as a starting point, this project was the next step for his steel frame. With this house, Soriano moved away from the tubular column and cross-plated column-head steel structure toward wide-flange beam and column-head steel structure toward wide-flange beam and column frames, spaced ten feet apart. This formed a moment-resistant frame that was decked with corrugated-metal roof panels. The design was developed to the construction document stage, but was never built.

1954 - The Carl Ebert House II, 11716 Laurelwood Drive , Studio City CA. Commissioned in 1953. Unbuilt. This second house for Ebert and a second wife was to be a 3-bedroom with doctor's office for himself in the same neighborhood as the first house. The design is a typical Soriano wide-flange steel structure based on a 10' x 30' module, sitting on top of a tow-car garage. The scheme was developed to detail design, but never built.

1954 - The Milton McDonogh Remodel, location unknown. Small kitchen remodel of an existing traditional wood-framed house.

1955 - The Saunders House, 792 East Charleston Road , Palo Alto CA. Commissioned in 1954. Developer Joseph Eichler commissioned Soriano to design the first completely industrialized, all-steel house, in Palo Alto. Built on a 1,500 square foot rectangular concrete slab and consisted of seven identically welded, light steel rames spaced ten feet apart. It was topped with a fluted steel deck and enclosed with floor-to-ceiling sliding-glass walls or fixed glass, plywood, or fiberglass panels. All rooms in the compact plan were based on a 10' bay. The first two bays on the wet side were occupied by three bedrooms and two baths, the two in the middle by a combined kitchen/dining/living area, and a double grage completed the rectangle on the east side. All the interior plywood partitions were prefabricated storage units. Planned as an experiment to gain production experience for future steel houses, the Eichler House remained a prototype despite promotion and careful attention to detail. The house has been altered beyond recognition; a second story was added along with redwood shingles and stained-glass windows. Sold in 2011 to Christopher and Kristen Loew.

1955 - The Peter Bercut House, Lake Tahoe CA. Unbuilt. This design for a 110' x 40' main space had an attached guest suite that created an L-shaped plan. The guest suite had 3 beds and a shared bath and measured 24' x 30'. The main area included a master bedroom, bath, and two additional bedrooms. Two more bathrooms were accessible from a common hall, and a large kitchen was entered from the living room. The patio adjacent to the living room measured 40' x 20'. The main frame was constructed of wide-flange steel beams and the exterior walls were glass, like the Eichler House designed the same year.

1956 - The Louis Lundberg House, Rock Road, Kentfield CA. Prospects for this residence at two different locations exist. Neither plan was ever built. The first location was Kentfield; the Soriano archive contains sketches and drawings showing a panaview window and doorjamb detail, steel roof decking, aluminum structural parts on a concrete slab for this house. The archive also includes furniture details for the living room. Soriano explored a steel structure that spanned up to 40' and a floor plan organized on a circular layout. The second location was in Belvedere CA, though no plans exist for that address.

1956 - The Vera Mahoney House, Strawberry Point, Marin County CA. Commissioned in 1955. Unbuilt. Mahoney commissioned 3 architects to develop a large piece of land. Soriano's role was as the architect for the owner's own house, located on the top of a hill. The semicircular living quarters with encircling balconies faced the San Francisco Bay and were to be set on top of a cylindrical concrete shaft that incorporated a bomb shelter.

1956 - The Eastwood Gardens Estates, aka the Sam Abouaf Development, Napa CA. Unbuilt. Soriano developed three housing types; Types A, B, and C, for a proposed suburban tract in Napa Valley. It was his first attempt at regional planning, his first chance to expand his design thinking from the scale of an individual house to an entire residential community.

1957 - The Donovan Cooke House, 150 San Rafael Avenue , Tiburon CA. Designed for a doctor and his four children. There was a garage but it was converted into storage. The living room ceiling was raised to 18 ft by architect Sandy Walker. Sold to the Leon and Trudy Cohn Marital Trust.

1957 - The Billy Wilder House, Sunset Boulevard and Lomitas Drive, Beverly Hills CA. Unbuilt. Film director Billy Wilder and Soriano discussed the construction of a 4,000 square foot residence for a triangular parcel of land in Beverly Hills. Wilder expressed regret that the would be hiring another architect because Wilder wanted someone who could be more consistently available than Soriano — who was living in Northern California at the time.

Charles and Ray Eames designed a home for Billy Wilder and his 2nd wife Audrey in 1949, based on the Eames' own home. The design was never built due to the "idiotic amount of windows to clean," according to Audrey.

1957 - The Soriano Duplex, Vistazo East Street and Centro East Street, Tiburon CA. Designed by Soriano for his parents and his own family to share. Unbuilt.

1957 - The Jerry Gilbreath House, Los Angeles CA. Commissioned 1956. This sketch was similar to that of the Cooke House, using the 40' span, tapered-frame construction. Unbuilt.

1957 - The Lew Lauria House, 7148 Macapa Drive, Hollywood CA. Unbuilt. This design was developed for a large sloping site in Hollywood and used the building system Soriano developed for the Eichler House. He was also commissioned to do the interior design, including built-in furniture.

1958 - The Clarewood Apartments, Kensington Highlands CA. Unbuilt. Sketch ideas for a two-story, steel, one-and-two-bedroom apartment development. The drawings show a preliminary study for several floorplan arrangements varying from seven to nine units per floor.

1959 - The Frank McCauley House, 20 Longfellow Road , Mill Valley CA. This compact house for developer Frank McCauley was a pilot showcasing steel construction designed for mass production; this and its neighbor (24 Longfellow) were the last steel houses Soriano built. The roof was made from cantilevered, light-gauze metal decking and insulating fiberglass. To obtain maximum interior flexibility, prefabricated cabinets divided the rooms. McCauley intended to develop a series of houses with this building system, but only the neighboring Leaver house was realized. The McCauley house was honored with an AIA Award of Merit and later won two additional prizes. Featured in Arts and Architecture , August 1960 . Sold to Gideon and Cheryl Sorokin. Sold to Patrick Siu.

1959 - The Leaver House for Frank McCauley, 24 Longfellow Road , Mill Valley CA. Located adjacent to the McCauley House of the same year; identical in structure and material but had a different plan layout. The adjacent two-car garage was connected to the house by a utility and laundry area. Sold to Anton and Jean Victor. Sold in 2004 to Laura Sciaroni and Paul Sidorenko, who did a restoration.

1959 - The R. L. Hunter House, 6838 Tanglewood Drive , Youngstown OH. Commissioned in 1957. One of the few variations of the Soriano pavilion located outside California. Similar to the Cooke House design. Sold in the late 1960s to the Tucker family, according to their son Kerry Tucker. Sold to Joseph and Marie Altinger.

1960 - The George Culler House, Lovell Avenue, Mill Valley CA. Unbuilt. Marked a further modification of the Soriano frame, similar to that implemented in Soriano's own house in 1953. His ongoing refinement of construction details led to a new structural joint connection of two C-channels joined only by a bolt to a 4" square column. This meant that welding was no longer required.

1960 - A Steel House for Mass Production. An unbuilt prototype for a design similar to the 1955 Eichler House.

1960 - The Kaneoke Estates Development, Kaneoke, Oahu HI. Unbuilt residential masterplan. Soriano's first commission in Hawaii was an early experiment with an aluminum building system. Eleven houses were terrraced up an 80-degree incline. The 4-bedroom homes were 1,820 square foot rectangles; 3-bedroom homes had 1,250 square feet. Both were designed with 2 baths. Soriano specified plywood siding for the solid exterior walls.

1960 - The Adolf Kiefer Apartments, 213 Third Street, Sausalito CA. Unbuilt. As with the Colby Apartments, this scheme used Soriano's steel construction system for a two-story apartment building with multiple units, based on a 30' spanning steel frame spaced 8' apart. The project was not developed past the concept design.

