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Case Study House #9 - John Entenza House

Architects
Eero Saarinen Charles Eames
Style
Mid-Century Modern
City
Los Angeles, CA
Collection
the case study program
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Case Study House #9, the Entenza House, is a single-family home at 205 Chautauqua Boulevard in Pacific Palisades designed by industrial designer Charles Eames and architect Eero Saarinen for John Entenza, who ran the Case Study House Program from 1945 to 1966. Entenza commissioned it as his own residence, designed between 1945 and 1949 and completed in 1950, and lived in it for five years before selling. As the ninth of 36 prototypes in a program launched after the Weissenhof Estate exposition to study economical, easy-to-build postwar housing, it used concrete, plywood panels, metal, and glass to showcase the technological advances of the era.

the building

Built by its own patron. John Entenza, who ran the Case Study House Program, commissioned this house as his own home rather than a demonstration project for a stranger, and lived in it for five years before selling it.

New postwar materials. The house showcased concrete, plywood panels, metal, and glass, materials chosen to display the technological advances of the time and, in the program's framing, exemplify the new automotive era.

One of thirty-six prototypes. Case Study House #9 was the ninth of 36 prototypes in Entenza's program, begun after the Weissenhof Estate exposition in an effort to study economic, easy-to-build houses for postwar residential life.

the style

Case Study House #9 is a textbook exemplar of mid-century modernism as embodied by the Case Study House program itself, an experimental effort to prove that industrial, mass-produced materials could yield affordable, elegant postwar housing.

More on Mid-Century Modern

the architect

Charles Eames, credited here as industrial designer, and Eero Saarinen, credited as architect, collaborated on Case Study House #9 for the program's founder, John Entenza — a rare instance of the two working together on a single house.

significance

Case Study House #9 is individually designated Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument #530, designated April 30, 1991, and listed on the National Register of Historic Places, one of the strongest dual heritage designations among the Case Study Houses.

nearby

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