Schindler House

This house, initially designed for Schindler’s family and that of his friends Clyde and Marian DaCamara Chace, became a manifesto of the principles that would define his career.

The idea of ​​living in a radically different type of house arose during a multi-day horseback ride the Schindlers took in Yosemite Valley. They desired a house as open to the landscape as a tent, and after pooling their resources with the Chaces, they decided to build a house organized into three L-shaped volumes grouped together in a cross shape. One apartment for each couple—both members also had their own study—and a third to house a shared kitchen, service areas, a guest studio, and a garage.

The house was conceived based on a liberal concept of family, which Schindler defined as a group of independent individuals bound by a common goal who lived together in the same space. Transformed into a kind of avant-garde cultural center, its residents frequently organized social events, concerts, performances, and even political meetings attended by influential figures such as Aldous Huxley, Igor Stravinsky, Serge Chermayeff, Martha Graham, and Robert Oppenheimer. However, the radical principles stemming from this scheme led to the departure of the Chaces and the abandonment of the apartment by a long list of tenants who had occupied it over the years. Among others, the couple formed by the architect Richard Neutra and his wife Dione, the modern art collector and dealer Galka Scheyer—agent of Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky—, the writer Anna Louise Strong, and the composer John Cage, Pauline’s lover for a time. She herself would leave shortly afterward, taking her son Mark with her, due to her husband’s constant infidelities. However, after spending some time in Carmel, she would return to live in the front studios. Schindler would then occupy the two rear studios, so that they shared the house while maintaining separate lives, to the point of communicating only by letter.

Kings Road is Schindler’s most important work, not only because it broke all the rules of house design but also because the concept introduced radically new ideas regarding materials, construction, and spatial relationships. Schindler said that the rooms would become part of an organic unit, there would be few walls, thin and removable, and the distinction between inside and outside would disappear.