1961 - The Maurice Galante Renovation, 16 Belmont Street, San Francisco CA. Scheme design drawings were developed for an enclosure of an existing porch. Unbuilt.

1961 - The Hale Malu Apartments, Maui HI. Only a perspective sketch exists for this twelve-story apartment building in Maui. The design was similar to Soriano's design for a medical building and the Lido Hotel in Los Angeles, with ribbon windows and a strongly articulated spandrel panel. Unbuilt.

1963 - The Regional Planning Prototypes. Soriano expanded his design interests from the individual house to regional planning. Unbuilt. This theoretical study, which he seems to have done for his own interest and without real world constraints, explored a morphology for low-density housing, ranging from a small-scale plan of forty units for a 2.5 acre site to regional planning for 5,000-person communities. These plans were intended as alternatives to sprawl. Soriano's systems approach was the basis for the planning proposals he developed during the 1960s and 1970s.

1963 - The Prefab Houses for Yoshikawa Investment Co., Ltd, Wailupe, Honolulu, Oahu HI. Residential Masterplan, commissioned in 1962. Unbuilt. Soriano proposed his All Aluminum system for eight units ranging from 630 to 1,120 square feet.

1963 - The Affan Ataceri Houses, aka the Istanbul, Turkey. Housing Masterplan, unbuilt. The Soriano Archives contains correspondence with Turkish businessman Affan Ataceri regarding the possibility of engaging in several types of ventures, including building hotels, chain restaurants, and supermarkets. No plans or schematics of any of the possible typologies exist. It appears that Soriano originally proposed working in Turkey, building modern villages and worker housing using his All Aluminum system.

1964 - The Albert Grossman House, aka El Paradiso, 11468 Dona Cecilia Drive , Studio City CA. Commissioned in 1963. Soriano's promotion of aluminum buildings attracted the attention of Albert Grossman, whose companies sold aluminum products. To show off his wares, Grossman agreed to build a 3,200 square foot, 4-bedroom house with ten rigid aluminum frames. Soriano walked off the job before completion but Grossman picked up where he left off. Designated a Cultural Heritage Monument by the City of Los Angeles in 1997. One of the few Soriano structures that remains unaltered. Sold in 2016 to Nicolai F. Pedersen. Sold in 2021 to Linda Brettler. Color photos by Cameron Carothers.

1965 - The All Aluminum Homes for Winston T. Watanabe, Kuau Estates, Paia, Maui HI. The State of Hawaii joined forces with private industry to develop houses for families that earned too much to be eligible for public housing and not enough to qualify for conventional home mortgages. Watanabe, a Dallas-based developer, gave Soriano the opportunity to realize his modular All Aluminum structures. Commissioned 1962. Eleven were built in the first construction phase. The factory-built, long-span aluminum frames with non-load-bearing interior walls were identical in all units, though the floor plans varied in 2- and 3-bedroom plans. Components were shipped to Hawaii from San Francisco. Soriano designed the system so that six unskilled men could erect a house in a single day.

Because aluminum construction was new, however, and Soriano could not directly supervise the process, construction mistakes were made. Phase two was never started. According to Mona Grigg, who lived in one of the houses, "the locals called the subdivision 'Easter Egg Village' because each of the houses was a different pastel color. The interiors were Micarta, walls and all, with hidden push-hinges on all cupboard and closet doors. No knobs or handles anywhere."

All were destroyed. The location became the site of Mama's Fish house in Paia, one of the island's most popular restaurants.

1965 - The La Marina Development, Calle de Servicio, Puerto de Ensenada, Baja, CA, Mexico. Unbuilt. Masterplan for a 375,000 square foot site. A 750' wide pier accommodated a 260-room hotel, yacht clubs, retail shops, parking, and luxury apartments.

1966 - The Soria Structures. Soriano began working in 1962 on modular All Aluminum building systems for low-cost housing, schools, and commercial applications. In January 1965, he filed for trademark on the name for plans and blueprints for pre-fabricated modular buildings. The United States Patent Office granted the trademark registration in 1966. Soriano founded Soria Structures, Inc., in Dallas, to market his system worldwide. Sadly, the only built applications were the eleven All Aluminum Homes in Hawaii and the 1964 Grossman House. Soriano also explored a joint venture with Alcoa. Although he had a close relationships with Alcoa president Jim Close, the proposed partnership did not get off the ground.

1966 - The Stanford Court Apartments for A. Cal Rossi, Powell and Pine Streets, San Francisco CA. Unbuilt. Rossi, a developer in San Francisco, had originally hired Soriano to design an office tower based on his All Aluminum structure, in place of a 100,000 square foot apartment building. When the FHA questioned the height of the proposed building, the city planners refused the plan and the existing apartment house was eventually remodeled. Soriano was asked to do a remodel concept.

1968 - The Punch Bowl Estates for Jack Park, Punch Bowl HI. Residential Masterplan, unbuilt. 27 terraced units on a hillside using the Soria Structures building system.

1968 - The Westport Beach Development, Alaska State Housing Authority, Alaska. Regional Planning, unbuilt. Soriano cojsulted on adapted Soria Structures - specifically whether the aluminum houses would meet HUD's requirements for low-rent projects and the cold climate. Soriano proposed his 500, 700, and 1,000 series homes without patios, with thermal glass fro the exterior walls.

1970 - The Morton Harris House, Rodeo Drive, Beverly Hills CA. Unbuilt. 50' x 65' house with a large kitchen, dining room, library, master bedroom with dressing room and bath, and one guest room with bath.

1970 - The Kings County Housing, Kings County. Unbuilt. This site plan was for a development of 300 pre-fabricated All Aluminum houses, to be built over 3 years. Each unit would have measured between 500 and 1,100 square feet and contained one- to four-bedrooms. Banks refused to fund the project because of Soriano's unusual design.

Around 1970 - The Tagawa Apartments, location unknown. Unbuilt. Rough sketches of this multi-story application of the Soria Structures show a two-story steel construction floating over on-grade parking. Apartment units were either 760 square feet or 1,560 square feet.

Around 1970 - The Richmond Model Cities Program for Ted Burton, Richmond CA. Unbuilt. A Soria-based masterplan for Richmond VA.

1971 - The Richard Hines Jr. House, Gainesville FL. Residential masterplan, unbuilt. Used refabricated aluminum structures designed to withstand hurricane-force winds.

1973 - The Lloyd Rigler house, Los Angeles CA. Unbuilt. Soriano's friend and patron asked him for a concept design. The spectacular Hollywood Hills site offered a 360 degree panoramic view of Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley.

1973 - The Allegro Circle Estates for Olav Norman, Tiburon CA. Unbuilt. 26 to 38 single-family, All Aluminum Homes on approximately 15 acres with a swimming pool, two tennis courts, and a recreational play area situated around an existing two-acre residence. Had several round houses in the plan.

1973 - The Soria Circle for Marco Radomile, aka Villa Moderne, Tiburon CA. Commissioned in 1972. Eight single-family aluminum houses in one- and two-story structures. First floor configurations fluctuated according to the underlying slope of the compact site. The buildings measured approximately 1534 sf each. Unsure if built.

1975 - The Helsinki Homes for Oy Lemminkainen, Helsinki, Finland. Commissioned in 1971. Unbuilt. Single-family development for Lemminkainen, a highway contractor in Finland. Soriano supplied information on his Soria Structures, trying to estimate the cost of supplying the aluminum house for consideration.

Sources include: Soriano by Wolfgang Wagener; Architectural Record ; Arts and Architecture Magazine .

