Blueprints for Modern Living: History and Legacy of the Case Study Houses

Blueprints for Modern Living: History and Legacy of the Case Study Houses traced the ideological sources, context, and impact of this influential Southern Californian architectural movement through drawings, photographs, artworks, design objects, a historical timeline, videos, and scale models. The Case Study houses were designed, and twenty-five built, between 1945 and 1966 as part of a project spearheaded by John Entenza, editor of the avant-garde Los Angeles magazine Arts & Architecture. The experimental program aimed to put modernist, utilitarian principles into domestic practice.

The exhibition presented full-scale, walk-through reconstructions of two Case Study houses—Ralph Rapson’s Greenbelt House (#4) and Pierre Koenig’s #22—and a structural mock-up of a segment of the renowned Charles and Ray Eames House #8. Also on view were household products from the era, other art and design objects in the Arts & Architecture orbit, and six projects commissioned by MOCA from contemporary architects to adapt the Case Study concept for the present.

The exhibition was accompanied by a catalogue.

Blueprints for Modern Living: History and Legacy of the Case Study Houses was organized by Elizabeth A. T. Smith, Curator, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.

The Temporary Contemporary is the original name of The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA.