Gregory Samuel Ain (March 28, 1908 – January 9, 1988) was an American

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

active in the mid-20th century. Working primarily in the

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

area, Ain is best known for bringing elements of

modern architecture Modern architecture, or modernist architecture, was an architectural movement or architectural style based upon new and innovative technologies of construction, particularly the use of glass, steel, and reinforced concrete; the idea that form ...

to lower- and medium-cost housing. He addressed "the common architectural problems of common people".

Esther McCoy Esther McCoy (November 18, 1904 in Horatio, Arkansas – December 30, 1989) was an American author and architectural historian who was instrumental in bringing the modern architecture of California to the attention of the world. Early life an ...

said "Ain was an idealist who gave the better part of ten years to combatting outmoded planning and building codes, and hoary real estate practices."

Biography

Born to Baer and Chiah Ain in

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...

, in 1908, Ain was raised in the Lincoln Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles. For a short time during his childhood, the Ain family lived at

Llano del Rio Llano del Rio was a Commune (intentional community), commune (or "colony") located in what is now Llano, California, east of Palmdale, California, Palmdale in the Antelope Valley, Los Angeles County, California, Los Angeles County. The colony was ...

, an experimental

collective farming Collective farming and communal farming are various types of, "agricultural production in which multiple farmers run their holdings as a joint enterprise". There are two broad types of communal farms: agricultural cooperatives, in which member- ...

colony in the

Antelope Valley The Antelope Valley is located in northern Los Angeles County, California, and the southeast portion of Kern County, California, and constitutes the western tip of the Mojave Desert. It is situated between the Tehachapi, Sierra Pelona, and the ...

of California. He was inspired to become an architect after visiting the

Schindler House The Schindler House, also known as the Schindler Chace House or Kings Road House, is a house in West Hollywood, California, designed by architect Rudolph M. Schindler. The house serves as headquarters to the MAK Center for Art and Architecture ...

as a teenager. He attended the

University of Southern California The University of Southern California (USC, SC, or Southern Cal) is a Private university, private research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 1880 by Robert M. Widney, it is the oldest private research university in C ...

School of Architecture This is a list of architecture schools at colleges and universities around the world. An architecture school (also known as a school of architecture or college of architecture), is an institution specializing in architectural education. Africa ...

in 1927–28, but dropped out after feeling limited by the school's Beaux Arts training. His primary influences were Rudolph Schindler and

Richard Neutra Richard Joseph Neutra ( ; April 8, 1892 – April 16, 1970) was an Austrian-American architect. Living and building for the majority of his career in Southern California, he came to be considered a prominent and important modernist architect. He ...

. He worked for Neutra from 1930 to 1935, along with fellow apprentice

Harwell Hamilton Harris Harwell Hamilton Harris, (July 2, 1903 – November 18, 1990) was a modernist American architect, noted for his work in Southern California that assimilated European and American influences. He lived and worked in North Carolina from 1962 until ...

, and contributed to Neutra's major projects of that period. AvenelCooperative 2008 05 17 compressed

Following his collaborative relationship with Richard Neutra, in 1935 Ain cultivated an individual practice designing modest houses for working-class and middle class clients. Ain was awarded a

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

in 1940 to study housing. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, Ain was Chief Engineer for

Charles and Ray Eames Charles Eames ( Charles Eames, Jr) and Ray Eames ( Ray-Bernice Eames) were an American married couple of industrial designers who made significant historical contributions to the development of modern architecture and furniture through the work of ...

in the development of their well-known leg-splints and plywood chairs, including the DCW and LCW series. The 1930s and 1940s represented Ain's most productive period. During this period, his principled quest to address "the common architectural problems of common people", prompted the implementation of flexible floor plans and open kitchens. In the 1940s, he formed a partnership with Joseph Johnson and Alfred Day in order to design large housing tracts. Major projects of this period included Community Homes, Park Planned Homes, Avenel Homes, and Mar Vista Housing. The Gregory Ain Mar Vista Tract became L.A.’s first Modern historic district in 2003. He collaborated with landscape architect