• Eames Foundation

find us on:

• Eames House
• Charles and Ray
• Eames House and the CSH program

Case Study House Bluff

• Photo Gallery
• How to Visit
• Covid-19 Safety Protocols
• Guided Exterior Tour
• Group Guided Exterior Tour
• Interior Tour
• Members Appreciation Day
• Small Wedding
• Specialty Events
• Visitors Submissions
• Memberships
• Corporate Sponsorship
• 250 Year Project
• Collections
• On-going Studies
• Conservation Management Plan
• Team Thanks

John Entenza, publisher of Arts & Architecture  magazine, purchased a five-acre meadow overlooking the Pacific Ocean with the intention of building several demonstration houses in close proximity for the Case Study House (‘CSH’) Program. Originally, six houses were intended to be built, but only five were (one of which was disavowed). It is a unique concentration, illuminating the innovative thinking of different architects as they addressed the challenge issued by Arts & Architecture magazine.

Not only are the structures significant, but the siting is. Two of the homes, the Eames House and the Entenza House, were co-designed by Charles Eames and Eero Saarinen with a particular focus on the their orientation. As discussed in the December 1945 issue of Arts & Architecture : “While the land is intended to be used communally, each house is so oriented so that it has complete privacy within its indoor-outdoor needs. The road follows the natural contour of the hill and will be allowed to gather leaves and regain the natural surface of the land. It serves each of the two houses, expanding for necessary turning and parking areas.” To accomplish this goal, a berm was built between the Eames and Entenza houses, seen to the left, that was then planted heavily. Within relatively few years, the berm was no longer visible.

The Five Bluff Houses

The following photos of the Entenza and West houses were taken during construction at the Eames House, but are no longer visible. 

CSH #8, THE EAMES HOUSE, completed 1949

The second design for the site, the house was nestled into the hillside in order to preserve the meadow and trees. The same off-the-shelf materials–steel, expanses of glass and stucco–were reassembled into the new design, essentially a kit of parts.  The structure is fully revealed, a celebration of the honest use of materials. View the National Historic Landmark Nomination  here .

CSH #9, THE ENTENZA HOUSE, completed 1949

Designed by Charles Eames and Eero Saarinen, Featured in July 1950 Arts & Architecture, Private property, closed to the public.

Construction photo of the Eames House, with the Entenza House clearly seen beyond.

The Entenza House was designed for John Entenza, editor of Arts & Architecture , who spearheaded the Case Study House Program. As described by the LA Conservatory, CSH #9 “is a modular plan and features steel frame construction. But in contrast to many modern residences utilizing steel frame construction, that of the Entenza House is not actually revealed, but concealed with wood-paneled cladding… This design exemplified the concept of merging interior spaces through glass expanses and seamless materials.”

The Eames House and the Entenza House are not only linked by their designers, but they have also been described as comparative spaces. While the Eames House has been described as a revealed vertical space, the Entenza House offers a complimentary concealed horizontal space. Through these comparisons, CSH #8 and CSH #9 offer different perspectives of inside vs. outside space as well as private vs. public space. View the National Register of Historic Places Nomination by clicking  here .

CSH #18, THE WEST HOUSE, completed in 1948

Construction photo looking through the Eames House, with the Entenza House to the left, and the West House with its garage and lawn reaching to the right.

CSH #18 was the first Case Study House built on the bluff, and as described in Arts & Architecture , it displays “a simple, straight-forward solution of the client’s problems”. The intended clients for the West House were a couple in their early thirties who expected to entertain frequently.

Walker used floor-to-ceiling glass panels in public areas to emphasize the impressive ocean views, as well as created a living room with “a feeling of openness and informal spaciousness” for ease in entertaining. As explained in Arts & Architecture , the house was constructed on a three-foot module system to emphasize efficiency, symmetry, and the “absence of waste”. View the National Register of Historic Places Nomination by clicking  here .

CSH #20, THE BAILEY HOUSE, completed in 1948

Original structure and later expansions designed by Richard Neutra, Featured in December 1948 Arts & Architecture, article here , Private property, closed to the public.

At the time the Bailey House was built, Richard Neutra was the most well-known and respected architect taking part in the Case Study House program. As was typical for him at the time, Neutra designed the house with an extensive use of glass, steel and wood.

The client, Dr. Bailey, was a young, newly married doctor who needed to keep the budget low. Neutra’s design included several potential future additions, so that the house could grow along with the doctor’s family and budget. In addition, Neutra incorporated flexible, multi-purpose spaces open to the exterior, allowing the family to use the outdoor space for dining and entertaining.

HOUSE #201, Unofficial

Original design by Richard Neutra, Featured in May 1947 Arts & Architecture, Private property, closed to the public.

Considered the “forgotten case study house”, the House at #201 was originally designed by Richard Neutra in the late 1940s. The design was changed at the request of the first owners and therefore was not included in the Case Study Program.

Help us share the Eameses’ joy and rigor with future visitors, so they may have a direct experience of Charles and Ray’s approach to life and work.

• Browse Items
• Browse Collections
• Browse Exhibits

Case Study Houses

Description, collection items, davidson, j. r. (1889-1977): case study house #1, smith, whitney (1911-2002): case study house #5, davidson, j. r. (1889-1977): case study house #11, smith, whitney (1911-2002): case study house #12, killingsworth, edward a. (1917-2004): case study house #25, killingsworth, edward a. (1917-2004): case study house #26, killingsworth, edward a. (1917-2004): case study house triad #23, davidson, j. r. (1889-1977): case study house #15, killingsworth, edward a. (1917-2004): case study apartments #2, john elgin woolf (1908-1980): case study house #17 alterations.

Search the Site

Popular pages.

• Historic Places of Los Angeles
• Important Issues
• Events Calendar

Bass House (Case Study House #20B)

Unlike other Case Study Houses of the late 1950s, the Bass House was constructed of wood rather than steel.

Place Details

• Buff, Straub & Hensman

Designation

• Private Residence - Do Not Disturb

Property Type

• Single-Family Residential
• Los Angeles County

Case Study House #20B, also known as the Bass House, was completed in 1958 as part of the Arts & Architecture magazine’s Case Study House program. It represents a departure from other Case Study houses of the late 1950s in that it was constructed of wood rather than steel.

This striking house was designed for industrial and graphic designer Saul Bass and his wife, biochemist Dr. Ruth Bass and was constructed on the site of an old estate in Altadena. Architects Conrad Buff III, Calvin C. Straub, and Donald C. Hensman of the architectural firm Buff, Straub and Hensman designed the house.

The post-and-beam wood construction is set on a concrete slab foundation and features a complex roof with prefabricated plywood barrel vaults, flat stressed skin panels, and 12-inch hollow box beams that span 16 feet and form a series of 8-foot bays.

The panels, vaults and box beams were trucked to the site and handled by forklift hoist, which made it possible to erect and assemble the components quickly. The vaults covering the central area of the house were positioned and initially secured in rapid succession. The vaults were custom-built for the job to the same 2-inch thickness as the panels, and were pressure-glued and bent into the required forms.

View the National Register of Historic Places Nomination

Issues including Bass House (Case Study House #20B)

Case Study Houses

Related content.

Scottish Rite Masonic Temple

Bailey House (Case Study House #21)

Driftwood Drive-Thru Dairy Pole Sign

• Hispanoamérica
• Work at ArchDaily
• Terms of Use
• Privacy Policy
• Cookie Policy
• Case Study Houses

Case Study Houses: The Latest Architecture and News

Defining afro-contemporary homes: the role of case study houses.

The home is a fundamental expression of architectural movements within the fabric of a city. As one of the smallest typologies, it is the simplest canvas to exhibit the design ethos of any particular era. African cities have continuously negotiated the meaning of their residential dwellings, from traditional architecture to colonial architecture, and the influx of post-colonial modern architecture. Vernacular architecture explored homes with spatial patterns rooted in cultural dexterity, envelopes built with indigenous materials and forms, endowed with traditional motifs. These were in stark contrast to colonial homes that featured a range of imported architectural styles across the continent, neglecting their climatic and cultural contexts while amplifying social class.

