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The Freeman House: A case for the expansion of significance
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The Freeman House: A case for the expansion of significance
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Content
THE FREEMAN HOUSE: A CASE FOR THE EXPANSION OF
SIGNIFICANCE
by
Judith Ruth Marks
A Thesis Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF HISTORIC PRESERVATION
August 2006
Copyright 2006 Judith Ruth Marks
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
UMI Number: 1438403
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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Table of Contents
ii
List of Figures iii
Abstract v
Introduction 1
Chapter 1: Frank Lloyd Wright and his California Commissions 4
Chapter 2: The Freeman House Construction and Form 13
Chapter 3: The Freemans as Clients 19
Chapter 4: Timeline of Change 25
Chapter 5: How the USC Design Team Changed the House 30
Chapter 6: Whose House is it Anyway? 36
Chapter 7: Gendered Space and Significance 43
Bibliography 58
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
List of Figures
iii
Figure
Figure
Figure
Figure
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Figure
Figure
Figure
Figure
Figure
Figure
1: Yamashiro 1914 Hollywood CA. Photo Property
of Yamashiro Restaurant
2: Interior Freeman Living Room Author Photo
3: Exterior Drawing Freeman House Property of
Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation
4: Exterior Freeman House Photo Property of USC
5: Block with Clear Glass Author Photo
6: Photo of Lester Horton by Christophe
Property of Jacob’s Pillow Dance Archives
7: Stojano painting. Photo from an upcoming book
about the Freeman House by Jeffrey Chusid.
Photo used with permission
8: Construction photo property of USC
9: Author Photo
10: Schindler designed Tea Cart Photo from an Upcoming
Book About the Freeman House by Jeffrey Chusid.
Photo used with permission
11: Schindler designed wall sconce Photo from an Upcoming
Book About the Freeman House by Jeffrey Chusid.
Photo used with Permission
12: Living Room with Reinforced Concrete Piers Photo
Property of USC
13: Anchors for Cantilevered Roof Photo Property of USC
14: Gutted Kitchen Photo Property of USC
15: Industrial shelving Attached to Block Wall Author Photo
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
iv
Figure 16: Schindler Pullman Kitchen 1986 Photo Property
of Jeffrey Chusid
Figure 17: Schindler Pullman Kitchen 2006 Author Photo
Figure 18: Schindler Couch in Storage Photo Property of USC
Figure 19: Schindler Furniture in Storage Photo Property of USC
Figure 20: Wright Couches 1925 Photo Property of USC
Figure 21: Schindler Couch 1928 Photo Property of USC
Figure 23: Esther McCoy and Sam Freeman Photo
Credit: Julius Schulman Photo Property of USC
Figure 24: Freeman Living Room Photo Credit: Julius Schulman
Property of USC
Figure 2 5: Harriet Freeman Property of US C
Figure 26: Photo Property of Jeff Chusid From His
Upcoming Book on The Freeman House
Figure 27: The Hallway Author’s Photo
Figure 28: Kitchen 1930’s Property of USC
Figure 29: Kitchen 1950’s Property of USC
Figure 30: 1925 Bedroom Level Plan
Property of the FLW Foundation
Figure 31: Current Bedroom level Plan Property of USC
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V
ABSTRACT
This thesis examines the current restoration and rehabilitation of the Freeman
House (Architect Frank Lloyd Wright 1923) being undertaken by the Architecture
Department of University of Southern California. The project is assessed in terms of
both the guidelines of the Secretary of the Interior, and concomitantly the presence
and influence of the Patroness of the house, Harriet Freeman. Mrs. Freeman left the
house to the custodianship of the University in 1986. Using a gender based analysis,
the paper asks the question: Do the current modifications to the Freeman House
honor and acknowledge the occupancy and contribution of Mrs. Freeman? The
larger question of expanding the definition of significance and its’ implications for
the field of historic preservation is also considered. This thesis makes the point that
the single focus on the purity of a Frank Lloyd Wright design is not always
appropriate, specifically in the case of the Freeman House.
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1
Introduction
A house, more often than not, contains many rooms and it typically
undergoes change over time. The Freeman House, a house under the stewardship of
the University of Southern California, tells many stories. Deciding which story
should be chosen to represent the home’s history today is an awesome and
complicated task.
Sam and Harriet Freeman both came to Los Angeles as transplants, he in
1917 and Harriet in 1919. Historians speculate that they met in the circle of friends
of Harriet’s brother Abe.1 Interested in the arts, left wing politics, and united by the
immigrant Jewish culture they had both left behind, Harriet and Sam were married
on April 18, 1921. Not long after their marriage, Harriet, Sam, or both of them, met
Frank Lloyd Wright. Wright was in the process of designing and building Hollyhock
House for theatre producer, heiress, and armchair radical Aline Bamsdall.
Hollyhock house must have left quite an impression on the newlyweds, for they
asked Wright to design them a home, although on a much more modest scale. The
house was designed for the couple between 1923 and 1924, and constructed in 1924
and 1925. Wright employed an experimental building technique that knitted pre
made concrete blocks with iron rebar. They moved into the house in the spring of
1925.2 In 1928, they commissioned modifications and additional furniture of the
then established architect Rudolph Schindler, and in subsequent years, they called in
another four architects to modify the house. These architects were Lloyd Wright, the
original architect’s son; John Lautner, a Taliesin apprentice, and later a world
renowned architect; Robert Clark, another Taliesin apprentice; and James Reneau,
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2
who installed an elevator for Harriet in 1982. Frank Lloyd Wright’s grandson Eric
took charge of some repairs in the 1980’s as well. Sam Freeman passed away in the
house in 1981 after living there for 56 years. Throughout most of his life, the house
was his hobby. He took it upon himself to become the handyman for the house,
fixing little things that went wrong, building terraces and walls, and maintaining the
grounds. Harriet lived in the home for 61 years gracing it with political and
intellectual salons, objects of art, as well as providing temporary housing for actors,
artists, and others.
Shortly before her death, Harriet decided to bequeath the house to the School
of Architecture at the University of Southern California. Due to structural problems,
poor materials, as well as deferred maintenance, the cement blocks out of which it
had been constructed had started to disintegrate, and the house was in precarious
condition. The 1994 Northridge earthquake compounded the damage, and the total
loss of the house loomed. With some funding from FEMA, The Getty Conservation
Institute, The Graham Foundation, and other sources, the USC School of
Architecture took on the repair and restoration of the Freeman House in 1999. In the
process of this rehabilitation, many of the changes wrought by the subsequent
architects were removed. Most traces of the Freemans’ presence have been erased or
left to decompose. Some design elements rejected or changed by the Freemans have
been recreated, and other schemes have been proposed which have historic precedent
at all.
This thesis summarizes the house’s colorful history, explores the
modifications introduced by Schindler, Harriet Freeman and others, and examines
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
the recent rehabilitation through the lens of a gender-based interpretation. I
consider the implications for preservation and what I argue is the need to expand the
current definition of preservation to be more inclusive by examining the roles of
gender, material cultural analysis, and “changes over time” when developing a
preservation plan.
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4
Introduction Notes/Endnotes
1 Jeffrey M. Chusid, H istoric Structures R eport Samuel and H arriet Freeman House (Los Angeles:
School o f Architecture, University o f Southern California, 1989), 18.
2 Chusid, HSR, 89.
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5
Chapter One: Frank Lloyd Wright and his California Commissions
The Freeman House is an example of how Wright tried to re-invent himself
after the “Prairie Houses” of his early career had run their course. The home’s size,
and materials predated his first Usonian home, The Jacobs House 1937 by 14 years.
Unencumbered by snow-load and huge climatic extremes, he utilized concrete and
cement textile block to explore more fully his notion of an “appropriate” architecture
for the region. The arts and crafts ideals of simplicity and truth in form were easily
adaptable to the plasticity of concrete. Wright’s built structures (as well as his
writing and published designs) had a ripple effect that directly and indirectly affected
modem architecture in Southern California for the entire century.
