Remarkable modernist houses for sale in Los Angeles
Remarkable modernist houses for sale in Los Angeles
From mid-century bungalows to coveted Case Study-inspired houses, Los Angeles is the home of show-stopping modernist homes; here, we trawled the internet for the finest examples on the market, so you don’t have to
Lovell House by Richard Neutra
Los Angeles is the cradle of exuberant modernism, from modest mid-century bungalows to dramatic Case Study-inspired houses and cliff-top palaces of glass and steel. In a fraught urban culture where real estate is at a premium and teardowns are often the only way to build something new, the city’s architectural heritage is under perpetual threat.
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Architecture photographer Wayne Thom lived at the Bonaventure hotel for a week in 1977 as preparation for taking one of his most iconic images. To shoot the sculptural elegance of John Portman’s building, Thom woke at 4 a.m., positioned himself on the offramp of the 110 Freeway and readied to catch the sunrise. In the resulting photograph, the hotel’s cylindrical forms rise Oz-like from downtown Los Angeles, the curved facades reflecting the colors of dawn.
“I light the building with sun behind it, which illuminates the clouds,” Thom said when asked how to capture the dazzle of mirror glass. Retired and living with his wife, Aesook Jee, in the San Gabriel Valley community of Rowland Heights, 87-year-old Thom still approaches his craft with well-honed technique and poetry in equal measure. “You are photographing the reflection, not the building. The building is just a frame for the reflection of the sky.”