• Read more »

How Did Materials Shape the Case Study Houses?

The Case Study Houses (1945-1966), sponsored by the Arts & Architecture Magazine and immortalized by Julius Shulman ’s iconic black-and-white photographs, may be some of the most famous examples of modern American architecture in history. Designed to address the postwar housing crisis with quick construction and inexpensive materials, while simultaneously embracing the tenets of modernist design and advanced contemporary technology, the Case Study Houses were molded by their central focus on materials and structural design. While each of the homes were designed by different architects for a range of clients, these shared aims unified the many case study homes around several core aesthetic and structural strategies: open plans, simple volumes, panoramic windows, steel frames, and more. Although some of the Case Study Houses’ materials and strategies would become outdated in the following decades, these unique products and features would come to define a historic era of architectural design in the United States.

Modern, Low-Budget and Easy to Build Living Spaces: the Case Study House Program

Between 1945 and 1966, the Case Study Houses program , following the Weißenhof-siedlung exposition, commissioned a study of economic, easy-to-build houses. The study included the creation of 36 prototypes that were to be built leading up to post-war residential development. The initiative by John Entenza, editor of Arts & Architecture magazine, brought a team to Los Angeles that featured some of the biggest names in architecture at the time, including Richard Neutra , Charles & Ray Eames, Pierre Koenig, and Eero Saarinen , among others.

The program's experiment not only defined the modern home and set it apart from its predecessors, but it also pioneered new construction materials and methods in residential development that continue to influence international architecture to this day. Take a detailed look at some of the program's most emblematic work together with recommendations for facing contemporary challenges. 

When Minimalism Gets Extravagant: A Virtual Look at the Case Study House 17(2)

Arts & Architecture ’s Case Study House program was supposed to be about creating replicable, affordable designs for post-war living—stylish but modest homes for young families on a budget. And then came house #17(2).

To be fair, this house was designed for real clients, with specific and ambitious requirements. The Hoffmans had four children, a household staff, and an art collection. So this was never going to be just another suburban three-bedroom.

A Virtual Look Into J R Davidson's Case Study House #11

The editorial notes on Arts & Architecture ’s 11th Case Study House set out the “basic principles of modern architecture”: an emphasis on “order, fitness and simplicity.” Livability and practicality are key, and “sham” is frowned on. As with other houses in the series, this design by JR Davidson adheres to these goals with clean, horizontal lines, an open floor plan, and integration of the outdoor space.

It’s a modest, compact home, less high-concept than some of the other houses in the programme—no indoor plantings or reflecting pools; no complicated backstory for the imagined clients (think of the next two, #12 and especially #13 )—but arguably more successful in providing a model for the average American home. Its value doesn’t depend on dramatic landscaping or views, but on thoughtful design and attention to solving everyday problems. Walking through Archilogic ’s 3D model reveals the elegance of Davidson’s approach.

A Virtual Look Inside Case Study House #10 by Kemper Nomland & Kemper Nomland Jr

The tenth Case Study House wasn’t actually intended for the Arts & Architecture programme. It was added on its completion in 1947, to fill out the roster, as many houses remained unbuilt. Clearly, the Nomland design earned its place on the list, having many features in common with other Case Study homes and, most importantly, meeting the stated aims of economy, simplicity, new materials and techniques, and indoor/outdoor integration. The different departure point, however, can be seen in the layout. Whereas Case Study homes were designed primarily for families, this plan is for “a family of adults”—which is to say, a childless couple.

The World's First Freeform 3D-Printed House Enters Development Phase

WATG Urban's first prize design for The Freeform Home Design Challenge in 2016 is now moving one step closer to becoming a reality. Since winning the competition, WATG 's Chicago office has been developing the winning design, dubbed Curve Appeal, alongside Branch Technology . Curve Appeal is now undergoing the "wall section testing, research and development phase" with an anticipated goal of breaking ground later this year. This revolutionary project could change the way we construct complex, freeform structures.

A Virtual Look Inside Case Study House #7 by Thornton M Abell

The seventh house in the Arts & Architecture Case Study program was built with real clients in mind: a family of three with creative hobbies. The result, designed by Thornton M Abell , is a flexible home with a distinctive functional character.

The house divides neatly into three separate areas: to the left of the entrance, working spaces make up nearly half of the full floorplan, with living and sleeping areas off to the right and extending forward into the garden. Sliding panels between the roomy central reception/dining area and the cozy living room create the option of privacy or extra space, as required, with the terrace and splash pool beyond offering further possibilities for summer entertaining. A small planting area beside the sliding door blurs the line between indoors and out.

A Virtual Look Inside Case Study House #4, Ralph Rapson’s "Greenbelt House"

The fourth house in Arts & Architecture ’s Case Study program departed from the trend with a noticeably more introverted design. Intended for a modestly sized urban lot, rather than the dramatic and expansive canyon or forest locations of so many other Case Study homes, it couldn’t borrow drama from the landscape, nor would the residents welcome curious glances from their close neighbors—so the house looks entirely inward.

Rapson called his design the “Greenbelt House” for the glass-covered atrium that divides the living and sleeping areas. In his original drawings and model, as in Archilogic ’s 3D model shown here, this strip is shown filled with plant beds in a striking geometric pattern. However, Rapson imagined that it could be put to many uses, according to the residents’ tastes: a croquet court or even a swimming pool could find their place here. This “brings the outdoors indoors” rather more literally than, for instance, Richard Neutra ’s expansive, open-door designs.

A Virtual Look Inside the Case Study House #23A by Killingsworth, Brady & Smith

Only three of the Arts & Architecture Case Study Houses were built outside Los Angeles , and those three formed a united concept. The Triad Houses in La Jolla, a seaside suburb of San Diego , share a single driveway, motor court, and design vocabulary, while being created to meet different needs.

In keeping with the Case Study mission, all three houses used open-plan design, affordable modern materials (such as aluminium and concrete with wood frames), and plenty of glass to create a fresh and open mood. The emphasis was on strong geometric forms, careful detailing, horizontal lines (with perfectly flat roofs) and – this being the Californian coastline – dramatic views and outdoor living space, creating the illusion of more interior space than was actually present.

AD Classics: The Entenza House (Case Study #9) / Charles & Ray Eames, Eero Saarinen & Associates

Nestled in the verdant seaside hills of the Pacific Palisades in southern California, the Entenza House is the ninth of the famous Case Study Houses built between 1945 and 1962. With a vast, open-plan living room that connects to the backyard through floor-to-ceiling glass sliding doors, the house brings its natural surroundings into a metal Modernist box, allowing the two to coexist as one harmonious space.

Like its peers in the Case Study Program, the house was designed not only to serve as a comfortable and functional residence, but to showcase how modular steel construction could be used to create low-cost housing for a society still recovering from the the Second World War. The man responsible for initiating the program was John Entenza , Editor of the magazine Arts and Architecture. The result was a series of minimalist homes that employed steel frames and open plans to reflect the more casual and independent way of life that had arisen in the automotive age.[1]

A Virtual Look Inside the Case Study House #3 by William W Wurster & Theodore Bernardi

The third Arts & Architecture Case Study House has a noticeably different sensibility to that of many of the other designs in the series. While equally engaged with the goal of maximizing enjoyment of the natural surroundings, in this design the architects show more concern for privacy and protection.

The approach from the street is somewhat forbidding; aluminum siding presents an impenetrable front. Besides the front and garage doors, the small, high kitchen windows are the only visible openings, though it is possible to peer over the fence of grape stakes into the children’s private garden.