Wright wrote in 1908
A building should contain as few rooms as will meet the conditions which
give it rise and under which we live and which the architect should strive to
continually to simplify; then the ensemble of the rooms should be carefully
considered that comfort and utility go hand in hand with beauty.1
Forty years later, the proponent of California modernism John Entenza was
essentially advocating the same fundamental idea with his Case Study experiment.
Wright’s first house in California was the George C. Stewart House in
Montecito California (1909). Located across the street from the Montecito Country
Club, on the inland side of the 101 Freeway, it is a prairie house transplanted to the
land of Mediterranean Revival. The prairie house can be described as an open plan
home with a low pitched roof and strong horizontality, reflective o f the flatness of
the American Midwest. This house can be stylistically grouped with a series of
houses that Wright built as summer cottages and with the River Forest Golf Club in
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6
Illinois.3 Wright forgoes the use of stucco and plaster in favor of redwood board
and batten- an appropriate use of material for the Santa Barbara area.5 Wright’s use
of board and batten for “summer residences” was not unusual, for example he
employed this form in the Mrs. Thomas Gale Summer residence (1905) of Whitehall,
Michigan. This also served as a vacation home during warm summer months. The
River Forest Tennis club of 1906 makes use of un-painted horizontal redwood board
and batten as well. Both in plan and appearance, the Stewart House is distinctly
related to the first house that WRIGHT designed for a later California client, the
Millard family in Highland Park, Illinois (1906). Millard’s cruciform plan, the
banded windows, sloping roofline, horizontal board and batten skin and central
fireplace are closely aligned with the design of the Stewart House. Wright did not
create art glass windows for the Stewart house; instead he chose to substitute
redwood mullions. In his essay “The Text Tile Tectonic The Origin and Evolution
of Wright’s Woven Architecture,” Kenneth Frampton erred when he pointed out that
this “forest period” of WRIGHT began with his Romeo and Juliet Windmill of 1896
in Spring Green, Wisconsin and ended with the Glasner house in Glencoe, Illinois, in
1905; in fact, the Stewart House rightly ends his “Forest Period” four years later.4
He later returned to a use of art glass in California with his designs for Aline
Bamsdall and Hollyhock House.
The Stewart house stands alone in Frank Lloyd Wright’s California work. It
relates to Wright’s prairie work in a manner similar to the way that the California
Sturges House (1939) relates to other, later, Usonian houses. The Usonian
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7
experiment stripped the prairie house down to bare essentials, eliminating costly
basements, attics and ornamentation. The Usonian typology contributed to the
foundation for the modem tract home. Wright took a known form and he modified it
(however slightly) to the topography and climate of Southern California. The
Stewart House is linked by program to many of the second homes he designed in
Illinois and Wisconsin.5
Wright’s attempted to develop a true Modem California form in his built plan
for the Hollyhock House (1919) for client Aline Bamsdall, an effort that can only be
counted as a partial success. Hollyhock House is not textile block: Wright used
hollow clay tile to the top of the first story windows and doors, and above that it is a
traditional wood frame. He did incorporate the rancho vernacular (typical early
California/Spanish domestic plan) by placing all the rooms around an enclosed
courtyard, but in his quest for a modem California style, Hollyhock is an important
transitional building. Some of his Prairie stylings remain such as the central hearth,
the wood picture rails and the use of prairie style art glass employed liberally
throughout the house. Gone, however, are the wide hipped roof, the banded
windows below the comice line, and the articulated exterior wood horizontals that so
identify the prairie houses.
The exterior silhouette of Hollyhock House, (and the sub textural reference to
Mayan form) is not, according to Kathryn Smith, related either to California or to the
desert climate. She maintains that these historical references were present before the
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8
client had picked Los Angeles (or even California) as the site for her house. Smith
also states that Wright used these forms in the A.D. German Warehouse of 1915.
It is more probable that the choice was determined by formal and symbolic
considerations.. .In the decades of the teens and the twenties, he took the risk
of creating a series of unresolved compositions to move beyond the
convention of the Prairie house toward a greater evocation of nature.6
However, Schindler who was present at both the design phase and the construction
portion of Hollyhock house, felt that Wright was responding to Southern California
n
climate and conditions with his ancient forms.
The Yamamura Guest House (1918-24) in Hyogo, Japan, includes stylistic
elements of both Hollyhock House and Ennis House. The climate of this suburb of
Tokyo couldn’t be farther from that of Southern California. But the design and
construction were roughly parallel chronologically to Hollyhock and Ennis (1919
and 1924). It is safe to say that Frank Lloyd Wright’s plans for Aline Bamsdall and
the Yamamura Guest House show a move toward a more universal /modem form
and one that was less freighted with traditional ornamentation. Wright perhaps, was
looking for his own approach that owed nothing to the type of modernist design
being promoted at the same time in Europe. What emerges during this period is
Wright’s preoccupation with the compression and release experience of interior
space. The guest house in Japan leads one down a narrow corridor that terminates in
a spacious salon with a raised ceiling.8 The Ennis House entrance from the motor
court is a claustrophobic experience relieved by a two story hallway upstairs, and
both the Freeman and Hollyhock houses squeeze the visitor through the initial
hallway to the house interior.
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The ornamentation on the A.D. German warehouse is directly related to the
use of concrete ornament at Hollyhock House, and in fact, the massing of the
warehouse is objectively much more “modem,” relying less on either real or
imagined historic precedent. It is interesting to note that the design pattern of the
concrete on the warehouse shows up again in modified form in the Ennis House
Textile block. Barbara Braun, in her essay “Frank Lloyd Wright: A Vision of Maya
Temples,” maintains that Wright used Mayan and Incan imagery heavily throughout
the period of 1910 -30, drawing not only on the decorative patterns, but also on the
modular geometry o f the ancient structures. In contrast to Schindler and Irving Gill
whose travels took them through the southwest on their way to California, Wright’s
exposure to Mayan and Meso-American form was probably funneled through the
World Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. As an avid reader, he was
probably aware of contemporary books that published photographs of architectural
excavations in Central and South America. Braun specifically mentions the book
Incidents of Travel in Central America. Chiapas and Yucatan.9 The Mayan form
helped Wright make the transition from his Prairie period through the concrete block
experiment and onto the utilitarian Usonian ideal.
Los Angeles was the site of a sequence of building booms, in the 1920’s
unlike any earlier one. A total of 185 million dollars in new building permits were
issued in 1923, and large architectural firms employed upwards of 50 draftsman at a
time.1 0 Wright’s homage to Meso American forms and exotic outlines were just the
start of the eclecticism that would exemplify domestic architecture in Los Angeles
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10
in the 1920’s and 1930’s. “Yamashiro,” originally the Bemheimer Estate, (1914)
is visible from the roof of the Freeman House and situated just a few blocks away.
This pre World War One House opened the floodgates for legitimizing the
. promiscuous borrowing of theatrical forms for the family home.
Figure 1.
This was Hollywood after all, and the film business fed the fantasy machine
that in turn influenced the architecture. Concurrent with the design of the Freeman
House and just a mile eastward new developments in Hollywood offered Norman
Castles and Hansel and Gretel cottages with a low down payment, snapped up by
hundreds of eager new arrivals.
Wright was fortunate to find a few clients with vision and maybe a little
naivete who allowed him to work out his new building system and revitalize his
career.
The concrete block? The cheapest (and ugliest) thing in the building world.
It lived mostly in the architectural gutter as an imitation of “rock faced”
stone. Why not see what could be done with that gutter-rat? Steel wedded to
it cast inside the joints and the block itself brought into some broad, practical
scheme of general treatment then why would it not be fit for a phase of
modem architecture?1 1
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11
Wright was hoping to fashion for a building typology that would use
repetitive standardized units configured differently for various site and client
requirements. His first use of textile block was for Alice Millard, an antiques dealer
in Pasadena. The second was for Aline Bamsdall’s playschool, located on top of
“Olive Hill” which was part of the complex that included Hollyhock House (1923).
