We are used to the fact that Hollywood Hills is the most prestigious place in Los Angeles, where Hollywood celebrities live, paparazzi hunt them on the streets, and real estate here is perhaps one of the most expensive in the world. But a little more than 100 years ago, there was a tiny village on the site of Los Angeles. In 1923, the world famous inscription "HOLLYWOODLAND" appeared, from which only "HOLLYWOOD" remained later. The Hollywood Hills are located directly above this sign, and for a long time no one wanted to live on them, because it was almost impossible to get there and deliver materials for construction. When buildings began to appear, and at first they were dachas for directors and actors in Hollywood, they were built in a chaotic manner, without a single layout of the territory.
The big shift in Hollywood Hills development came when automobiles became more prevalent - by car it was possible to climb hills and pick up building materials. After World War II, the Hollywood Hills was touched by a pan-American project initiated by Art & Architecture magazine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_Study_Houses) - Case Study Houses. The magazine commissioned renowned architects of their time to design and build inexpensive, yet comfortable and "efficient" homes for middle-class Americans, counting on soldiers returning from the war. A total of 36 projects were made under this program, but not all were built. Most of the completed houses turned out to be in the vicinity of Los Angeles, many in the Hollywood Hills, where they formed a special agglomeration, because they were not built chaotically, but according to a single master plan.
Generally speaking, Case Study is a term that came from psychology to business. It means describing and examining specific situations. Architectural projection is the study of how a person lives, how he reacts to the environment, and how it, in turn, affects a person. For Art & Architecture magazine, it was a popular experiment with a social connotation, which brought the publication additional fame and wonderful stylish black and white photographs taken by Julius Schulman. As you might guess, the project did not receive further distribution, but the new houses attracted thousands of spectators: people came to see the curiosity.
Case Study Houses included modernist glass-walled boxes, more complex multi-part structures, and even a "flying saucer" with a leg. The main attraction of all these buildings in the Hollywood Hills is the wonderful view of the city. During the implementation, the architects faced a number of challenges in building on the hills. First, complex foundation work takes 60 percent of the total construction time. Secondly, Los Angeles is a seismically active city, there are often earthquakes that damage buildings, so this factor also had to be taken into account when designing. All this happened in the period 1945-1966, after which the project was closed.
And just recently, just five years ago, Jeffrey Eyster was given the opportunity to design 18 more homes in the Hollywood Hills.
The architect set himself the task of designing houses so that they would not be individual buildings, but a single whole. Eister decided to create a community, a settlement, such that people in it would be united not only by their place of residence, but also by something more; so that people spend their leisure time there and communicate with each other in every possible way. Strange as it may sound, for Los Angeles such a concept is revolutionary - there people mainly move by car to different parts of the city, and at home they only sleep. To create a village for all stages of life, closed in itself and self-sufficient - this was new. The starting point for the development of this village was the memories of the legendary Case Study Houses project. According to Eister, he got an incredible opportunity to analyze what architects did half a century ago, to trace in their works the dynamics of relations between a person and his environment, to see how much the traditions and standards that are embedded there could be relevant today, and what could would be changed due to the connection with the modern context.
Jeffrey Eister's project involves the creation of three new streets, along which 18 houses will be located. For house projects, the architect decided to take one structure and make variations of it for plots of different shapes. It turned out 4 types: "floating box", 2 separate boxes, turned to each other at an angle, a row of stacked boxes and a row of boxes stacked on top of each other to adapt to a site with a large height difference.
So far, only one house has been built from this village; construction ended last year. This is a floating box house. It is located high so that the buildings of the neighbors do not block the view of the city - the main plus of the houses in the Hollywood Hills. To make the "floating box" really float, Jeffrey Eister hid the garage building in the hill, visually isolating the house as if it were hovering over the hill. In order to get into the house, you must first go through the underground tunnel leading from the garage upstairs, and then climb 52 steps up the stairs.
Prior to that, Jeffrey Eister had many buildings, but he decided to take a direct part in the construction of this house. The construction was challenging and, according to the architect, he gained valuable knowledge and experience. The first problem that arose at the initial stage of construction was the lifting of materials to the site. Its solution was the laying of new roads, as well as structures that were mounted in another place and then brought to the site - their installation turned out to be much faster, easier and cheaper. It was a great technical difficulty to bring a special pile driving machine to the site, because the streets are so narrow that two cars would not part there. To prevent the house from falling off the hill and not suffering from an earthquake, a special structure was created that allows laying 12 meters of reinforcement, from hill level to street level. In general, Jeffrey Eister believes that buildings should be durable, so he uses durable materials in his houses - concrete and metal.
The finished house has a free plan, there are few walls and a lot of space. The rhythm of the house is set by the system of posts and beams, which gives the box house a more interesting look, as well as the many details that Jeffrey Eister loves so much. The system of racks and beams dictates clear conditions for the rhythm of the house, and in order not to disturb it, even the staircase to the second floor had to be inscribed in the gap between the ceiling beams. Various systems are built into the rest of the spaces, including the fire protection system, which is a must in the Hollywood Hills.
Half a century ago, renowned architectural photographer Julius Schulman photographed Case Study Houses. Many of those photographs of him are known all over the world. In 2008, when Jeffrey Eister's first Hollywood Hills home was completed, 98-year-old Julius Schulman expressed a desire to photograph him. The photographs came out mostly in black and white, as Schulman believes that black and white photography more accurately reproduces architectural details. It is interesting to compare the works of the photographer, which were made 50 years ago and now, the old Case Study Houses project and the new one.
Jeffrey Eister's Hollywood Hills New Village Project is a contemporary response to Case Study Houses, providing conceptual and pragmatic answers to the question: How to live in Los Angeles today? According to Jeffrey Eister, one must live together. And the mission of the architect here is to create an environment that would promote better relationships among neighbors.
