MAPACA

Mid-Atlantic Popular &
American Culture Association

This paper tells the story of two houses and my attempts to unravel their histories. It raises timely questions that must be addressed: Where is the line between “high” and “vernacular” architecture? Can a structure move from one category to another and if so, at what point does that occur? Where does a structure reside in discourse on architectural classification if it is neither “high” nor “vernacular” or if it both?

In 2015 I struck up a conversation with a woman who claimed to have been raised in a mid-century modern home designed by Richard Neutra. A bit of quick research revealed no mention of this house in the existing literature on this iconic architect. The woman was, however, insistent, and invited me to Los Angeles to visit the house, in which her mother still lives. I was presented with plans, elevations, renderings of the house, correspondence regarding its design, all signed R. Neutra, and, of course, the house itself. Yet the Neutra Institute for Survival Through Design refuses to recognize this home as a Neutra.

In the summers of 2017 I had the pleasure of housesitting in a house built by the iconic, post-war developer, Ned Eichler. The house had been radically altered in both design and layout. Yet it remained strongly identified as Eichler homes.

Eichler was not an architect, though he hired architects to help design his mass-produced, mid-century modern homes, which were targeted to the middle-class. Neutra was a mid-century modern architect who designed one-of-a-kind housing for a more elite clientele. By the twenty-first century, the Eichler homes were highly sought-after housing. The Neutra house has fallen from favor. This paper presents the story of these two homes and their families’ evolving relationship with a house.