The blocks used in “the Little Dipper,” as it was called, had been modified from
Millard’s house with channels carved out of the sides so that reinforcing rebar could
12
be inserted both vertically and horizontal to create a woven or “textile-like pattern
The Storer house (1923) followed the aborted playhouse construction on
Olive Hill. The Freeman house was the next project built. The two initial sets of
construction drawings date from January and February of 1924. The Storer and
Freeman houses both are situated on steep lots located in the Hollywood Hills. Their
“styles” differ considerably even though they both are of concrete block
construction. According to David Gebhard the Storer house, although radical in
structure and materials, pays homage to the prevalent Spanish courtyard archetype
13
found all over Southern California.
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12
Chapter One Notes/Endnotes
‘Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer, ed. Frank Lloyd Wright; Collected Writings Vol. 1 (New York: Rizzoli,
1992), 87.
2Elizabeth A.T. Smith, ed. Blueprints fo r Modern Living (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1998), 15.
3 Henry Russell Hitchcock, In The Nature o f M aterials (New York: DaCapo Press, 1942), 65.
4Kenneth Frampton, Wright and the Text-Tile Tectonic (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1995), 93.
5 John Storer, The Architecture o f Frank Lloyd Wright (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1982), 160.
6Katherine Smith, Frank Lloyd Wright Hollyhock House and Olive H ill (New York: Rizzoli 1992) 44.
7Smith, Hollyhock, 43.
8Simon, Glynn, People enjoying buildings worldwide, Available from the internet:
http://vvww.galinskv.com/buildings/vamamura/index.htm accessed 18 April 2006
9Barbara Braun, Pre-Columbian A rt and the Post-Columbian World (New York: Harry N. Abrams
Inc., 1993), 139.
l0Kenneth Star, M aterial Dreams: Southern California through the 19 2 0 ’ s (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1990), 212.
“ Frank Lloyd Wright, An Autobiography (London: Longmans, Green and Company, 1938), 235.
1 2 Robert L Sweeney, Wright in H ollywood (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1994), 43.
1 3 David Gebhard, Romanza The California Architecture o f Frank Lloyd Wright (San Francisco:
Chronicle Books, 1988), 29. The Spanish/ Mexican/Mission Revival Style often present an un
fenestrated plain wall to the street while the interior rooms faced an open arcade and courtyard.
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Chapter Two: The Freeman House Construction and Form
The Freeman house was originally budgeted at $9,100 but was eventually completed
at cost of $23,000.'The square footage is approximately 2500 square feet (inclusive
of the apartment Rudolf Schindler added) and the steep lot is about 7000 square
feet.2 The most intriguing aspect of the site, and surely the main reason the
Freemans chose it, is the expansive panorama of Hollywood.
Stunning as the site is, it did not make for an easy construction process. The
original contractors abandoned the project and various people were employed to
make the blocks. That fact, coupled with an inferior concrete mix, led to a wide
variance in block quality. The blocks were not that easy to make.
The blocks were made using aluminum molds. A hinged ‘flask’ contained a
coffered back plate, on which sat a. thin coffered pan used to remove the
block from the mold. Then a dry grout mix was packed into the mold sitting
on a table, and a plain or patterned face piece set into place. The entire
assembly was hit was 6 pound sledgehammer, and then the mold was
unhinged and the block lifted out. After curing on the site, the blocks were
assembled with 1/4” twisted re-bar laid in channels along the edges of the
blocks.
To regain some control over the project, Frank Lloyd Wright asked Lloyd Wright to
be both the supervising architect and contractor.4 To make matters worse, Glencoe
Way was not paved and became a muddy mess when it rained, adding further delays
and cost overruns. Abby Moor, writing in Californian Textile Block, suggests that
“there were 3 types of 16 inch concrete blocks all identical in their construction,”
although Chusid maintains that “The simple system of textile blocks ended up
needing 56 different block types to construct the building.”5 The blocks required
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14
twenty-eight days to cure, and routinely more than one pass was required to get a
clean impression from the aluminum mold.6
The Freeman House presents a contained fapade to the street, opening up on
the south side to take in a view of downtown Hollywood. The style of the house is
less Mayan and pre-Columbian than the Hollyhock and Ennis houses. Freeman
instead is a precursor to the post war “modem “ houses in that it hides its most
interesting features from the street and opens itself up to lot and view, not unlike
Case Study house # 22 (Pierre Koenig 1960). It is the smallest of the “textile block”
houses, also presaging the size of many o f the homes developed during the post war
years. In addition, the cantilevered porches and the glass-to-glass mitering of the
windows at the comers anticipates their later use at both the Richard Lloyd Jones
House(1929) in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Fallingwater, built for Edgar Kaufmann
(1935) in Bear Run, Pennsylvania. This barricaded street fa?ade of the Freeman
House was later repeated in the Usonian houses of the 1940’s.
The design of the house is based on a cube shaped plan played out on two
levels. The first floor consists of a kitchen, living room and hallway. The lower
level as originally designed was made up of two bedrooms, walk in closets, and a
sitting room with a central hearth, and a bathroom. The garage sits at street level
with an adjacent storage room and an open-air pergola under the entranceway. The
roof was accessible but turned out to be impractical for social activities. There is
n
evidence that it was not utilized as early as the 1930’s.
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15
The contrast between light and dark dominates the experience of the house.
The bright California sunlight and the cool dark surfaces of the concrete block play
against each other. That interaction is clearly evident in the living room.
Figure 2
Wright’s most interesting work in the house was visible in contrasts between
the glass curtain walls and the perforated massing of the concrete block. Rather than
using the glass to make the comers evaporate, he contains the cube with the thin
mullions and the square wood blocks in the middle.8 The seams o f the block, and the
mullions on the windows, as well as the ribbed redwood ceiling, all conjoin to wrap
the viewer inside the perfect square.
On the exterior, blocks increase in complexity and detail as they reach the
comice line.
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Figure 3
The patterned blocks are used on all of the exterior edges to delineate the
outline and massive pier that is the staircase well. Pattern versus non-pattern
becomes the sole source of ornamentation, and it is put to great effect by the curtain
windows with an alternating recess of absent block. This is a continuation of the
light/dark interplay so evident on the interior.
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To let light into the corridor, Wright inserted a piece of clear glass into the block.
The question of the origin of the design of the cement blocks has elicited a
range of proposed sources. Jeff Chusid believes it to be a graphic representation of
the site plan,9 while Robert Sweeney denies that it is a depiction of a stylized
eucalyptus tree,1 0 and Judith Dunham writing in Details of Frank Lloyd Wright
hypothesizes that the block pattern represents the plan of the house and abstracted
eucalyptus trees.1 1
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Chapter Two Notes/Endnotes
'Jeffrey M. Chusid, H istoric Structures Report Samuel and H arriet Freeman H ouse (Los Angeles:
School o f Architecture, University o f Southern California, 1989), 12.
2
Chusid, Historic Structures Report, 9.
3 Jeffrey M. Chusid, M odernist Threads:
The Life, Death, and Reconstruction o f Frank Lloyd Wright's Freeman House (unpublished essay,
2002 .) 10.
4
Chusid, Modernist Threads, 10.
5Chusid, Modernist Threads, 10.
6Meryle Seacrest, Frank Lloyd Wright (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992), 291
7Chusid, Historic Structures Report, 21
o
Chusid, Historic Structures Report, 182 The dots or wood blocks were removed in the 1970’s when
Lautner replaced the wood with aluminum muntins.