A Virtual Look Inside the Case Study House #2 by Sumner Spaulding and John Rex

The second house in Arts & Architecture magazine’s Case Study Houses program shows the hallmarks of the series: an emphasis on light-soaked living areas, indoor-outdoor living, strong horizontal lines dominated by a flat roof, and so on. It is distinguished, though, by particularly creative details linking the indoor and outdoor areas, and by a strong awareness of function.

A Virtual Look Into Richard Neutra's Case Study House #20, the Bailey House

The Bailey house—one of Richard Neutra ’s four Case Study designs for Arts & Architecture —forms one of five Bluff houses, standing high above the ocean. The brief was to create a low-budget home for a young family, with just two bedrooms, but offering the possibility of expansion as time went by (which did in fact transpire; additional Neutra-designed wings were later built).

Neutra employed the same indoor-outdoor philosophy that can be seen at work in his unbuilt Alpha and Omega houses, using large sliding glass doors to create light and a visual sense of space, as well as ensuring that the house physically opened up to, as he put it, “borrow space from the outdoors.” With this sunny Californian ocean-view setting, it made perfect sense to use the back garden and terrace as living and dining room.

A Virtual Look Inside the Case study house #12 by Whitney R Smith

In designing his (unbuilt) house for the Arts & Architecture Case Study program , Whitney Smith, like Richard Neutra , prioritized the connection to outdoor space. His motivation, however, was more specific than a desire to extend the living area of a small house. Rather, he wanted to create a highly personal space, geared to the passion of his hypothetical client. Seeing conventional plans as a straitjacket for residents who craved appropriate working space within their home (be it a sewing studio or a photography darkroom), he aspired to fit this house to the needs of a keen horticulturist.

A Virtual Look Into Richard Neutra's Unbuilt Case Study House #13, The Alpha House

Of the four homes designed by Richard Neutra for the Case Study Houses program, post-war thought experiments commissioned by Arts & Architecture , only one was ever realized. In the imaginary village of the program's many unbuilt homes, next to #6, the Omega house , stands #13, named Alpha. Archilogic ’s 3D model gives us a unique chance to experience this innovative concept home.

Each of Neutra’s projects was designed for a family of five, and each reveals his psychoanalytic approach to architecture, in which the house itself is an intimate part of family relationships, as important as the personalities involved. (Neutra was personally acquainted with Freud, and a committed follower of birth trauma theorist Otto Rank.) Underlining this Freudian view, his imaginary clients are not just neighbours—they are related; Mrs Alpha being sister to Mrs Omega.

A Virtual Look Into Mies van der Rohe's Core House

Architecture depends on its time. It is the crystallization of its inner structure, the slow unfolding of its form. – Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

In 1951, Mies van der Rohe designed the Core House, a participative design structure which could be completed by its inhabitants.

This flexible model challenged certain architectural concepts, explored new industrial technologies, and proposed a modular system to improve the quality and affordability of housing.

Pierre Koenig’s Historic Case Study House #21 Could Be Yours... for the Right Price

One of modernism’s most iconic houses, Case Study House 21 (Bailey House) by Pierre Koenig , is now on sale. The two-bed/two-bath Hollywood Hills landmark has been touted as among the finest of Arts & Architecture Magazine’s Case Study Houses , and one of the program’s few truly experimental projects to explore groundbreaking design and materials.

The Mid-Century Fairytale of LA’s Case Study Houses

Featured image credit: mbtrama

It’s not often that we get to witness experiments in architecture while they’re in motion. Yet, that’s exactly the experience case study houses offer. Arts & Architecture magazine challenged notable architects to create affordable homes to address the U.S.’s residential housing boom. With World War II finally coming to an end, millions of soldiers were returning home to start families or pick up where they’d left off. The need for new housing was crucial. Arts & Architecture funded the experiment which ran just over two decades from 1945 until 1966. While one of the homes was built in Northern California and another in Phoenix, Arizona, most were erected in the Southern California region. Today, we take a closer look at this innovative moment in California’s housing history. 

The Mid-Century Fairytale of Case Study Houses

It’s safe to say that the project piqued the public’s curiosity, drawing over 350,000 visitors to the initial six houses revealed in 1948. But Arts & Architecture did what it could to bring the case study houses to the Americans who couldn’t make the pilgrimage themselves. 

The magazine regularly featured the completed homes in its pages, often supported by the keen eye of photographer Julius Shulman. Working in moody black-and-white, Shulman brought a classiness to his legendary shots of the forward-thinking domiciles. Furthermore, having specialized in architectural photography, Shulman fit naturally into the ambitious project. 

Of course, his photographs benefited from the otherworldly glamor of Southern California. Homes perched proudly atop Hollywood hilltops with the stars seeming to bow at their feet. Other times, the open promises of the Pacific Ocean lapped at the perimeter while palms kissed cloudless skies. 

In a world that had recently clawed itself out of the burned out crater of a devastating war, Arts & Architecture offered a “happily ever after” that was just sensible enough to believe. Soon, the case study houses became synonymous with the aesthetic of post-war Southern California. 

Seeking Protections for SoCal’s Case Study Houses

The completed case study houses haven’t always had an easy time over the resulting decades. Some owners remodeled homes beyond recognition. Others razed them altogether.  

But in 2013, the Los Angeles Conservancy Modern Committee petitioned to include 11 of the homes in the national registry. These homes range throughout Southern California, from Ventura to San Diego, though most stand in the Greater Los Angeles area. 

Ultimately, the National Register of Historic Places accepted ten of these homes. The 11th would have made the list as well, but the private owner requested the home not appear on the official register. However, the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) has protected all 11 of these case study houses since July 24, 2013.

While the Los Angeles Conservancy Modern Committee nominated whatever case study houses they could, some didn’t make the list. They excluded extensively remodeled properties. Yet, the successful inclusion of the 11 petitioned properties paved the way to potentially include remodeled properties in the future. Additionally, the committee neglected to nominate other well-known case study homes, such as the Eames house, simply because they already appeared on the register. 

Of the 11 homes submitted for registry, eight stand in Los Angeles County. Two more are located in San Diego County and another in Ventura County. Perhaps we’ll review those at a later date in our Los Angeles Home Spotlight column. But for today, we’re going to focus on the Los Angeles County offerings to the registry. 

Case Study House #1

10152 Toluca Lake Ave, Los Angeles

Architect: j.r. and greta davidson, year completed: 1948.

Don’t let the number system fool you. Case study house #1 was not the program’s first home to be constructed. Thus, we introduce the notoriously irrational numbering system of the case study program. Even the editor of Arts & Architecture admitted there’s little to no rhyme or reason to the numbers. 

J.R. Davidson, a force in the early days of California architecture, designed this home with the assistance of his wife, Greta. Efficiency was at the heart of the architecture as the Davidsons envisioned the busy lives of two working parents. Case study house #1 would allow working families more free time by keeping daily maintenance to a minimum. 

This case study abode also introduced a series of features that became hallmarks of the program including:

• Open floor plan
• Floor-to-ceiling windows
• Keeping corridors to a minimum
• Multi-purpose rooms
• Garden access from all primary rooms
• Standardized materials (ie. concrete, plywood, and industrial glass)

Case Study House #9

205 Chautauqua Blvd, Los Angeles

Architect: charles eames and eero saarinen, year completed: 1949.

Case study home #9 is popularly recognized as the Entenza House since it was built for Arts & Architecture ’s editor and publisher John Entenza. Designers Charles Eames and Eero Saarinen challenged themselves to offer a wealth of space with simple, minimalist construction. The home, built from a steel frame and covered in wood-paneling, overlooks the Pacific Ocean from a scenic hill in Pacific Palisades. 

Case Study House #10

711 S. San Rafael Ave, Pasadena

Architect: kemper nomland and kemper nomland, jr., year completed: 1947.

