Case Study House No. 8, the Eames House in Pacific Palisades, CA. Library of Congress Public Domain Image Collection.
This is the fourth and final program in the 2025 Grand Homes and Gardens Speaker Series, The Quality of Doing: Mid-Century Modern Grand Homes & Gardens, featuring four scholars who will look at the work of Mid-Century Modern architects and designers through the lens of landmark homes and gardens across the United States. Learn more about the series and purchase series tickets.
In 1945, Arts + Architecture magazine commissioned major architects to study, design, and build efficient and affordable model homes. The program anticipated a residential housing boom in the United States in the aftermath of World War II. Architects sought to create prototypes that could be cheaply and easily mass-produced while championing a modern design aesthetic. The resulting “Case Study Houses” were concentrated in the Los Angeles area and featured the work of architects such as Richard Neutra, Charles and Ray Eames, and Eero Saarinen (among many others). This talk with art historian, curator, and author Elizabeth A. T. Smith will introduce the most celebrated, experimental, and influential Case Study Houses, some of which are still standing today.
All talks begin at 6:30 p.m. in Morven’s Stockton Education Center. Doors and the virtual waiting room open at 6:00 p.m. A Zoom link will be sent to all virtual participants upon registration. Light refreshments inspired by each site will be provided for in-person attendees.
About the Speaker
Elizabeth Smith joined the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation as its first Executive Director in 2013. Previously she held curatorial positions at Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; and The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. While at MOCA, Smith curated the exhibition Blueprints for Modern Living: History and Legacy of the Case Study Houses (1989) and authored subsequent publications on the Case Study Houses for Taschen. As well, she curated and co-organized such MOCA exhibitions as The Architecture of R.M. Schindler, At the End of the Century: One Hundred Years of Architecture, and Urban Revisions: Current Projects for the Public Realm.
This program is sponsored by Capital Health. The 2025 Grand Homes and Gardens series is sponsored by Bryn Mawr Trust.
Ticket Prices
Tickets can be purchased for the full series or for individual programs. FOR MORVEN MEMBERS: Please note that you must login into your Morven Member account in the upper righthand corner of the registration page in order to access the member rate.
