Esoteric Survey

The Mutual Housing Association Site Office (1947)  by A. Quincy Jones, Whitney Smith and Edgardo Contini. The Mutual Housing Association concept began with four musicians who, in 1946, wanted to share an acre of land and a swimming pool. At one point, the association had 500 members. Mutual Housing Association was formed as a nonprofit entity. All of the members of the co-operative owned shares and would be entitled to a housing site. After looking at various properties around Los Angeles, they settled on the rolling hills of Brentwood. They purchased 835 acres for $400,000 and the sites for homes were estimated to cost between $11,000 to $25,000. A. Quincy Jones, Whitney Smith and structural engineer Edgardo Contini were selected to design the community.  Source: Arts & Architecture Here's a map for reference. The site office was the first building constructed and was essentially a full-scale mockup. Although not an actual house, the basic str...

Downtown Modernism did not disappoint. There was some great merchandise and word is that attendance was up. I didn't do a very good job documenting it again, but here are some pics. First up is Tomorrow's House from Salt Lake City. The Modern Era with a Knoll+Drake chair by Ladislav Rado and an Alexander Girard table.   Peter Loughrey from LAMA was even set up. He brought Arts & Architecture magazines that all used to belong to A Quincy Jones! I picked up a great lamp from him.  Modern for All  just opened a shop in Claremont Damama and Don. He's actually a happy guy, I'm just not a great photographer. On the other hand, Don Flood is a great photographer. Lisa Cliff trying to hide from me. My space The free bin was fun and thankfully empty by the end of the day. The $10 bin didn't even last long enough for me to take a photo.  Sold out!  I also bought some great things, which will be part of my ne...

This weekend I went to an open house in Ramona for an A. Quincy Jones home that's for sale. It was hosted by Keith York of  Modern San Diego . You might be asking yourself, how did an A. Quincy Jones house land in a small rural community like Ramona ? The house was commissioned by Everett and Elrena Warnes through Cal-Sun Building Co.  In 1948, A.C. Hvistendahl asked A. Quincy Jones to design an exhibition house to meet the need Hvistendahl saw for low-cost contemporary housing in San Diego.  The prototype was a wood post and beam 1,000 square feet home with 2 bedrooms. It's known as the "San Diego" house.  The concept won an AIA award for Builder's House of the Year.  After seeing this article, Joseph Eichler contacted Jones and they made thousands of homes together.  Source: Architectural Forum, 1950 As of 1950, 28 "San Diego" houses had been built. It's unclear exactly how many were built in total. Ke...