THE VALUE OF ARCHITECTURE

Neutra’s Jardinette Apartments | A Rare Look Inside a Living Landmark LA Forum Tour Saturday, May 30 12–2 PM BUY TICKETS: /events Richard Neutra, Architect Jardinette Apartments, 1928 National Register of Historic Places California Register of Historical Resources Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument The LA Forum is offering rare access to this landmark at a singular moment: an extensive renovation is underway, and the building will be seen while work is still in progress. Hidden in plain sight near Melrose & Western, this 43-unit apartment building is Neutra’s first US project, widely considered one of the first Modernist buildings in America and an early example of the International Style in this country. Designed under the Architectural Group of Industry and Commerce—Neutra’s sometime partnership with Rudolph Schindler—the building introduced European Modernist principles to Los Angeles while earning international recognition. It impressed Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius during his 1928 visit to LA and was later selected for MoMA’s seminal 1932 exhibition, Modern Architecture. Here, Neutra began developing ideas that would shape much of his later work: clean lines, flat roofs, minimal ornament, industrial materials, ribbon windows, and a strong relationship to landscape. Organized around a verdant courtyard, the apartments open to cantilevered balconies, blurring the boundary between indoors and out. After decades of benign neglect, the property has been acquired by local steward Cameron Hassid of Apollo Capital, who has led an extensive renovation with the city’s Office of Historic Resources, architectural historian Barbara Lamprecht, and June Street Architects. Because work is still underway, the tour offers something unusual: the building mid-transformation, its structure exposed, its history legible in ways a finished restoration can sometimes obscure. A rare opportunity to see not just what Neutra built, but how it was built. Presented by @laforum_aud TICKETS: /events Photos: Julius Shulman Archive, Getty Research Institute The Neema Group, Marcus & Millichap Mott Studios, California State Library

Lehrer Architects Michael Lehrer, FAIA, Architect Sunnyside Apartments A new building by Holos Communities Thank you @laforum_aud , @lehrerarchitects , and @holoscommunities for a thoughtful tour of Sunnyside Apartments today. What does it mean to design a home for someone who has not had one recently? This 27-unit supportive housing project by Lehrer Architects offers one answer: that dignified, community-centered design is not an amenity. It is foundational. Conceived as a fully affordable multi-family residence for chronically homeless individuals, Sunnyside makes a quiet but powerful case for architecture as a framework for stability, health, and belonging. The unit mix — 23 units for low-income residents, three for moderate-income households, and one manager’s unit — reflects a deliberate commitment to integration within a single building. As a publicly funded project, every design decision carries a heightened level of responsibility. Here, that accountability appears to have produced not compromise, but clarity: a building that is navigable, welcoming, and deeply attentive to the daily lives of its residents. The ground-floor gathering room anchors the social life of the building. It recognizes something too often overlooked in supportive housing: people need somewhere to be together, not just somewhere to sleep. And in a city where access to green space remains unevenly distributed, placing a garden at the top of a supportive housing building becomes more than a design move. It is a statement that wellness, beauty, and community belong here too. Grateful to @laforum_aud , @lehrerarchitects , Michael Lehrer, and @holoscommunities for opening up the conversation around how housing can do more than provide shelter — it can help rebuild a sense of home. What can architecture do when housing is understood not only as shelter, but as a foundation for stability, health, and belonging? #LehrerArchitects #MichaelLehrer #SunnysideApartments #LAForum #LAForumAUD SupportiveHousing AffordableHousing LosAngelesArchitecture ArchitectureForHousing HousingDesign DesignForDignity CommunityCenteredDesign UrbanDesign SocialHousing ArchitectureMatters