9Chusid, Historic Structures Report, 144
1 0 Robert L. Sweeney, Wright in H ollywood (New York: Architectural History Foundation, 1994),77
"Judith Dunham, Details o f Frank Lloyd Wright The California Work 1909-1974 (San Francisco:
Chronicle Books, 1994), 59
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Chapter Three: The Freemans as Clients1
Harriet Press was bom in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1890, and moved to New
York City as a teenager. Both Harriet and her sister Leah were interested in early
childhood education. Harriet earned both a teaching certificate from the State of
New York in 1911 and a degree in physical education three years later.
The two sisters came out to Los Angeles in 1919 to be with their brother Abe
where Harriet pursued a career as an actress and dancer. She met Sam Freeman in
Los Angeles and married him on April 18, 1921. Her sister Leah met Dr. Philip
Lovell and married him the same year. Both women were to become patronesses of
famous modem houses. Dr. Lovell, Leah’s husband was a naturopath, a drugless
doctor who was an early advocate of natural foods and nude sunbathing. Dr. Lovell
went on to hire Rudolph Schindler to design a beach house(1926) and Richard
Neutra to create a home (1928) that embodied his unconventional health theories.
These two homes are icons in American Modernism.
Both Sam and Harriet identified themselves as communists, and their friends
and activities reflected those political leanings. Sam would go to the Farmers Market
for lunch where often, conversation turned political. Recollections of Sam’s friends
illustrate how liberal and humanist Sam’s beliefs were.2 Sam owned a jewelry store
in downtown Los Angeles, which he sold in 1938. He was able to retire at such a
young age (49) either due to wise investments or selling the jewelry business and
realizing a profit that he could invest and live on.
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According to interviews with surviving friends and tenants, the
relationship between Mr. and Mrs. Freeman was strained and somewhat
unconventional. They had separate friends and participated in individual activities.
The distance in their personal relationship had developed as early as 1930, as
evidenced by the creation of a discreet apartment for Sam Freeman’s use.3 Harriet’s
friends characterized the home as Harriet’s realm, and Sam didn’t “understand the
house” while Sam’s friends maintained the house was the glue that kept the couple
married, neither one of them wanted to lose the property in a divorce settlement.
Many of Harriet’s friends testified to the fact that Harriet had a long term love affair
with Rudolf Schindler4
The Freemans have the distinction of being some of the longest lived clients
of Wright as well as being among the few clients who passed away while still in
residence at the house.
Harriet wrote to Frank Lloyd Wright on New Years in 1956 or 1957:
Happy New Year Mr. Wright. For 32 years or more, I’m
sure every student you’ve ever had who visits Los
Angeles visits our wonderful home. Every interested
architect from New York, Holland, Ireland, Germany,
Denmark, etc. who comes to L.A. sooner or later comes
to see too. I thought you might be interested in our last 2
letters about you. Will you read them and return them
please. They are nice, aren’t they? Many more
wonderful New Years to you. In case you don’t know it,
I love every minute I spend in our home, and after so
many years too. Thank you. Harriet Press Freeman
(Copyright The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation 1990 )
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21
Although it is not known where Harriet met Frank Lloyd Wright, we can
guess that she forged the initial connection while visiting Aline Bamsdall at
Hollyhock House. Harriet’s sister Leah Press worked with Helen Girvin and
Pauline Schindler at the nursery school at Olive Hill.5 Rudolph Schindler, at the
time a promising Wright apprentice, was brought out to Los Angeles to
supervise construction on the Hollyhock House while Wright was in Japan
working on the Imperial Hotel. He later had a profound influence on both Mrs.
Freeman and her home and furnishings.
The Historic Structure Report prepared for the University of Southern
California by Jeffrey Chusid, includes extensive personal interviews and testimonials
about life at the house, Harriet’s involvement in the arts, and the tenuous nature of
Sam and Harriet’s relationship. Esther Dekker, who lived in the house for 8 months
in 1938 and 1939, wrote to Chusid and tellingly revealed to him what it must have
been like to be in the house with Sam and Harriet.
“We didn’t get entangled indoors. There was an atmosphere built into the very
design and materials of the house which allowed, perhaps fostered, an individual
aloofness.”6 Testifying to Mrs. Freeman’s influence and mark upon the living space,
Dekker wrote: “The living room was not entirely Wright’s. Partly it was Harriet’s
and showed her taste was an original one, not learned from authority.”7
Harriet’s yearning for new and unique artistic expression extended beyond
that of architecture.
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22
Harriet’s early life as a touring vaudeville dancer contributed to her life-long
interest in dance. She was an early supporter of Lester Horton, a progressive
choreographer working in Los Angeles in the 30’s and 40’s. Like Wright, Horton
was searching for a truly American dance form, in his case by incorporating Native
American and modem jazz into his choreographed pieces.
A parallel can be drawn between what Horton was
seeking to do through dance, and Wright’s quest for
a distinctive American built form. Harriet
surrounded herself with artists and artwork. Her
tastes ran the gamut from Pre-Columbian to
Modem.
Figure 6
In the livingroom of the Freeman House Harriet
displayed a painting by the Serbo-Croatian Muralist Gjura Stojano. Stojano was best
known for the mural he did for the Bullocks Wilshire Department store entitled “The
Spirit of Sports.”9 Bullock’s was the quintessential modem department store and it
was emblematic of the age of the automobile. Stojano’s mural was abstract and less
figurative then Harriet’s painting. The Freeman House Painting features a woman
strumming a Koto, a stringed Japanese instrument initially played only in the
Japanese Royal court and was forbidden to women until the seventeenth century.1 0
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23
Figure 7
Harriet also owned a Paul Klee painting that she either bought, or was given by
Galka Scheyer,1 1 a prominent art dealer and good friend. Scheyer lived for a time at
Rudolph Schindler’s King’s Road House and later commissioned her own home
from Richard Neutra, a student of Wright and designer of Harriet’s sister’s home.
Like Rudolph Schindler’s King’s Road House, the Freeman’s home was a
center for cultural gatherings, exercise classes, and political discussions. “For many
years, a wide range of artists, architects, actors, scientists, and political figures
visited the ‘salon’ at the Freeman House. From photographer Edward Weston, to
Xavier Cugat, dancers Martha Graham, and Bella Lewitsky, to scientist Fritz
Zwicky, architect Rudolph Schinder to fashion designer Rudi Gemreich, art collector
Galka Scheyer, to film director Jean Negulesco, the Southern California cultural
landscape of the past 50 years was reflected in the life of the Freeman’s and the
Freeman House.”1 2
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Chapter Three Notes/Endnotes
'Jeffrey M. Chusid, H istoric Structures Report Samuel and H arriet Freeman H ouse (Los Angeles:
School o f Architecture, University o f Southern California, 1989), The background material used in
this thesis is synthesized from the Historic Structure Report written by Jeffrey Chusid for The
University o f Southern California Architecture Department in 1989.
2
Chusid, Historic Structures Report, 27.
3
Jeffrey M. Chusid, M odernist Threads:
The Life, Death, and Reconstruction o f Frank Lloyd W right’ s Freeman House (unpublished essay,
2002.) 9.
4
Chusid, Historic Structures Report, 19. 36.
5 Kathryn Smith, Frank Lloyd Wright, H ollyhock House and Olive Hill: Buildings and Projects fo r
Aline Barnsdall (New York: Rizzoli, 1992), 181.
6 Chusid, Historic Structures Report, 23.
7
Chusid, Historic Structures Report, 22.
8 Clive Barnes, Genius on the Wrong Coast. Los Angeles: Herald Examiner December 3,1967.
Article online available at.:www.hortonsummit.org/aboutus.html#Articles accessed on June 16, 2006.
9
Chusid, Historic Structures Report, 217.
