The Constance Perkins House is a house designed by

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 ...

and built in

Pasadena Pasadena ( ) is a city in Los Angeles County, California, northeast of downtown Los Angeles. It is the most populous city and the primary cultural center of the San Gabriel Valley. Old Pasadena is the city's original commercial district. Its ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

, United States, from 1952 to 1955.

Design and construction

In 1947, Constance Perkins started working as a professor of Art History at

Occidental College Occidental College (informally Oxy) is a private liberal arts college in Los Angeles, California. Founded in 1887 as a coeducational college by clergy and members of the Presbyterian Church, it became non-sectarian in 1910. It is one of the oldes ...

and here she met

, eventually asking him to design her home. When Neutra was designing the house for her "he had to reexamine the single-family home and rework conventional patterns of the type." The house itself sits on a little hill in Pasadena, California. "The tiny house was constructed of inexpensive materials- wood, plaster, and glass; a spiderleg beam extended the space by projecting out into a small reflecting pool that meanders through one of the glass walls of the house...He also measured the physical dimensions of his clients. Constance Perkins was a small woman, so he scaled the house to her." Neutra and Perkins worked closely together on the development of the building. In August 1953, Perkins sent Neutra a list of "Likes and Dislikes" with her autobiography so that Neutra could get a feel for what exactly she wanted for her new home. In October 1953 Neutra had completed the preliminary drawings for her house and after approval and construction, Perkins was finally allowed to move into her new home in December 1955. The Perkins house is one of Neutra's smaller designs. It was formatted specially for Perkins and her budget. The house consists of "a free-from pool extending into the living room." Apparently Neutra and Perkins had some disagreement over what the pool should look like. She didn't want it to be of a surrealist nature but wanted, "something relaxing and more intimate." The final cost of the house came to about $17,166, which was over her original budget, nonetheless she was happy with the results. Both Perkins and Neutra were influenced by

John Entenza John Entenza (December 4, 1905 – April 27, 1984) was one of the pivotal figures in the growth of American modernism: in the fields of environmental, architectural, landscape, and product design; and fine arts, and artisan crafts; in post-w ...

's ''Arts and Architecture'' Magazine. The magazine feature a lot of Neutra's work and other famous architects. "The avowed purpose

f the magazine F, or f, is the sixth Letter (alphabet), letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the English alphabet, modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is English alphabet#Let ...

was to present good, contemporary design to the magazine’s largely lay audience and nudge its professional and architectural student subscribers into a truer path. The results were remarkable and A&A’s readers, who held architecture and art close to their hearts, would curl up with a cup of coffee for an hour or so to read the latest issue of the magazine." Perkins saw a great deal of Neutra's designs from this magazine and no doubt inspired her even further to have him design her own home. Perkins' home is influential in modern architecture because of its design and the type of family that would occupy such a space. Perkins herself was a single working woman who had chosen a career over a family. She has requested no main bedroom, but would prefer sleeping in her workspace. She wanted a space "as a domestic environment in which individual creativity and work, rather than family and leisure activities were the central concept."

Constance Perkins

Constance Perkins was born in Denver in 1913. Her father was a doctor and her mother was an invalid. She studied art and got her BA at the

University of Denver The University of Denver (DU) is a private university, private research university in Denver, Colorado. Founded in 1864, it is the oldest independent private university in the Mountain States, Rocky Mountain Region of the United States. It is ...

. In 1937 she attained her master's degree in

Art History Art history is the study of aesthetic objects and visual expression in historical and stylistic context. Traditionally, the discipline of art history emphasized painting, drawing, sculpture, architecture, ceramics and decorative arts; yet today ...

Mills College Mills College at Northeastern University is a private college in Oakland, California and part of Northeastern University's global university system. Mills College was founded as the Young Ladies Seminary in 1852 in Benicia, California; it was ...

Oakland Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third largest city overall in the Bay A ...

. Perkins died in March 1991 and left the house to the

Huntington Library The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, known as The Huntington, is a collections-based educational and research institution established by Henry E. Huntington (1850–1927) and Arabella Huntington (c.1851–1924) in San Mar ...

and Art Gallery in which she volunteered the last years of her life. The house is now privately owned.

Quotes

Constance Perkins's critique on

's book ''Survival Through Design'': *"The greatest enjoyment derived from re-readings of ''Survival Through Design'' may be gained from the unique and penetrating manner in which the author has related the numerous philosophies of eighteenth-century rationalism through twentieth-century concepts of a space-time experience, to problems of contemporary design."Constance M. Perkins The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 13, No. 2 (Dec., 1954), pp. 273-274 Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of The American Society for Aesthetics

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Constance Perkins House, The Houses in Pasadena, California Houses completed in 1955 Modernist architecture in California Richard Neutra buildings 1955 establishments in California