This tri-level structure would have existed regardless of the case study program. That’s because it wasn’t built in response to the program. Rather, it just happened to fit many of the ideals of the program including:

• Utilization of contemporary materials
• Employing modern building techniques
• Affordable to working class Americans
• Simple construction
• Economic use of materials
• Blending of indoor and outdoor features

So, how did this unrelated structure come to be case study house #10? Just two years into the case study program, Arts & Architecture were having trouble keeping a consistent pace. Without the completion of a new house on the horizon, they needed to find a way to keep the inertia. 

So, despite the fact that Kemper Nomland and son had already built the home without regard to the program, its symbiosis found it ripe for inclusion. The Nomlands used the home’s multi-level design to fit it to a Pasadena hillside. In 2017, it sold to comedian, actress, and Saturday Night Live alum Kristen Wiig. 

Case Study House #16

1811 Bel Air Rd, Los Angeles

Architect: craig ellwood, year completed: 1953.

The designer of case study home #16 (although that number changes depending on who you ask) was one of the most prolific in the program. So, it may come as a surprise that Craig Ellwood actually had no formal design instruction. Rather, he learned what he knew through his contracting work. It was enough to place his homes not once, not twice, but three times in the case study program. 

Sadly, two of Ellwood’s designs have been remodeled beyond recognition. Thus, case study home #16 is the only remainder we have of his unique vision in relation to the program. Ellwood was noted for his propensity to use industrial materials and techniques for residential purposes. 

But, as this home illustrates, he also had a gift for blending interiors and exteriors. This Bel Air home blurs the lines between the inside and outside by stretching inner walls beyond the outer walls. 

Case Study House #18

199 Chautauqua Blvd, Los Angeles

Architect: rodney walker.

Pacific Palisades was a popular place for the case study program. Though it appears later on the list than home #8, home #18 (sometimes referred to as 18A) was the first to be completed in the area. Overlooking the tumultuous Pacific Ocean, the structure is built atop a cliff far away from the battering waves. It’s also positioned back from the cliff’s edge to reduce the roar of the sea. 

But perhaps the most notable feature of Rodney Walker’s contribution to the program is the fireplace. The floor-to-ceiling double-sided brick fireplace is shared by a living room on one side and an interior garden room on the other. Three neighboring homes, including the aforementioned #8, would join #18 in the case study program over the next few years. 

Case Study House #20

2275 N. Santa Rosa Ave, Altadena

Architect: conrad buff iii, calvin c. straub, and donald c. hensman, year completed: 1958.

While the majority of case study houses being built in the late 1950s employed steel, case study house #20 was crafted from a variety of natural woods. The design team from architectural firm Buff, Straub, and Hensman leveled a decaying estate in Altadena to bring their economical vision to life. The idea was to create a home for young parents who couldn’t afford more than the essentials. However, the home went to industrial designer Saul Bass and his biochemist wife Dr. Ruth Bass. 

Case Study House #21

9038 Wonderland Park Ave, Los Angeles

Architect: pierre koenig, year completed: 1959.

Pierre Konig was a regular contributor to the case study program with his steel framed take on residential living. It was a trend that never quite caught on, but not for his lack of trying. One of the most notable case study houses, the Stahl House (#22 for those counting at home), was a result of Koenig’s lust for steel. 

Case study house #21 was dreamt up as a model for efficient modern living with the possibility of mass production. But it was originally distinguished by a surrounding moat. The home was accessible via walkways at the front entry and carport. Though this property was extensively remodeled over the decades, Koenig returned to it in the 1990s to attempt to aid in its return to its original vision. 

Case Study House #22

1635 Woods Dr, Los Angeles

Year completed: 1960.

Easily the most iconic of the case study homes on this list, case study house #22 is reserved for Koenig’s aforementioned Stahl House. It seems to float above the Greater Los Angeles area, kissing the interminable blue sky with the corners of its flat roof. To create this effect, Koenig employed the largest piece of glass available to commercial enterprises at the time. Furthermore, Koenig worked with the cliff’s edge site instead of against it to create a piece of LA history you can visit to this day. 

The Aftermath of the Case Study Program

While the case study program aimed to build 36 examples of modern living, builders never completed (or even started) several planned homes. For example, case study house #19 would have been erected in the San Francisco Bay area. On the other hand, home #27 wouldn’t have even been in California. It was marked to be constructed in Smoke Rise, New Jersey. 

The majority of LA’s remaining case study houses are private residences, yet two remain open to public tours. The Eames and Stahl Houses can be visited by scheduling a tour through their respective websites. 

Will we ever see another age of innovation like the case study houses commissioned by Arts & Architecture magazine? It’s hard to say, but we hope it doesn’t take us another war to get there. 

Seth Styles

• Seth Styles https://www.johnhartrealestate.com/blog/author/sethjhhre-com/ Los Angeles Architecture 101: Spanish Colonial Revival Architecture
• Seth Styles https://www.johnhartrealestate.com/blog/author/sethjhhre-com/ Top Billing Entertainment is Choreographing the Future of Theater from Glendora Village
• Seth Styles https://www.johnhartrealestate.com/blog/author/sethjhhre-com/ Will a Las Vegas Firm’s AI Agent Change the Way We Use Real Estate Agencies?
• Seth Styles https://www.johnhartrealestate.com/blog/author/sethjhhre-com/ Hollywood Forever Cemetery Events Breathe Life Into the Unlikeliest of Places

About Seth Styles

Leave a reply.

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

The Case Study House 3

Today I will share another stunning house included in the Case Study House Program : the house #3.

When the architecst William W. Wurster and Theodore Bernardi designed and built the Case Study House #3 -between 1945 and 1949- focused their attention on maximising the space, make it flexible and affordable to build.

Initially due to be located in the La Canada district of Los Angeles -close to the Case Study House #1-, this house was finally built on a 2-acre site in the former botanical gardens of Mandeville Canyon offering an amazing view of the surrounding mountains and valleys.

Its tranquil location away from traffic and other noises make it very attractive; the house has been built isolated from the other neighbouring buildings in the area.

A unique feature of the house is the separation of the sleeping and living areas with an enclosed patio or ‘living garden’ as it is enclosed within the open living room where the family spent most of its time that also reflected the informal living attitude of the family.

Furthermore, the parent’s master bedroom is situated away from the 2 children’s bedrooms. All of the bedrooms feature their own private entrance. The master bedroom has a private bathroom with 2 toilets, a walk-in shower and a bathtub. The other 2 bedrooms share an undercover garden.

The interior courtyard divides the bedrooms and has large sliding doors, that make it suitable to be used as an extra living area or formal dining room. It includes a floor with terracotta tiles and hemp rugs. Beige furnishings decorate the curtains and carpets in the main bedroom.

Children’s bedrooms provide fantastic views of the valley below. The interior decor offers beige walls with dark green curtains in 1 bedroom and blue-green walls with coral curtains in the other. The green tabacco plants growing on the canyon below provided inspiration for the carpets in the lounge. A grey-green ceiling, wooden panels and curtains complete the living room interior design.

Light grey-green aluminium vertical panels with protruding brown roof and large steel sash windows form the exterior look of the house. There are 2 air-heating systems for the living areas of the house and a separate one for the bedrooms. The house is set on reinforced concrete with wire mesh and a 4-inch gravel fill.

The blueprint of the Case Study House #3 certainly reflects -despite the several changes before the building phase started- the principles of the Program as all the other houses. If you want to see more of these amazing mid century architecture icons, just check the previous posts I wrote  about it. The pics come from one of my favorite and complete books about the Case Study House Program: Taschen’s  Complete Case Study House Program  ! Check it out now .

The pics of this article come from the must have book Case Study Houses , a must have for all the modernist architecture enthusiasts.