10 Elizabeth Falconer, “Koto The National Instrument o f Japan” Koto World, Article online available
at: www.kotoworld.com/koto.html. accessed on June 16,2006
1 1 Chusid, Historic Structures Report, 219
12
Chusid, Historic Structures Report, 13
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Chapter Four: Timeline of Change
Almost from the beginning of the Freeman’s occupancy (Spring of 1925)
there were changes to Frank Lloyd Wright’s initial design. Some of these changes
were directly attributable to cost overruns. The house was initially budgeted at
$9100 and came in at over $23,000.1 These cost overruns held up purchase and/or
design of most of the furniture for the house, causing the Freemans to turn to
Rudolph Schindler for additional furniture as early as 1928. A series of square
garden spaces and terraces that echo the interior spaces of the home and a semi
circular garden wall were also in the initial drawing but not executed. This garden
design is directly related to the Hollyhock House landscape and may be attributed to
Lloyd Wright.2 Frank Lloyd Wright at some point suggested a wood beamed ceiling
with stenciling, and the use of art glass in screens separating the bedrooms from the
sitting room downstairs.3 Wright also designed a kitchen partition of “alternating
vertical strips of wood and vision glass.”4 It is not known if the clients rejected these
changes or if Wright thought better of it. Wright did design a set of couches for the
living room as well as an octagonal table and 4 lighting fixtures. Two of these
original Wright fixtures are still property of USC. The location of the original
Wright pew style sofa is unknown.
Schindler built a low couch/bed cabinet combination that replaced these high
backed couches in 1928. Professor Chusid hypothesizes that this is when the fascia
from the garage to the loggia was changed from a horizontal line to a stylized zig zag
- giving the house a distinctly Schindler-esque look.
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Figure 9
Originally there were two discreet bedrooms, one ostensibly for Harriet and
Sam and one for Guests. The Bedrooms shared a sitting room with a hearth. When
Harriet and Sam decided that their marital relationship had come to an end, the
physical plans of the house were changed to reflect this shift. Schindler encased the
entire sitting area for Sam to use essentially as his own apartment, with an entrance
/exit through the French doors at the west side of the sitting room. Schindler also
created a Pullman kitchen for Sam to use so he didn’t have to interact with Harriet up
in the kitchen, not that she cooked often. The Freeman’s planted an acacia tree in the
front of the house to try to separate it from the street, as well as “laying loose
boulders along the curve of the street.”5 As told to Chusid, in 1932, Schindler added
the apartment and furnishings where the laundry/storage had been, and added a
bathroom at the east end of the lower hallway.6 In 1938 Schindler changed the
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27
windows in the apartment, installed gas heaters and reconfigured the wall between
the kitchen and the living room. The octagonal dining table was cut down to serve as
a coffee table in 1938 as well.7
Over the years that Rudolf Schindler served as Freeman family architect
o
(1928-1953), he designed over 35 pieces of furniture for them. These items
included stools, armchairs, a tea cart, folding chairs, beds, storage units, book cases,
mobile kitchen unit and tables.
Figure 10 Figure 11
The pool in the front of the house was filled in with dirt sometime in the
1940’s or 1950’s and used as a garden.9 The gas heater in Harriet’s bedroom was
replaced with an electric wall heater after 1950.1 0 1952 brought a second couch
designed by Schindler to the living room. At some point between 1953 - 1955, the
roof and parapets were wrapped in metal due to leakage problems.11
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28
In 1955 the wood frame windows in the kitchen were replaced by Jalousies
and a small work table was added to supplement the kitchen counter.
Robert Clark, a Taliesin apprentice, remodeled the kitchen in 1958. This remodel
included new appliances and Formica counter tops as well as shelving. There is no
specific date given for the remodeling of the two story glass windows that run the
height of the house. Sources agree that it was sometime in the mid to late 70’s that
John Lautner replaced the rotting wood mullions with aluminum mullions. At the
same time his contractor added metal brackets to support rotting wood doors, and
spliced wood onto doors that were no longer closing tightly. At an unknown date, all
the trim and fascia were painted ochre, and various doors were replaced and repaired.
An elevator was added to the west side of the house in 1982 due to Harriet’s
decreased mobility. Some original concrete blocks were removed in the process of
installing the elevator. In 1986 several of the jalousie windows were replaced with
1 9
plywood.
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29
Chapter Four Notes/Endnotes
'Jeffrey M. Chusid, Historic Structures Report Samuel and H arriet Freeman House (Los Angeles:
School o f Architecture, University o f Southern California, 1989), 12.
2
Chusid, Historic Structures Report, 48.
3Chusid, Historic Structures Report, 50.
4
Chusid, Historic Structures Report, 142.
5Chusid, Historic Structures Report, 98.
6Chusid, Historic Structures Report, 93. This date has no drawings or photographs, it is based on
recollections as told to Chusid.
7
Chusid, Historic Structures Report, 210.
g
Chusid, Historic Structures Report, 215.
9
Chusid, Historic Structures Report, 138.
10Chusid, Historic Structures Report, 189.
1 1 Chusid, Historic Structures Report, 99.
12
Chusid, Historic Structures Report, 182
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Chapter Five: How the USC Design Team Changed the House
Since 2001, the team of Jeff Guh, Frank Dimster, and Robert Timme have
completed structural changes to the Freeman House that have enabled it to remain
standing. The addition of a new reinforced concrete has stabilized the house and
essentially anchored it to the bedrock below Glencoe Way. Most of this new
structure is not visible. Steel anchors were put in to support the cantilevered roof,
and the two cement piers on either side of the fireplace were fitted with new
reinforced concrete.
Figure 12
In order to seismicly retrofit the house and add stability it was necessary to
remove many textile blocks both on the interior and exterior of the house. There are
plans to cover these piers with a skin of embossed concrete to simulate blocks.
Additionally, Robert Timme designed a pre-programmed lighting setup that could be
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31
controlled remotely with preset dramatic lighting effects to highlight the fireplace.
The lights were to be installed before the original wood ceilings
Figure 13
were either replaced or restored. A new wood floor and recast cement floor blocks
(plain surface) have been installed in the living room.
Figure 15
Figure 14
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The kitchen has been completely gutted, and industrial appliances and
shelving installed in place of Clark’s kitchen.
The house is currently being used by a visiting professor, and a majority of the
Freeman’s furniture has been removed. The Schindler designed kitchen unit has been
left in the Freeman House during reconstruction and has suffered as a result.
Figure 16 Figure 17
The storage of the objects and the removal of most of the Schindler furniture
certainly reflects the single-minded attention to Wright’s work and the complete
disregard of anything else by those doing the renovation.
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Figure 18 Figure 19
Some of these are too significant to be relegated to USC Storerooms.
The act of storing these memories serves to erase the contribution of Harriet
Freeman and her lover Schindler. They are literally out of sight, out of mind, so
evidently visitors and male academics will not be distracted by the less important
paraphernalia. Make no mistake, the warehousing of these items is a political act.
The notable contributions of esteemed architect Rudolf Schindler both in plan and
furniture have been all but ignored in the current effort.
Jeffrey Chusid states in his unpublished essay on the Freeman House, that up
until it was dismantled, the Freeman House was the largest single collection of
designs for a client that Schindler ever created.1 The non-archival warehousing of
this furniture shows a total disregard for Schindler’s on-going relationship with the
house and the clients. A prejudicial, exclusionary choice by the supervising
architects makes their priorities clear but to the detriment of the house as part of the
legacy that its donor intended.
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Chapter Five Notes/Endnotes
1 Jeffrey M. Chusid, M odernist Threads:
The Life, Death, and Reconstruction o f Frank Lloyd W right’ s Freeman H ouse (unpublished essay,
2002.) 1.
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35
Chapter Six: Whose House is it Anyway?
The historic importance of the Freeman House is not in question here, nor is
its significance in the canon of Frank Lloyd Wright’s work. I am instead interested
in assessing how much of a building’s importance derives from, or should derive
from, the architect who designed its’ first phase. If that is the sole reason that the
Freeman house has merit, then identifying Frank Lloyd Wright’s original
architectural plans and intentions, including his un-built plans, such as the circular
terrace on the south side, possibly it would be appropriate to “restore” back to that
initial vision. I would like to posit that one must look at the house as the result of
the interventions and designs of five architects, but also as emblematic of a particular
time, an avant garde domestic lifestyle, and the contribution of a forceful woman
who substantially influenced the eventual form and to a large extent determined its
use.
