Category Archives: Schindler

RM Schindler’s Elmer House, 1952 (unbuilt), Siting, part 2 of 5

Siting

“Most of Schindler’s later houses were designed for hillside lots, and were magnificently tucked into the surrounding greenery. This was partly due to the preliminary sketch he drew directly on a surveyor’s map. The preliminary design was to him the vital one; …he wrote that it was “the very crux of the architect’s contribution, his main creative effort.” “ 1 (fig 1)2

RM Schindler’s Elmer House, 1952 (unbuilt), part 1 of 5

Blame it on Ester and Judith

“All of his periods were the result of change in the economy except for the last – which one can hardly call a period because he had no opportunity to carry it forward than one house….. But the presence of so many three-quarter height screen walls is haunting. The (Skolnick) house (fig 2) is essentially a carousel, an open space with a merry-go-round in the middle. …How he would have continued we can’t say.”

Talking with Mr. Tischler, part 3 of 3

Figures

1  Detail of Alsynite scrap in workshop
2  Ceiling, showing daylight coming in from recessed light detail
3  South side, viewed from back of yard
4  Close-up, showing recessed light detail and plastic panel
5  Detail of recessed light at ceiling
6  Wall color as selected by Tischler (left) and as proposed by Schindler (right)
7  View from dining area to yard

8  View from master bedroom to yard

Besides the storage you added on the outside, are there any other things that you’ve changed? I have read that you put the plywood in the ceiling, because the house was too hot.

Yes, that was done after he (Schindler) died. There was one thing that developed. Putting the Alsynite all the way up , in blue, the reason he chose blue is because he was interested in bringing the outside inside, and making everything blue is close. But we had a lot of trouble with the Alsynite. In the first place, the blue started to fade. This was before my wife even moved in, right away. The Alsynite people sent somebody out to spray it. But running all the way up top like that was too hot, too blue, too much. So then we tried several things. We thought we could plant some things like eucalyptus trees outside, where the sun was coming. We never did that anyway. It wouldn’t work. We would have had to wait 25 years.