A special thank you to the MAK Center for making this home available to experience in person during their 2024 tour. For everyone else, this is your last chance to sign up for their next tour, tomorrow, 5/9/2026. Visit makcenter.org and their Instagram @makcenter R.M. Schindler, Presburger House, 1945 Set within the quiet fabric of Los Angeles, the Presburger House reflects Schindler’s fully realized philosophy of space as the primary architectural medium. Here, walls do not define rooms so much as suggest them, allowing space to unfold through shifts in light, proportion, and movement. Rather than relying on spectacle, Schindler creates an experience that is intimate and deeply human. Compression gives way to release, interior dissolves into exterior, and the home reveals itself gradually as one moves through it. This is not architecture as object, but as atmosphere, a quiet yet profound reminder that the true power of design lies not in what is built, but in how it is experienced. Video collaboration with Brian Linder, AIA, Mark H. Mendez Architecture Brokers THE VALUE OF ARCHITECTURE @thevalueofarchitecture @markhmendez #architecture #rmschindler #midcentury #midcenturyhome

Nearly lost. Carefully recovered. The Van Dekker House, designed by R. M. Schindler in 1940 for actor Albert Van Dekker, is one of those rare works where ambition and intimacy occupy the same frame. Set in Woodland Hills, the house is unusually large for Schindler — but never loose. Every move feels considered: the diagonal siting, the layered volumes, the dramatic two-story living room, the built-ins, the clerestory light, the sliding wood windows, the transition from compression to release. And then there is the roof — an asymmetrical copper form unlike anything else in Schindler’s residential work. For years, the house sat vulnerable. Water intrusion, missing roof panels, boarded windows, deferred maintenance. Its future was anything but certain. What followed was not a reinvention, but an act of stewardship. The house was protected, repaired, and allowed to speak again — with its original ideas intact. A reminder that great architecture does not simply survive by accident. It survives when someone gets it. Van Dekker House R. M. Schindler, Architect Woodland Hills, California 3 Bed |2 Bath | 1,800 SF |20,393 SF Lot Offered at $4,500,000 Listed by Benjamin Khale | Compass @historic_realestate_la Desiree Suckerman | Rodeo Realty @dzhomes Considering this property? Brian and I would be happy to help represent you in the purchase. @thevalueofarchitecture @markhmendez THE VALUE OF ARCHITECTURE Properties With Design Integrity. #RMSchindler #RudolphSchindler #VanDekkerHouse #SchindlerHouse #WoodlandHills #LosAngelesArchitecture #ModernistArchitecture #HistoricPreservation #ArchitecturalRestoration #SouthernCaliforniaModernism #MidCenturyModern #TheValueOfArchitecture

John Lautner, Architect The Mauer House , 1947 Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument No. 481 Mt. Washington Perched into the hillside above Los Angeles, the Mauer House is one of John Lautner’s earliest explorations of space as architecture’s primary force. Conceived less as a conventional home and more as a “warehouse of space,” the design prioritizes volume, openness, light, and structure over traditional domestic form. Today, the house sits in a state of visible neglect. Years of deferred maintenance have obscured, but not erased, Lautner’s original intent. Beneath the layers, the spatial clarity remains. There is something uniquely powerful about encountering architecture in this condition. Stripped of polish and perfection, the core ideas become legible again. Structure, proportion, and light reassert themselves as the primary language. With early efforts now underway to restore the home, the Mauer House stands at a critical moment, caught between deterioration and renewal. It raises an important question for our time: how do we steward architecture that was never meant to be ordinary? Video Collaboration Brian Linder, AIA Mark H. Mendez Architecture Brokers THE VALUE OF ARCHITECTURE @thevalueofarchitecture @markhmendez COMPASS If you appreciate architect-designed homes like this one, follow @thevalueofarchitecture and @markhmendez to explore more significant architecture across Los Angeles. We get it! Special thanks to Sian Winship, John Berley, Lilian Pfaff and the SAH/SCC for arranging this wonderful tour and talk at the property last Saturday, and to the Mauer family for allowing access. @sianwinship @lilianpfaff @sahscc Thanks to architect Frank Escher, of The Lautner Foundation, grandson David Mauer, and his father Dr. Mauer, for such an interesting and informative discussion. @egarchla @lautnerfoundation @dmauer1 Good luck to David and his girlfriend Elizabeth, who are undertaking a monumental restoration and rehabilitation of this special property. @dmauer1 @elizbethgodley #johnlautner #lautner #mauerhouse #mountwashington #losangelesarchitecture midcenturymodern midcenturyhome modernistarchitecture architecture mcm

A rare early residence by Frank Gehry has changed hands in Thousand Oaks, California, ending nearly four decades of ownership by original client Mark Peterson. Completed in 1988, the Sirmai-Peterson House captures a pivotal moment in Gehry’s domestic work, translating his interest in fragmentation and formal autonomy into a secluded hillside residence composed as a loose cluster of individual volumes rather than a singular house. Organized around a central courtyard, the 4,512-square-foot project requires occupants to move through exterior space between rooms, reinforcing a close relationship to the oak-covered site. Materials remain characteristically restrained — stucco, galvanized metal, concrete block, exposed framing, and unfinished interiors — giving the house the experimental edge associated with Gehry’s residential work of the 1980s. The property was listed by Brian Linder @brian__linder and Rick Grahn @rickgrahn1 of LA-based The Value Of Architecture @thevalueofarchitecture . Avid readers will remember our conversation with Linder, who created a massive following with his video tours of stunning Southern California homes, in our Archinect Meets series. 📷 Cameron Carothers @carothersphoto #Archinect #ArchinectProjects #Architecture #FrankGehry #LosAngelesArchitecture

John Lautner’s Jacobsen House, 1948 Perched lightly on its site, the Jacobsen House distills Lautner’s enduring pursuit of freedom in form and space. Structure dissolves into landscape as glass, wood, and concrete extend outward, framing the horizon while grounding the home in its terrain. Here, architecture is not imposed, but revealed, an orchestration of light, material, and geometry that blurs the boundary between shelter and nature. Special thanks to the MAK Center (@makcenter ) for organizing this tour and making this wonderful home accessible to the public. If you’d like to visit architecturally significant homes like this, the Mak Center has another tour coming up on Saturday, May 9. Visit the link in their bio to purchase tickets. Video collab with Brian Linder, AIA and Mark H. Mendez Architecture Brokers THE VALUE OF ARCHITECTURE @thevalueofarchitecture @markhmendez COMPASS

FREE ARCHITECTURE TOURS THIS WEEK! • OPEN TUESDAY (Today) 11 AM – 2 PM • OPEN SUNDAY 2 – 5 PM Set within Crestwood Hills, the Gelb House reads as a disciplined response to postwar housing—architecture reduced to its necessary elements and tuned for daily life. Completed in 1950, the composition is exacting. A post-and-beam framework establishes order and legibility, allowing light, structure, and material to operate without distraction. Proportion governs everything. The sequence is carefully controlled—an understated entry gives way to an open living volume, where interior space extends outward and remains in constant dialogue with the site. Ridge skylights introduce an even, calibrated light, setting a steady rhythm across the day. What distinguishes the house is not just its clarity, but its continuity. Held by a single family for decades, the original intent remains intact. The recent work by Bruce Norelius Studio is measured and precise—an act of stewardship rather than revision. In a landscape where mid-century is often reduced to image, the Gelb House holds to first principles—clear, restrained, and exact. A. Quincy Jones & Whitney R. Smith, Architects The Morris & Lydia Gelb House, 1950 Rehabilitation by Bruce Norelius, 2014 LA Historic-Cultural Monument No. 1332 12450 Rochedale Lane Los Angeles 3 BD | 2 BA 1,197 SF | 14,068 SF Lot $1,995,000 Represented by Brian Linder, AIA THE VALUE OF ARCHITECTURE Photography: ©Tim Street-Porter @timstreetporter @timstreetporteragency Restoration: @brucenorelius #midcenturymodern #losangelesarchitecture #aquincyjones #crestwoodhills #postandbeam