The inclusion and consideration of Mrs. Freeman’s narrative does not in any
way lessen the importance of the architect but, instead, adds another dimension for
us to use in determining the period of significance for restoration purposes. The
Freeman House, as noted above, had a long history after Frank Lloyd Wright left the
project, including significant additions and alterations by prominent architect Rudolf
Schindler, not to mention the vibrantly lived history of Mr. and Mrs. Freeman.
A conference held in 1997 at Goucher College looked at the existing historic
preservation laws, standards, and guidelines. The question of significance was the
theme of the conference. Some of the participants at this conference called for an
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36
expanded definition of significance, arguing that a broader classification would
democratize the process and include a wider array of people and their contributions.
The committee, when putting out a call for papers for the conference, published an
expanded characterization of historical significance that I will use as a main theme
for this chapter. “Historical significance should be interpreted as encompassing both
tangible and intangible realms of the past; that it, both the built environment and the
myriad forces that have given it shape and meaning over time.”1
According to Roger G Kennedy of the National Park Service, writing in the
essay “Crampons, Pitons and Curators,” the history that is taught in school (or in
many cases not taught,) informs what is later to be thought of as having
consequence. He maintains, however, that one must start from a solid place and then
extend definitions and context after knowing your starting place intimately. So
without understanding, in our example, Frank Lloyd Wright and his quest for an new
building system, we be would foolish to extend our boundaries and definitions to
encompass another paradigm. “The ground necessary for climbing a cliff or
advancing a culture is to have your feet and one hand upon something tangible,
specifically a place. Then you can reach for the broader context and the new
perception. You can reach out to learn. Without place, specificity, and grounding
there is no continuous culture.”
In the case of the Freeman House, the validity of the house as an important
site is not in question. We are not in danger of losing the house to developers or
having its designation as a cultural monument or its’ national register status taken
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37
away. The question in our case, is more about what has taken on significance
with the passing of time, as well what has gained significance due to shifting cultural
priorities, and how this affects what we preserve and how we narrate the story of the
house. The “marquee value” of the house is that it is a product of Frank Lloyd
Wright’s textile block experiment. Students and admirers of Wright can neatly place
the house in the context of his career. His oeuvre, buildings, and philosophy have
been exhaustively studied. We are, to address Mr. Kennedy’s concerns, starting
from a place of intimate knowledge. It is time to look at additional aspects of the
Freeman House that may enhance both our understanding of the house and
contribute to its preservation. In addition to paying our respects to Mr. Wright, I
argue that we have to examine what has “given it shape and meaning over time”
What exactly within the house has significance? W. Brown Morton, who
classifies himself as a “hands off preservationist,” defines significance as “the
quality of being important.”4 Brown hold that there is an inherent danger in
expanding the concept of significance to reflect trends in social sciences and society
in general. What we perceive as important is as mutable as is the group making
decisions about what is relevant in a particular project, and they in turn reflect the
cultural values o f the society. When a group of architects is put in charge of making
these decisions its values and priorities naturally come into play. Put a group of
Feminist historians in charge of determining what is significant and an entirely new
model or set of priorities is introduced.
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38
“The problem,” Brown argues, “comes when we decide to make that old
place conform to our new understanding of its significance by changing the new
place to match our changed vision. I have come to appreciate just how dangerous to
the ongoing integrity of historic and cultural resources statements of significance can
sometimes be.”5 Brown maintains that taking such statements as gospel truth that
“bend a historical property to conform to statements of significance rather than the
other way around,”6 come to materially harm properties.
Brown’s concern for material integrity and degradation is valid and
important. But he is omitting two major issues in his critique of expanding
significance: one, that his own view is deeply enmeshed in a specific class and
education; and two, the importance of interpretation and narrative o f a particular site.
What is preserved should honor a society’s evolving interpretation of what is
important, without causing harm to the building’s fabric. This is possible through
curatorship, careful preparation of interpretive materials, and the respectful and
appropriate inclusion of original furnishings. The Freeman house presented an
opportunity that in the end was short-circuited by the focus only on Wright. The
prospect of working out the structural challenges and fundamental survival of the
house became the overriding thrust of the current preservation effort. Because over
time, modifications to the house were not done by one architect, and changes were
not approved by Wright, the choices as far as preservation and significance are not
always clear. Representatives of the current steward of the home, The USC School of
Architecture, have publicly stated that Frank Lloyd Wright is the single most
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39
important criteria when examining what is significant about the house.7 It is not as
if a war was waged between the architects/structural engineers on one side and the
preservationists/architectural historians on the other side. In fact, the historians and
preservationists were never part of the discussion, but my point is that there is no
need to take sides. However, I argue that the social history of the house, the
participation of architects of the stature of Rudolph Schindler, and the changes over
time have taken on their own significance.
The opportunity exists specifically with the Freeman house to address just
how much weight should be put on Wright’s work and how much importance can be
given to the additional significant contributions of Rudolf Schindler and The
Freemans. The Secretary of the Interior’s standards for rehabilitation clearly states:
“ Most properties change over time; those changes that have acquired historic
significance in their own right shall be retained and preserved.” 8
Harm has already been done to the fabric of the house in order to “restore” it
back to the Wright’s vision. An elevator installed in the 1970’s (due to Harriet
decreased mobility) may or may not take on historical significance but the removal
has harmed the fabric of the structure as well as put the University at risk for a law
suit by limiting access for handicapped visitors and reducing previously established
accessibility.9 And at some point an argument can be made that the elevator is part
of the evolving history of the home and how it was used. A similarly awkward
situation arises with the pool at the front entry. It was filled in during the 40’s or
50’s and then brought back to life 55 years later as a fish pond. This is in line with
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the Wright’s intention, but does not reflect the way that the Freemans lived in the
house.
For those concerned with the role of women in architecture and how we
conceive of historic preservation, one of the most distressing aspects of the current
renovation is that the culture in which the supervising architects were taught, and
their frames of reference, do not even allow for female contributions to enter that
privileged space of Wright.
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Chapter Six Notes/Endnotes
1 David L. Ames, Introduction in Preservation o f What, for Whom? Ed. Michael A. Tomlin. (Ithaca:
The National Council for Preservation Education, 1998), 6.
2 Roger G Kennedy, “Crampons, Pitons & C urators” in Preservation o f What, fo r Whom? Ed.
Michael A. Tomlin. (Ithaca: The National Council for Preservation Education, 1998), 22.
3 Roger G Kennedy, “Crampons, Pitons & Curators, " 24.
4 W Brown Morton III, “Managing the Impact on Cultural Resources o f Changing Concepts o f
Significance” in Preservation o f What, fo r Whom? Ed. Michael A. Tomlin. (Ithaca: TheNational
Council for Preservation Education, 1998),
5 W Brown Morton III, “Managing the Impact on Cultural Resources o f Changing Concepts o f
Significance" 145.
6 W Brown Morton III, “Managing the Im pact on Cultural Resources o f Changing Concepts o f
Significance” 146.
7 October 20, 2005, Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy Annual Conference, Frank Dimster
AIA, Panelist .Los Angeles Block Houses: Diverse Histories and Preservation Practices
8 United States Government Department o f the Interior Regulation 36 CFR 67. Text o f regulation
viewable at http://wvvvv.cr.nps.gov/hps/tps/tax/rhb/stand.htm. Accessed Janl 1,2006.
9 “State Parks To Improve Access for Disabled” San Francisco Chronicle, July 13,2005.
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Chapter Seven: Gendered Space and Significance
Instead of merely criticizing the rehabilitation and lamenting the non-
inclusive parameters of the work, we can use a philosophical framework to justify
the expansion of the concept of significance. It is helpful to look at this idea of
expanded significance through the lenses of feminist theory and utilize the more
inclusive field of gender based analysis.
