Rudolph Michael Schindler, Tischler House, 175 Greenfield Ave,Los Angeles, USA, 1949

About the architect
Rudolph Michael Schindler  (1887 Vienna – 1953 Los Angeles) was an Austrian-born American architect whose most important works were built in or near Los Angeles during the early to mid-twentieth century.

About the house

The Adolph Tischler House, located in 175 Greenfield Avenue, Bel Air area of Los Angeles CA.  Commissioned 1949.  The house is geometrically sculptured and makes prominent use of plate-glass, lending to the appearance of a maritime vessel.  As of 2009, still owned by Adolph Tischler.

The house’s front resembles the bow of a ship thrusting forward through the trees, extending the angle of the roof’s gable with a glass and stucco, irregularly shaped, somewhat cruciform volume placed on the front. The steeply pitched roof is sheathed in panels of blue corrugated fiberglass to give the interior a tent-like feel. Unfortunately this material made the interior unbearably hot, bathed everything in an unpleasant blue light, and also leaked during rainstorms, so the owner partially sheathed the interior in plywood to remedy the failed experiment.

The Tischler house’s unpredictable angles and vertical emphasis make it stand out from its conventional residential neighborhood, and clearly mark it as a late Schindler design beloved by the owner and observers alike.

In 1993, artist Adolph Tischler wrote a Los Angeles Times tribute to his R. M. Schindler-designed house and the trials and tribulations that occurred along the long road to its completion in 1949.

Still residing in the house, which had been designated a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument by that point, Tischler had no regrets about living there despite the problems that occurred. He and his wife Beatrice hired Schindler to design a house for their steep hillside lot in Westwood, and the architect responded with an unusual, almost sculptural design that steps up the slope in levels.

References
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reviewed by XiaoLiu