Hidden away on a leafy estate in Thousand Oaks, north-west of Los Angeles, the Sirmai-Peterson house by Frank Gehry and Greg Walsh emerges as a cluster of cubes with a towering lantern, set against softly rolling terrain and reflected in a tranquil pond. Created in the mid 1980s, the house is defined by a basic material palette of concrete blocks, stucco and Douglas fir, with accents of galvanised aluminium, a quiet counterpoint to its picturesque neighbours. Set on a gentle slope, steps lead down to a spacious living room and on to a second-bedroom pavilion, while expansive windows frame oaks and olive trees, letting light filter in from above. Through its shifting geometry, the plan unfolds as a cinematic experience of changing perspectives, where each room feels like a little house in itself, revealing a complexity that continues to surprise. Little noticed when new, and long overshadowed by later masterpieces, the house, which recently changed hands through @thevalueofarchitecture , now takes its place within the rich legacy of modernism in southern California. Read more about this early Gehry project via the link in bio or at wallpaper.com. 📷: @carothersphoto 🖊: Michael Webb

Set within Crestwood Hills, the Gelb House articulates a disciplined vision of postwar living—where architecture is reduced to structure, proportion, and light, and nothing more. Completed in 1950, the composition is exacting but unforced. A clear post-and-beam framework orders the plan, allowing Douglas fir, concrete block, and redwood to register with quiet precision. There is no applied gesture—only the inherent logic of materials doing their work. The sequence unfolds with intention. A modest entry gives way to an expanded living volume, where the ceiling lifts and the landscape becomes continuous with the interior. Light enters from above along the ridge, evenly dispersed, shaping space without dramatics. Its durability lies in the persistence of that original discipline. Held by one family for generations, the house avoided dilution. The restoration by Bruce Norelius Studio is measured and exact—less an update than a continuation of the same architectural thinking. A. Quincy Jones & Whitney R. Smith, Architects The Morris & Lydia Gelb House, 1950 Rehabilitation by Bruce Norelius, 2014 LA Historic-Cultural Monument No. 1332 12450 Rochedale Lane Los Angeles 3 BD | 2 BA 1,197 SF | 14,068 SF Lot $2,700,000 Represented by Brian Linder, AIA THE VALUE OF ARCHITECTURE Properties With Design Integrity In collaboration with @markhmendez Photography: ©Tim Street-Porter @timstreetporter @timstreetporteragency Restoration: @brucenorelius #midcenturymodern #losangelesarchitecture #aquincyjones #crestwoodhills #postandbeam

Frank O. Gehry, Architect The Sirmai-Peterson House, 1988 Guest House by Brian Murphy (BAM) 970 Calle Arroyo Thousand Oaks — Set into a steep, oak-covered hillside, Gehry’s Sirmai-Peterson House reads as a loose aggregation of volumes—a “village” rather than a single object. Each space is treated as its own form: living, dining, sleeping—pulled apart and reassembled along the contours of the site. Galvanized steel, glass, and light move differently across each piece, shifting throughout the day. It’s not a composition in the conventional sense. It’s a series of decisions, held together. The guest house by Brian Murphy (BAM) operates differently—quieter, more resolved, but in direct dialogue with the main house. Less gesture, more calibration. — #frankgehry #losangelesarchitecture #gehry #architecture architecture

Private Architecture Preview — Sunday, 2–5 PM A. Quincy Jones & Whitney R. Smith, Architects The Morris & Lydia Gelb House, 1950 Join us for a private preview of a rare, highly intact Crestwood Hills residence—where postwar housing is distilled to its essentials. Measured, restrained, and quietly rigorous, the house remains a clear expression of the original idea—preserved over decades and carefully maintained by Bruce Norelius Studio. DM for details. Historic-Cultural Monument No. 1332 12450 Rochedale Lane Los Angeles 3 BD | 2 BA 1,197 SF | 14,068 SF Lot $2,700,000 Represented by Brian Linder, AIA THE VALUE OF ARCHITECTURE Properties With Design Integrity In collaboration with @markhmendez Photography: ©Tim Street-Porter @timstreetporter @timstreetporteragency Restoration: @brucenorelius #midcenturymodern #losangelesarchitecture #aquincyjones #crestwoodhills #postandbeam