As Rendall, Penner, and Borden have suggested, “. ..gender can be considered as
a category of analysis, one which allows us to talk about masculinity and
femininity in a mutual and dialectic relation.”1
In the most simple of summaries, sex - male and female -
exemplifies a biological difference between bodies and gender -
masculine and feminine-refers to the socially constructed set of
differences between men and women. Sex differences are most
commonly taken to be differences o f a natural and pre-given order,
whereas gender differences, although based on sex differences are
taken to be socially, culturally and historically produced
differences which change over time and place.2
Angel Kwolek Folland, writing in “Gender as a Category of Analysis in
Vernacular Architecture Studies” in Gender. Class and Shelter Perspectives in
Vernacular Architecture V. delineates four modes of thinking about Gender as a
tool for analysis in vernacular architecture. She maintains that to use gender to
help us understand the space, the analyst will have to use articles other than those
that directly concern the built environment to understand how we construct our
surroundings. For our purposes, looking at the furniture in the living room would
be a useful tool for understanding both Harriet Freeman and how she used the
living room. The original furniture as designed by Frank Lloyd Wright included
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43
two stiff backed pew type benches that enclosed the fireplace in an inglenook
like fashion. Rudolf Schindler redesigned the furniture in 1928 as a casual couch,
more bedlike than any Traditional sofa, That could be easily reconfigured or
moved, and was more reflective of Harriet’s casual demeanor.
Figure 21
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44
This rolling casual couch was more conducive to the artistic salon atmosphere that
Harriet Freeman was interested in creating.
Imbuing of objects with meaning is the provenance of material culture
studies.
Material Culture, whether our studies are object-centered or object-driven,
can be defined most readily as the discourse o f objects. The object
component of our definition identifies the fundamental material reality of
the artifact. The object has a physical presence; it exists perceived in place
as well as time. The element of discourse focuses on the expressive or
textual aspects of artifacts.4
The material culture approach Herman states “ is not limited to object centered
questions such as consumerism or standard of living but extends to the ways in
which people employ objects in the organization of everyday social
relationships.”5 Wright did not do as much interior design work for his textile
block houses as he did for his earlier work. There were no rugs, dining room
suites, or art glass with the block patterns. For the Freeman House, Wright
designed four square standing lamps, and a hexagonal dining table/sideboard in
addition to the couches. Schindler’s
designs then were a necessity as well
as a design element.
The inclusion of the furniture
completes the picture of how the
Freemans lived and used the space.
Figure 22
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45
This is one factor of their importance, the other being that the designs are
unique in Schindler’s oeuvre, and are better understood in the environment that
they were designed for. There are some items that plainly illustrate the
deterioration of the relationship between the Freemans. Schindler designed a
Pullman kitchen that was placed in Sam’s suite in the comer. This was used by
tenants in the apartment as well as Sam, so he didn’t have to encounter Harriet in
the Kitchen upstairs.
Kwolek-Folland’s parameters for gender analysis give us another approach
to consider the living room space. “ .. .attention to gender suggest that the same
places and social messages may be interpreted by men and women in different
ways.” 6 Where Harriet may have seen the living room as her stage, a place to
show off her dancer’s legs and dexterity, Sam may have viewed the elevated
living space as dominion over Highland Boulevard, and the superiority that the
position of the house has gave him over the city.
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LIVING ROOM AS DOMINION OVER LOS ANGELES
46
LIVING ROOM AS STAGE
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Figure 25 Figure 26
Harriet often gave exercise classes in the living room and called it “the most
beautiful room in the country!” 7
Kwolek Folland believes that “gender ideologies can impact the
experience and definition of space that can complicate and add to other
meanings.”8 Typical of a male analysis of space is Jeffrey Chusid’s description of
entering the Freeman House living room as a birth experience. “Once inside, the
visitor enters the birth canal, a dark and narrow passage that will enter the living
room at a comer, with ever-increasing amounts of light and view drawing the
visitor onward.”9
When I took a docent training course on Frank Lloyd Wright and The
Hollyhock House, the allusion to the birth canal was also used. The contained
walkway to the front door and low entry ceiling height gave way to “a release” or
birth into the living room. Unable to find a Wright reference to this primal
experience, one has to wonder: Is this a gendered experience? Is this Wright’s
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48
intention in both the Hollyhock entry and Freeman? Or is this a male fetish?
Do women experience this release? Would they necessarily write about it in that
way? Giving birth has such a different set of associations for women. A cold
damp corridor or passageway and the association with a vaginal canal must come
from a male gender based perspective! Robert Sweeney in his book
\
Figure 27
Wright in Hollywood describes the Freeman living room as having “a womblike
northern end.” 1 0
The fourth parameter that Kwoleck-Folland uses states that observing how
dwelling typologies change over time adds to our understanding o f how culture
and dominant ideologies contribute to that change. Not only does Wright’s desire
to create a “do it yourself house” anticipate the needs and wants of the post war
consumers, Harriet’s participation in the design and choosing of Wright as an
architect, as well as her extramarital affair with Rudolf Schindler1 1 all directly
reflect the changing roles of women in America of the 20s, 30s and 40s.
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49
One of the interesting contradictions that the Freeman house provides us
with is that it counters the deeply held belief among feminist circles that “men
own and rule domestic space while women are confined to and maintain it.” 1 2
Reading Chusid’s historic structure report and hearing of his encounters with
Harriet, one comes away with the impression that she was the decision maker, and
Sam’s contribution to the home was confined to building a series of brick walls,
garden paths and resurfacing the terraces in the rear of the structure. This is
significant in that it counters the long held belief of the woman as having the
domestic realm as her only source of power. Harriet rejected the role of
homemaker to go out into the world, traveling, teaching, and pursing political
interests.
The house reflects this non-traditional relationship. Gone is the strictly
private male domain of the library, and the female counterpart, the drawing room.
The plan as it was created was uniquely modem (and compact). What turns this
on its head in the case of the Freemans is the fact that they stopped getting along!
What were once two equal bedrooms and a sitting room became a segregated
apartment for Sam. Not leaving an encounter on the small staircase to chance, he
used the French doors on the west facade as his main point of entrance and exit.
So what was intensely modem in plan and scale retreats back to a Victorian home
segregated by sex and use.
Wright is widely credited with integrating the kitchen into the main area of
the home. The Wright designed Malcolm Wiley house of 1934 is the first time
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50
1 3
since the Colonial era that the kitchen is not a discreet room unto itself. The
Freeman kitchen is a step in that evolutionary process. Divesting itself of the
butler’s pantry, which was evident in Hollyhock House of a few years prior,
Wright has reduced the kitchen to the bare elements needed to provide a meal.
Figure 29
Even the size and configuration of the kitchen reflects Mrs. Freeman’s
dislike of domestic duties. It also illustrates the fact that the Freemans did not
have servants. In the original plan, Wright had designed a wall that contained “a
series of panels and doors, whose result was to make the barrier between the two
rooms as programmatically transparent as possible”1 4 Wright had designed an
octagonal table that served as both a side board and a work surface. That table
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51
was cut down and used as a coffee table and was replaced by a square table
possibly designed by Schindler. The footprint of the kitchen remains the same,
but more than any other room in the Freeman House it has undergone many
changes over time.
When one includes the Freemans experience in the house (including the
way they used the house and their employment of furniture etc.) a deeper
understanding of program, historical context, and structure emerge. This in turn
deepens the relevancy of a preservation plan and the resultant curatorship of the
home.
The institutional exclusion of women’s contributions in various fields is
anything but new. “The structural sexism of most academic disciplines
contributes actively to the production and perpetuation of a gender hierarchy.