Garrett Eckbo Garrett Eckbo (November 28, 1910 – May 14, 2000) was an American landscape architect notable for his seminal 1950 book '' Landscape for Living''. Youth He was born in Cooperstown, New York to Axel Eckbo, a businessman, and Theodora Munn Eckbo ...

on each of these projects, which typify Mid-century modern design. Ain also practiced in a "loose partnership" with James Garrott for roughly 20 years, beginning in 1940. They designed their own small office building together on Hyperion Avenue in the Silver Lake neighborhood. Their projects attracted the attention of

Philip Johnson Philip Cortelyou Johnson (July 8, 1906 – January 25, 2005) was an American architect best known for his works of modern and postmodern architecture. Among his best-known designs are his modernist Glass House in New Canaan, Connecticut; the pos ...

, the curator of architecture at the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

, who commissioned Ain to design and construct MoMA's second exhibition house in the museum's garden in 1950, following that of Marcel Breuer in 1949.Denny, Phillip R. (August 9, 2017).
The Architect, the Red Scare and the House That Disappeared
. ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

''. Retrieved 2017-08-12. Print version, "The Architect and the House That Vanished", August 12, 2017, p. C3. In the late early 1950s, Ain's practice was diminished as he was perceived as a communist. For example, in 1949 he was listed by the

California Senate Factfinding Subcommittee on Un-American Activities California Senate Factfinding Subcommittee on Un-American Activities (CUAC) was established by the California State Legislature in 1941 as the Joint Fact-Finding Committee on UnAmerican Activities. The creation of the new joint committee (with memb ...

as "among the committee's most notorious critics." The growing "

Red Scare A Red Scare is the promotion of a widespread fear of a potential rise of communism, anarchism or other leftist ideologies by a society or state. The term is most often used to refer to two periods in the history of the United States which ar ...

" caused him to lose several opportunities, including participation in John Entenza's Case Study Program. Ain also taught architecture at USC after the war. Then, from 1963 to 1967, he served as the Dean of the

Pennsylvania State University The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) is a Public university, public Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related Land-grant university, land-grant research university with campuses and facilities throughout Pennsylvan ...

School of Architecture. He then returned to Los Angeles and died in 1988. Ain's papers are kept at the Architecture and Design Collection, at the

Art, Design & Architecture Museum The Art, Design & Architecture Museum (AD&A), formerly the University Art Museum (UAM), is located on the campus of the UCSB in Goleta, California, United States. Built in 1959, it was originally a gallery for art education at UCSB.University of California, Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Barbara County, California, Santa Barbara, California with 23,196 undergraduate ...

. Gregory Ain is the focus of a long standing project, The Bauhaus Ranch and documentary
No Place Like Utopia
directed and produced by Christiane Robbins and Professor Katherine Lambert, AIA. This film is based on their extensive and rigorous research that maintained that Ain's 1950 MoMA Exhibition House, "Our View of the Future" had never been destroyed as had been alleged by architectural historians. They publicly offered their position in 2015 and materialized this thesis in their cross disciplinary installation, "This Future has a Past", first exhibited at the 2016 Venice Architecture Biennial and then at th
Center for Architecture, NYC
in 2017.

Buildings

* 1936: Edwards House, Los Angeles, California * 1937: Ernst House, Los Angeles, California * 1937: Byler House, Mt. Washington (Los Angeles), California * 1937–39: Dunsmuir Flats, Los Angeles, California * 1938: Brownfield Medical Building, Los Angeles, California (later destroyed) * 1938: Beckman House, Los Angeles, California * 1939: Daniel House, Silver Lake (Los Angeles), California * 1939: Margaret and

Harry Hay Henry "Harry" Hay Jr. (April 7, 1912 – October 24, 2002) was an American gay rights activist, communist, and labor advocate. He was a co-founder of the Mattachine Society, the first sustained gay rights group in the United States, as well as ...