The Case Study Houses Program: Richard Neutra’s Bailey House

The Case Study Houses Program: Craig Ellwood’s Case Study House 18

Read our research on: Abortion | Podcasts | Election 2024

Regions & Countries

What the data says about abortion in the u.s..

Pew Research Center has conducted many surveys about abortion over the years, providing a lens into Americans’ views on whether the procedure should be legal, among a host of other questions.

In a  Center survey  conducted nearly a year after the Supreme Court’s June 2022 decision that  ended the constitutional right to abortion , 62% of U.S. adults said the practice should be legal in all or most cases, while 36% said it should be illegal in all or most cases. Another survey conducted a few months before the decision showed that relatively few Americans take an absolutist view on the issue .

Find answers to common questions about abortion in America, based on data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Guttmacher Institute, which have tracked these patterns for several decades:

How many abortions are there in the U.S. each year?

How has the number of abortions in the u.s. changed over time, what is the abortion rate among women in the u.s. how has it changed over time, what are the most common types of abortion, how many abortion providers are there in the u.s., and how has that number changed, what percentage of abortions are for women who live in a different state from the abortion provider, what are the demographics of women who have had abortions, when during pregnancy do most abortions occur, how often are there medical complications from abortion.

This compilation of data on abortion in the United States draws mainly from two sources: the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Guttmacher Institute, both of which have regularly compiled national abortion data for approximately half a century, and which collect their data in different ways.

The CDC data that is highlighted in this post comes from the agency’s “abortion surveillance” reports, which have been published annually since 1974 (and which have included data from 1969). Its figures from 1973 through 1996 include data from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and New York City – 52 “reporting areas” in all. Since 1997, the CDC’s totals have lacked data from some states (most notably California) for the years that those states did not report data to the agency. The four reporting areas that did not submit data to the CDC in 2021 – California, Maryland, New Hampshire and New Jersey – accounted for approximately 25% of all legal induced abortions in the U.S. in 2020, according to Guttmacher’s data. Most states, though,  do  have data in the reports, and the figures for the vast majority of them came from each state’s central health agency, while for some states, the figures came from hospitals and other medical facilities.

Discussion of CDC abortion data involving women’s state of residence, marital status, race, ethnicity, age, abortion history and the number of previous live births excludes the low share of abortions where that information was not supplied. Read the methodology for the CDC’s latest abortion surveillance report , which includes data from 2021, for more details. Previous reports can be found at  stacks.cdc.gov  by entering “abortion surveillance” into the search box.

For the numbers of deaths caused by induced abortions in 1963 and 1965, this analysis looks at reports by the then-U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, a precursor to the Department of Health and Human Services. In computing those figures, we excluded abortions listed in the report under the categories “spontaneous or unspecified” or as “other.” (“Spontaneous abortion” is another way of referring to miscarriages.)

Guttmacher data in this post comes from national surveys of abortion providers that Guttmacher has conducted 19 times since 1973. Guttmacher compiles its figures after contacting every known provider of abortions – clinics, hospitals and physicians’ offices – in the country. It uses questionnaires and health department data, and it provides estimates for abortion providers that don’t respond to its inquiries. (In 2020, the last year for which it has released data on the number of abortions in the U.S., it used estimates for 12% of abortions.) For most of the 2000s, Guttmacher has conducted these national surveys every three years, each time getting abortion data for the prior two years. For each interim year, Guttmacher has calculated estimates based on trends from its own figures and from other data.

The latest full summary of Guttmacher data came in the institute’s report titled “Abortion Incidence and Service Availability in the United States, 2020.” It includes figures for 2020 and 2019 and estimates for 2018. The report includes a methods section.

In addition, this post uses data from StatPearls, an online health care resource, on complications from abortion.

An exact answer is hard to come by. The CDC and the Guttmacher Institute have each tried to measure this for around half a century, but they use different methods and publish different figures.

The last year for which the CDC reported a yearly national total for abortions is 2021. It found there were 625,978 abortions in the District of Columbia and the 46 states with available data that year, up from 597,355 in those states and D.C. in 2020. The corresponding figure for 2019 was 607,720.

The last year for which Guttmacher reported a yearly national total was 2020. It said there were 930,160 abortions that year in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, compared with 916,460 in 2019.

• How the CDC gets its data: It compiles figures that are voluntarily reported by states’ central health agencies, including separate figures for New York City and the District of Columbia. Its latest totals do not include figures from California, Maryland, New Hampshire or New Jersey, which did not report data to the CDC. ( Read the methodology from the latest CDC report .)
• How Guttmacher gets its data: It compiles its figures after contacting every known abortion provider – clinics, hospitals and physicians’ offices – in the country. It uses questionnaires and health department data, then provides estimates for abortion providers that don’t respond. Guttmacher’s figures are higher than the CDC’s in part because they include data (and in some instances, estimates) from all 50 states. ( Read the institute’s latest full report and methodology .)

While the Guttmacher Institute supports abortion rights, its empirical data on abortions in the U.S. has been widely cited by  groups  and  publications  across the political spectrum, including by a  number of those  that  disagree with its positions .

These estimates from Guttmacher and the CDC are results of multiyear efforts to collect data on abortion across the U.S. Last year, Guttmacher also began publishing less precise estimates every few months , based on a much smaller sample of providers.

The figures reported by these organizations include only legal induced abortions conducted by clinics, hospitals or physicians’ offices, or those that make use of abortion pills dispensed from certified facilities such as clinics or physicians’ offices. They do not account for the use of abortion pills that were obtained  outside of clinical settings .

(Back to top)

The annual number of U.S. abortions rose for years after Roe v. Wade legalized the procedure in 1973, reaching its highest levels around the late 1980s and early 1990s, according to both the CDC and Guttmacher. Since then, abortions have generally decreased at what a CDC analysis called  “a slow yet steady pace.”

Guttmacher says the number of abortions occurring in the U.S. in 2020 was 40% lower than it was in 1991. According to the CDC, the number was 36% lower in 2021 than in 1991, looking just at the District of Columbia and the 46 states that reported both of those years.

(The corresponding line graph shows the long-term trend in the number of legal abortions reported by both organizations. To allow for consistent comparisons over time, the CDC figures in the chart have been adjusted to ensure that the same states are counted from one year to the next. Using that approach, the CDC figure for 2021 is 622,108 legal abortions.)

There have been occasional breaks in this long-term pattern of decline – during the middle of the first decade of the 2000s, and then again in the late 2010s. The CDC reported modest 1% and 2% increases in abortions in 2018 and 2019, and then, after a 2% decrease in 2020, a 5% increase in 2021. Guttmacher reported an 8% increase over the three-year period from 2017 to 2020.

As noted above, these figures do not include abortions that use pills obtained outside of clinical settings.

Guttmacher says that in 2020 there were 14.4 abortions in the U.S. per 1,000 women ages 15 to 44. Its data shows that the rate of abortions among women has generally been declining in the U.S. since 1981, when it reported there were 29.3 abortions per 1,000 women in that age range.

The CDC says that in 2021, there were 11.6 abortions in the U.S. per 1,000 women ages 15 to 44. (That figure excludes data from California, the District of Columbia, Maryland, New Hampshire and New Jersey.) Like Guttmacher’s data, the CDC’s figures also suggest a general decline in the abortion rate over time. In 1980, when the CDC reported on all 50 states and D.C., it said there were 25 abortions per 1,000 women ages 15 to 44.

That said, both Guttmacher and the CDC say there were slight increases in the rate of abortions during the late 2010s and early 2020s. Guttmacher says the abortion rate per 1,000 women ages 15 to 44 rose from 13.5 in 2017 to 14.4 in 2020. The CDC says it rose from 11.2 per 1,000 in 2017 to 11.4 in 2019, before falling back to 11.1 in 2020 and then rising again to 11.6 in 2021. (The CDC’s figures for those years exclude data from California, D.C., Maryland, New Hampshire and New Jersey.)