What we learn about the world and its peoples is ideologically patterned in
conformity with the social order within which it is produced.”1 5 For obvious
reasons, the field of architectural preservation specifically is now being subjected
to the type of investigations that Linda Nochlin and others were making in art
history in the early 1970’s. As new architectural historians and preservation
professionals are being trained, the old sexist modalities are glaringly revealed for
what they are: exclusionary and distortions of the truth.
The field of Historic Preservation is in a transformational phase. Using
Gerder Lemer’s framework for looking at women’s history, Leslie N. Sharp writes
that the preservation field is currently in transition between the first two stages of
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52
development. The first stage is called “compensatory history,” which is largely
biographical, and examines the lives of specific women and their contributions. In
preservation, that stage reflects identification of properties associated with famous
women. An example of a property in California that fulfills that criteria is The
Berkeley Women’s City Club designed by Julia Morgan in 1929, listed as both a
California State landmark and on the National Register.
The second stage as outlined by Lemer is one of “contributory history.”
This stage “...focuses on women’s contributions to already accepted aspects of
traditional history, such as the abolition movement, industrialization, urbanization
and Progressivism.” 1 6 This second stage of significance is exemplified by the
placement of the Amelia Bloomer House in Seneca Falls, New York on the
National Register. In addition, what is even more applicable to the Freeman
House is where Sharp feels that the larger field of women’s history has
progressed. “Women’s history, as a field of study, has transcended the
compensatory and contributory states to a more complex understanding of history
which includes synthesizing women into the historical narrative and viewing
gender itself as a shaper of history.” 1 7 In the case of the Freeman House, the
property is listed as the Samuel Freeman House, obliterating any reference to the
woman who lived there, let alone that she contributed to the development of the
property.
Part of fully understanding the Freeman House and making it a worthwhile
learning experience for both visitors and preservationists is to see the evolution of
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53
the house as an organic, changing and living organism. The purity of Frank
Lloyd Wright’s design was immediately under attack from the construction period
onward. Cost overruns, design changes, Wright’s absence, and experimental
building techniques were the first hurdle that had to be confronted in just the first
few months of construction. Then lifestyle changes, the need for income, mother
nature, and the aging process all intervened to affect the program and condition of
the house. To “restore” the house back to a condition in which it never existed
borrows from the writings of Viollet le Due but is essentially a lie. This is a
simulacrum, and is more appropriate for a 3D computer simulation that the
physical representation of that fantasy.
Here is one example of how the plan changed due to social changes, and as
of this writing, there are no plans to bring it back to Wright’s intention.
n
Figure 30
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54
ar-
Figure 31
As noted earlier the bedroom level of the house was heavily reconfigured to
reflect the growing separation of Sam and Harriet.
Is this social history important? Does it affect the way we look at he house?
It may be just gendered preference that the male works on the concrete material
aspects of the house; the positivist aspects, and the female characteristic wants to
tell the story, narrate, and ‘understand” the evolution of the house and how it was
used. Maybe that definition in itself is sexist and inappropriate.
Thus, the issue of what is important comes back at us. Until comparatively
recently, “important” was defined in narrow social and political terms, and
it was uncontroversial. Everyone knew what was important: the homes
and other buildings associated with political, military and business leaders-
those who today are sometimes derided as “dead white men.1 8
Harriet Freeman is not well known, or famous. She has not left us with a written
legacy, or films of her dancing and vaudeville performances. She is known to a
few of us in the architectural history world or the Frank Lloyd Wright scholarly
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55
community, as one of the architect’s many colorful clients. Her importance is
primarily in relationship to the great architect and her house. Why should the
changes that she and her lover Schindler wrought upon the house be saved? Does
an occupancy of 65 years justify keeping the physical changes? Does the pre
eminence of an architect like Frank Lloyd Wright overrule all other factors?
Would it serve the house to leave in some of the alterations that were made?
Some have said that the Schindler Apartment is just a physical admission that Sam
and Harriet didn’t have enough money to continue to maintain the house and their
lifestyle. Does it really need to be kept? “If you want to see Schindler’s work, go
to King’s Road!”1 9 The house has become a canvas on to which seven male
architects have left their mark in an earnest attempt at keeping the house standing.
Frank Lloyd Wright was known for resenting those whom he perceived took
credit for his work. His relationship with Rudolf Schindler was permanently
damaged when Schindler took credit for certain systems put in place at the
Imperial Hotel.2 0 Wright had a similar falling out with Richard Neutra when the
young architect opened his own practice in Los Angeles. By slavishly focusing on
Wright, those in charge of the Freeman house restoration are perpetuating the
myth that “the Master” subscribed to; namely the only good work was that of
Wright’s and in turn the only elements worth keeping are those designed by
Wright.
If the textile block experiment is the embodiment of “Organic
Architecture,” the evolution of a design and the manifestation o f change over time
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56
are intrinsic to the process. All living things change as they grow older and to
accept that change - and in fact embrace that change - is part of a natural process,
one in theory, that Wright would have subscribed to. A thoughtful rehabilitation
of the Freeman House will encompass not only technological advances in
structural systems but be inclusive of the elements both physical and narrative that
have impacted the house. In honoring Harriet Freeman’s wishes to share her
house with those who care about architecture, the school has a responsibility and
opportunity to once again make the Freeman house accessible as a center for
cultural activity and learning.
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57
Chapter Seven Notes/Endnotes
1 Jane Rendell and Barbara Penner and Iain Borden Gender Space Architecture (New York:
Routledge, 2000) 7.
2Jane Rendell “Introduction: ‘Gender’ ” in Gender Space Architecture (New York: Routledge,
2000) 15.
4Bemard L Herman. The Stolen House. (Charlottesville: University Press o f Virginia, 1992), 5.
5Herman, The Stolen House, 8.
6Angel Kwolek-Folland, "Gender as a Category o f Analysis in Vernacular Architecture Studies,”
In Gender, Class, and Shelter: Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture, V. E. Cromley and C.
Hudgins, eds., (Knoxville: University o f Tennessee Press, 1995), 7.
7 Jeffrey M. Chusid, H istoric Structures Report Samuel and H arriet Freeman House (Los Angeles:
School o f Architecture, University o f Southern California, 1989), 22.
8 Angel Kwolek-Folland, "Gender as a Category o f Analysis in Vernacular Architecture Studies,"
9Jeffrey M. Chusid, M odernist Threads:
The Life, Death, and Reconstruction o f Frank Lloyd W right’ s Freeman H ouse (unpublished essay,
2002.) 6.
1 0 Robert L. Sweeney, Wright in H ollyw ood (New York: Architectural History Foundation 1994),
75.
"Jeffrey Chusid, H istoric Structures Report, 36.
"Leslie Kanes Weisman, Discrimination by Design A Feminist Critique o f the Man-Made
Environment. (Chicago; University o f Illinois Press 1992), 86.
"Leslie Kanes Weisman, Discrimination by Design, 93.
"Jeffrey Chusid, H istoric Structures Report, 142.
"Griselda Pollack, Vision & Difference (New York: Routledge, 1988), 1.
1 6 Leslie N. Sharp, “Finding Her Place: Integrating Women’ s H istory in H istoric Preservation in
G eorgia” in Restoring Women’ s H istory through Historic Preservation (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press, 2003), 271.
"Leslie N. Sharp, "Finding Her Place: Integrating Women’ s H istory in H istoric Preservation in
Georgia, ” 269.
1 8 Howard L Green, “The Social Construction o f H istorical Significance ” in Preservation o f What,
For Whom? A critical look a t H istorical Significance. Michael A. Tomlan ed. (Ithaca: The
National Council for Preservation Education, 1998), 87.
"Letter dated April 10, 2006 from Roderick Grant to Author
2 0 Kathryn Smith, Schindler House (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2001), 41.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
58
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Creator
Marks, Judith Ruth
(author)
Core Title
The Freeman House: A case for the expansion of significance
Degree
Master of Historic Preservation
Degree Program
Historic Preservation
Publisher
University of Southern California
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Architecture,OAI-PMH Harvest
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Marks, Judith Ruth
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