House, North Hollywood, California * 1939: Tierman House, Silver Lake (Los Angeles), California * 1939: Vorkapich Garden House, for

Slavko Vorkapich Slavoljub "Slavko" Vorkapić ( sr-Cyrl, Славољуб "Славко" Воркапић; March 17, 1894 – October 20, 1976), known in English as Slavko Vorkapich, was a Serbian-born Hollywood montagist, an independent cinematic artist, chair ...

, Beverly Hills, California (later destroyed) * 1941: Ain House, Hollywood, California * 1941: Orans House, Silver Lake (Los Angeles), California * 1942: Jocelyn and

Jan Domela Jan Marinus Domela (August 22, 1894 in The Hague – August 1, 1973 in Santa Monica, California) was a Dutch-born American artist and illustrator. ''Johan Domela Nieuwenhuis'', also ''Jan Marinus Domela''Belanger, p. 144 became interested in art ...

House, Tarzana, California * 1946: Park Planned Homes, Altadena, California * 1947–48: Mar Vista Housing, Mar Vista (Los Angeles), California ** designated as a

Historic Preservation Overlay Zone The Historic Preservation Overlay Zone of the City of Los Angeles in California has been hailed by historic preservation advocates for its pioneering program, which designates not just buildings but entire neighborhoods or districts as worthy of h ...

by the city of Los Angeles in 2003. * 1948: Avenel Homes (cooperative), Silver Lake, Los Angeles, California ** listed in the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in 2005. * 1948: Albert Tarter House, Los Feliz, Los Angeles, California * 1948: Hollywood Guilds and Unions Office Building, Los Angeles, California (later destroyed) * 1948: Miller House, Beverly Hills, California * 1948: Community Homes (cooperative), Reseda (Los Angeles), California (unbuilt) * 1949: Ain & Garrott Office, Silver Lake, Los Angeles, California * 1949: Schairer House, Los Angeles, California * 1950: Beckman House II, Sherman Oaks, California * 1950: Hurschler House, Pasadena, California (later destroyed) * 1950:

MOMA Moma may refer to: People * Moma Clarke (1869–1958), British journalist * Moma Marković (1912–1992), Serbian politician * Momčilo Rajin (born 1954), Serbian art and music critic, theorist and historian, artist and publisher Places ; Ang ...

Exhibition House, New York City * 1950: Walter Ralphs House, Pasadena, California * 1951:

Ben Margolis Ben Margolis (April 23, 1910 – January 27, 1999) was an American attorney, best known for defending the Hollywood Ten and the Sleepy Lagoon murder suspects and for helping to draft the United Nations Charter. Career Margolis had a law partn ...

House, Los Angeles, California * 1951: Leo Mesner House, Sherman Oaks, California * 1952: Richard "Dick" Tufeld House, Los Angeles, California * 1953 : Feldman House, Beverly Crest/Beverly Hills PO, California * 1962–63: Ernst House II, Vista, California * 1963: Kaye House, Tarzana, California * 1967: Ginoza House, State College, Pennsylvania

Awards and honors

, 1940 *

American Institute of Architects The American Institute of Architects (AIA) is a professional organization for architects in the United States. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the AIA offers education, government advocacy, community redevelopment, and public outreach to su ...

College of Fellows (

FAIA Fellow of the American Institute of Architects (FAIA) is a postnominal title or membership, designating an individual who has been named a fellow of the American Institute of Architects (AIA). Fellowship is bestowed by the institute on AIA-member ...

)

References

Other sources

* *

External links

www.marvistatract.org - Gregory Ain Mar Vista Tract Web Site

Gregory Ain Model Home Redo & Add On

Gregory Ain - Mar Vista Residence (1948). Recreation in "Second Life"

Gregory Ain Mar Vista Home - flickr set

*https://www.noplacelikeutopia.net {{DEFAULTSORT:Ain, Gregory Modernist architects from the United States 1908 births 1988 deaths Jewish architects Modernist architects Modernist architecture in California Architects from Los Angeles Architects from Pittsburgh USC School of Architecture alumni 20th-century American architects Mid-century modern People from Lincoln Heights, Los Angeles