The Furniture of R. M. Schindler

Modular Chair from the Van Patten House, 1934 (94k)

Schindler Portrait and Biography (86k)

The modern architect who has become the space architect, sees the house as an organism in which every detail, including furniture is related to the whole and to the idea which is its source.

For Rudolph Schindler (1887-1953), "space" was the true and sole medium of the architect. His concept of "space architecture" or the total designed environment is what he believed distinguished him from other architects calling themselves "modern." Ironically, it was not until the decade of the 1960s that the architecture of R.M. Schindler began to be seen as a major component of twentieth-century modernism. Historians now recognize that he was successfully able to address a number of significant design issues often ignored by other modernists. Schindler's buildings, though highly complex interwoven volumes, were produced by using the simplest of materials and methods of construction. And, in the spirit of space architecture, Schindler also designed over 250 pieces of furniture to be incorporated within and be an important element of interior space "until it is impossible to tell where the house ends and the furniture begins." Whether built-in or freestanding, each piece was conceived as an integral aspect of the spatial design of a given building.

Schindler's intense interest in designing furniture derived in part from his early Arts and Crafts education in Vienna, coupled with his experience working in America with Frank Lloyd Wright in the late teens and early 1920s-1930s, and an acute awareness of the contemporary design scene in America. His genius was in transforming the broad characteristics of both Viennese and American design into his own unique expression. Beyond his conviction that furniture should be an integral part of a total designed environment, Schindler's designs reveal a predilection for simple geometric forms, a concern for complex spatial relationships in three dimensions, and a preference for designing to an intimate, human scale.

These features of Schindler's work are presented in this exhibition via actual examples of furniture (originals and reproductions), vintage photographs of interiors, and the architect's original drawings and plans. We begin by showing some of Schindler's earliest projects--the Buena Shore Club (1917) and "A Children's Corner" for the Chicago Art Institute (1918)--which he designed shortly after his arrival in America. Both show how built-in and freestanding pieces helped establish the overall design theme, a principle he followed for the rest of his career. The exhibition proceeds chronologically by featuring some of his major design projects in Los Angeles, starting with the Kings Road House (1921-22), his own studio-residence, and ending with the Skolnik House (1950-52), completed shortly before his death in 1953.