"Inside LA's Most Famous House Built on the Edge of a Cliff" | Architectural Digest

For my recurring series of Famous Homes, I wrote about the Stahl House in a post here, back in 2017 (was it really that long ago?).

The Stahl House--or Case House Study #22--was built in 1959 by Pierre Koenig in the Hollywood Hills area of Los Angeles as part of the Case Study House program sponsored by Arts & Architecture magazine (previous prestigious homes in that series include the Charles and Ray Eames House or Case Study House #8, previously here). The Stahl family commissioned Koenig to build their dream house on the lot they had purchased four years earlier.

Recently, Architectural Digest made a short film in which siblings Bruce Stahl and Shari Gronwald share the remarkable story of growing up inside Pierre Koenig's iconic mid-century modern masterpiece, from its ambitious construction and groundbreaking steel design to Julius Shulman's world-famous photograph that helped define California modernism. Take a look!

As Bruce and Shari talk about in the video, the Stahl house has been featured in so many advertisements, films and television shows over the years. Films include "Smog" (1962); "The First Power" (1990); "The Marrying Man" (1991); "Corrina, Corrina" (1994); "Playing by Heart" (1998), where Jon Stewart’s character lived; "Why Do Fools Fall In Love" (1998); "Galaxy Quest" (1999), where Tim Allen's character lived; "The Thirteenth Floor" (1999); "Nurse Betty" (2000); and "Where the Truth Lies" (2005). Television shows include "Adam-12"; "Emergency!"; and "Columbo." The house can also be seen in the music videos for "I Don't Wanna Stop" (2003) by ATB, "Missing Cleveland" by Scott Weiland, and "Release Me" by Wilson Phillips.

Here is a shot from the "Columbo" episode...

...and it even showed up on an episode of "The Simpsons!"

The Stahl House was declared a Historic-Cultural landmark of the City of Los Angeles in 1999. In 2007, the American Institute of Architects listed the Stahl House as one of the top 150 structures on their “America’s Favorite Architecture” list, one of only 11 in Southern California. The house was included in a list of all time top 10 houses in Los Angeles in a Los Angeles Times survey of experts in December 2008. In 2013, the Stahl House became listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

You can visit this historic landmark on guided tours offered by the Stahl House, Inc.
Visit http://stahlhouse.com/ for more information.

Happy designing!

"Architects & Chairs" by Jorge Arévalo

This is "Know Your Chairs" month here at the ol' FID blog and I will be sharing with you a very interesting chair on the 24th, but for now, I want to show you the delightful work of master illustrator Jorge Arévalo. He created a series called "Architects and Chairs" where he puts the architect on or near the chair they designed which defines their individual legacy (some designers have more than one!). The precise, pointy style in which he renders people feels a little retro, perfect for the subject of Modernist furniture. All these are available as prints at the shop on his website!

Happy designing!

Know Your Chairs: The Origami Chair by Frank Lloyd Wright

For this posting in our ongoing series Know Your Chairs, let's look at a very unique classic.

When the legendary architect and furniture designer Frank Lloyd Wright began building his Taliesin West compound, a winter home in warm Arizona for when things got too chilly at his primary Taliesin compound in Wisconsin, he naturally designed and furnished the interiors as well. And his Origami Chair first built in 1949 for the Garden Room has become a much sought after piece of furniture.

Officially titled the Taliesin1 chair and made from a single sheet of 4' x 8' laminated plywood, the armchair appears to be folded much like a piece of paper folded in the ancient Japanese style of origami. Here are the oirignals in situ at Taliesin West!

The chair was briefly in production for purchase by Italian furniture manufacturer Cassina in the 1950s, then reissued from 1986 to 1990 but fell out of favor as being too odd and avant garde. And now, I am happy to report, Cassina has brought the chairback once more with some slight modifications. They consulted original plans and drawings for the chair and removed the front "feet" for a cleaner look, and made the back recline at a greater angle for more comfort.

This classic can be configured with several different wood and upholstery choices and purchased at Cassina.com.

