A case of dismal digital housing

Other books about the CSH program

Wouldn't it be a grand idea if the software used by architects to create three- dimensional pictures of buildings was used to reveal what the thirty-six Case Study Houses looked like, especially the unbuilt ones, with elevations and bird's eye views of the inside rooms. This slim, landscape book has a go but fails miserably.

The first few pages describe the programme started in 1945 by Arts & Architecture editor John Entenza then just seven of the total get the three-dimensional treatment, each over two spreads. The first spread has a thumbnail photo of the house (which should have been much bigger considering all the empty page space) and a brief description of what the architect was trying to accomplish, a floor plan is on the right-hand page, turn over to find two elevation images and on the right a bird's eye view. None of these illustrations has any printed key. This fills up twenty-eight pages, the rest of the book has students impressions of what the houses would look like using Building Information Modelling and the last few pages have some technical details and pictures based around Pierre Koenig's wonderful Stahl House.

There are far better books about CSH and the short bibliography doesn't even mention the best one: Blueprints for modern living by Elizabeth Smith (MIT Press, 1998) though two of her Taschen books are included.