The CDC broadly divides abortions into two categories: surgical abortions and medication abortions, which involve pills. Since the Food and Drug Administration first approved abortion pills in 2000, their use has increased over time as a share of abortions nationally, according to both the CDC and Guttmacher.

The majority of abortions in the U.S. now involve pills, according to both the CDC and Guttmacher. The CDC says 56% of U.S. abortions in 2021 involved pills, up from 53% in 2020 and 44% in 2019. Its figures for 2021 include the District of Columbia and 44 states that provided this data; its figures for 2020 include D.C. and 44 states (though not all of the same states as in 2021), and its figures for 2019 include D.C. and 45 states.

Guttmacher, which measures this every three years, says 53% of U.S. abortions involved pills in 2020, up from 39% in 2017.

Two pills commonly used together for medication abortions are mifepristone, which, taken first, blocks hormones that support a pregnancy, and misoprostol, which then causes the uterus to empty. According to the FDA, medication abortions are safe  until 10 weeks into pregnancy.

Surgical abortions conducted  during the first trimester  of pregnancy typically use a suction process, while the relatively few surgical abortions that occur  during the second trimester  of a pregnancy typically use a process called dilation and evacuation, according to the UCLA School of Medicine.

In 2020, there were 1,603 facilities in the U.S. that provided abortions,  according to Guttmacher . This included 807 clinics, 530 hospitals and 266 physicians’ offices.

While clinics make up half of the facilities that provide abortions, they are the sites where the vast majority (96%) of abortions are administered, either through procedures or the distribution of pills, according to Guttmacher’s 2020 data. (This includes 54% of abortions that are administered at specialized abortion clinics and 43% at nonspecialized clinics.) Hospitals made up 33% of the facilities that provided abortions in 2020 but accounted for only 3% of abortions that year, while just 1% of abortions were conducted by physicians’ offices.

Looking just at clinics – that is, the total number of specialized abortion clinics and nonspecialized clinics in the U.S. – Guttmacher found the total virtually unchanged between 2017 (808 clinics) and 2020 (807 clinics). However, there were regional differences. In the Midwest, the number of clinics that provide abortions increased by 11% during those years, and in the West by 6%. The number of clinics  decreased  during those years by 9% in the Northeast and 3% in the South.

The total number of abortion providers has declined dramatically since the 1980s. In 1982, according to Guttmacher, there were 2,908 facilities providing abortions in the U.S., including 789 clinics, 1,405 hospitals and 714 physicians’ offices.

The CDC does not track the number of abortion providers.

In the District of Columbia and the 46 states that provided abortion and residency information to the CDC in 2021, 10.9% of all abortions were performed on women known to live outside the state where the abortion occurred – slightly higher than the percentage in 2020 (9.7%). That year, D.C. and 46 states (though not the same ones as in 2021) reported abortion and residency data. (The total number of abortions used in these calculations included figures for women with both known and unknown residential status.)

The share of reported abortions performed on women outside their state of residence was much higher before the 1973 Roe decision that stopped states from banning abortion. In 1972, 41% of all abortions in D.C. and the 20 states that provided this information to the CDC that year were performed on women outside their state of residence. In 1973, the corresponding figure was 21% in the District of Columbia and the 41 states that provided this information, and in 1974 it was 11% in D.C. and the 43 states that provided data.

In the District of Columbia and the 46 states that reported age data to  the CDC in 2021, the majority of women who had abortions (57%) were in their 20s, while about three-in-ten (31%) were in their 30s. Teens ages 13 to 19 accounted for 8% of those who had abortions, while women ages 40 to 44 accounted for about 4%.

The vast majority of women who had abortions in 2021 were unmarried (87%), while married women accounted for 13%, according to  the CDC , which had data on this from 37 states.

In the District of Columbia, New York City (but not the rest of New York) and the 31 states that reported racial and ethnic data on abortion to  the CDC , 42% of all women who had abortions in 2021 were non-Hispanic Black, while 30% were non-Hispanic White, 22% were Hispanic and 6% were of other races.

Looking at abortion rates among those ages 15 to 44, there were 28.6 abortions per 1,000 non-Hispanic Black women in 2021; 12.3 abortions per 1,000 Hispanic women; 6.4 abortions per 1,000 non-Hispanic White women; and 9.2 abortions per 1,000 women of other races, the  CDC reported  from those same 31 states, D.C. and New York City.

For 57% of U.S. women who had induced abortions in 2021, it was the first time they had ever had one,  according to the CDC.  For nearly a quarter (24%), it was their second abortion. For 11% of women who had an abortion that year, it was their third, and for 8% it was their fourth or more. These CDC figures include data from 41 states and New York City, but not the rest of New York.

Nearly four-in-ten women who had abortions in 2021 (39%) had no previous live births at the time they had an abortion,  according to the CDC . Almost a quarter (24%) of women who had abortions in 2021 had one previous live birth, 20% had two previous live births, 10% had three, and 7% had four or more previous live births. These CDC figures include data from 41 states and New York City, but not the rest of New York.

The vast majority of abortions occur during the first trimester of a pregnancy. In 2021, 93% of abortions occurred during the first trimester – that is, at or before 13 weeks of gestation,  according to the CDC . An additional 6% occurred between 14 and 20 weeks of pregnancy, and about 1% were performed at 21 weeks or more of gestation. These CDC figures include data from 40 states and New York City, but not the rest of New York.

About 2% of all abortions in the U.S. involve some type of complication for the woman , according to an article in StatPearls, an online health care resource. “Most complications are considered minor such as pain, bleeding, infection and post-anesthesia complications,” according to the article.

The CDC calculates  case-fatality rates for women from induced abortions – that is, how many women die from abortion-related complications, for every 100,000 legal abortions that occur in the U.S .  The rate was lowest during the most recent period examined by the agency (2013 to 2020), when there were 0.45 deaths to women per 100,000 legal induced abortions. The case-fatality rate reported by the CDC was highest during the first period examined by the agency (1973 to 1977), when it was 2.09 deaths to women per 100,000 legal induced abortions. During the five-year periods in between, the figure ranged from 0.52 (from 1993 to 1997) to 0.78 (from 1978 to 1982).

The CDC calculates death rates by five-year and seven-year periods because of year-to-year fluctuation in the numbers and due to the relatively low number of women who die from legal induced abortions.

In 2020, the last year for which the CDC has information , six women in the U.S. died due to complications from induced abortions. Four women died in this way in 2019, two in 2018, and three in 2017. (These deaths all followed legal abortions.) Since 1990, the annual number of deaths among women due to legal induced abortion has ranged from two to 12.

The annual number of reported deaths from induced abortions (legal and illegal) tended to be higher in the 1980s, when it ranged from nine to 16, and from 1972 to 1979, when it ranged from 13 to 63. One driver of the decline was the drop in deaths from illegal abortions. There were 39 deaths from illegal abortions in 1972, the last full year before Roe v. Wade. The total fell to 19 in 1973 and to single digits or zero every year after that. (The number of deaths from legal abortions has also declined since then, though with some slight variation over time.)

The number of deaths from induced abortions was considerably higher in the 1960s than afterward. For instance, there were 119 deaths from induced abortions in  1963  and 99 in  1965 , according to reports by the then-U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, a precursor to the Department of Health and Human Services. The CDC is a division of Health and Human Services.

Note: This is an update of a post originally published May 27, 2022, and first updated June 24, 2022.

Sign up for our weekly newsletter

Fresh data delivered Saturday mornings

Key facts about the abortion debate in America

Public opinion on abortion, three-in-ten or more democrats and republicans don’t agree with their party on abortion, partisanship a bigger factor than geography in views of abortion access locally, do state laws on abortion reflect public opinion, most popular.

About Pew Research Center Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts .