Case Study Houses
The Case Study Houses program ( German case study houses) was a company in the field of experimental residential house architecture, which provided for the design and the construction of simple, inexpensive model homes. This measure was not recently become necessary in view of the housing of the post-war years in the United States, which was caused by the return of millions of soldiers at the end of the Second World War. Was sponsored by the program, which ran intermittently from 1945 to 1966, by the magazine Arts & Architecture. Their editor John Entenza could undertake as a staunch advocate of modernism renowned architects such as Richard Neutra, Raphael Soriano, Craig Ellwood, Charles and Ray Eames, Pierre Koenig and Eero Saarinen. Here, an attempt has been made to develop new forms of living. The Case- Study Houses program therefore represents an exceptional and unique innovative episode in the history of American architecture and had a strong influence on the development of American and international architecture.
A total of 36 houses were designed, not all of which were realized. The first six were completed until 1948 and attracted more than 350,000 visitors. Most Case Study Houses were built in the greater Los Angeles area, some in the region around San Francisco, and one in Phoenix. A number of them was presented in Arts & Architecture, photographs by Julius Shulman.