Happy designing!

Legends of Design: Charlotte Perriand

In this continuing series of Legends of Design, let's look at an underrated figure of 20th century Modernism, Charlotte Perriand.

She was born in 1903 in Paris to a tailor and seamstress. After showing exceptional artistic talent in her youth, she attended the École de L'Union Centrale des Arts Décoratifs in 1920 to study furniture design. In 1927, only two years after graduating, Perriand renovated her apartment at Place Saint Sulpice in Paris into a room with a built-in wall bar made of aluminum, glass and chrome. For this design, she created her first piece of iconic furniture: the Siège Pivotant or Swivel Seat.

She recreated this entire room for the 1927 Salon d'Automne, and christened it the Bar sous le Toit or Bar In The Attic. And it of course featured the same Swivel Seat.

This small revolving armchair is characterized by a polished trivalent chrome plated enamel steel frame, and a unique tubular back rest of padded leather. It fit right in with the Modernist room of light-reflecting aluminum, nickel-plated surfaces, and glass shelves.

In a bit of kismet, the famed architect and furniture designer Le Corbusier visited the Salon a month later and saw her Bar sous le Toit. Suitably impressed, he offered Perriand a job and for the next decade, she, with Le Corbusier and Corbusier's cousin Pierre Jeanneret, created some of the most iconic Modernist furniture pieces ever. I covered these in another post here, but they are: the LC-1 chair with its sling back (first photo below), the LC-2 and LC-3 cube chairs (in the second photo below, you can see why the LC-2 is called the Petit Confort chair and the LC-3 is called the Grand Confort chair!, and the third photo shows the Grand in situ), and finally the LC-4 chaise longue (photos four and five), which when taken off its base and placed directly onto the floor, can rock!.

She went on to create other classic and influential designs including the 1953 Maison du Mexique bookcase, seen below in different color iterations.

In 2019 and 2020, the Fondation Louis Vuitton hosted a marvelous retrospective of Perriand's life and work entitled Charlotte Perriand: Inventing A New World. The Fondation noted, "She was an exceptional personality, a woman committed to leading a veritable evolution, or perhaps more aptly, a revolution. Her keen observation and vision of the world and its cultural and artistic expressions place her at the heart of a new order that introduced new relationships between the arts themselves – from architecture and painting to sculpture – as well as between the world’s most diverse cultures, from Asia (Japan, Vietnam and other countries) to Latin America, notably Brazil. Her work resonated with changes in the social and political order, the evolution of the role of women and changes in attitudes towards urban living. She embodied a transition from 19th century traditions towards the contemporary model of the 20th century, scarred by the cataclysms unleashed by totalitarian regimes and world wars, followed by both physical and moral reconstruction."

Happy designing!

Know Your Chairs: The Transat Chair by Eileen Gray

The fauteuil transatlantique, or in English The Transatlantic Chair--Transat Chair for short--was designed between 1925 and 1927 by Irish furniture designer and architect Eileen Gray for use on the terrace at her Villa E.1027 house at Cap Martin, Roquebrune between Monaco and Menton.

Considering that Gray designed her villa to resemble a Transatlantic ship, it takes as its starting point transatlantic steamship travel and the deckchairs used on such ships. It was also chosen by Ekart Muthesius to furnish the palace of the Maharajah of Indore during the same period. The wooden side frames are designed with rigorous geometry, tenon joints and chromed brackets. The seat is reminiscent of a deckchair's sling with a pivoting head section. I will be featuring Gray's villa in upcoming installation of Famous Houses but for now, let's relax in this sumptuous modernist deckchair.

Here it is in situ at the villa.

It pops up in some very high end modernist homes, like this one by Lebanese designer Claude Missir (seen with a De Sede Terrazza sofa in the background, previously here)...

...and this lovely streamlined Belgian chalet by architect Maarten Van Severen.

In the UK, the chair can be purchased in leather or hair-on-hide through ARAM. Licensed versions of the chair are available world-wide through Ralph Pucci.

Happy designing!