City of Angles.

NOT EVERYONE IN HOLLYWOOD becomes a superstar overnight--sometimes appreciation comes from a whole new generation. For all his talent, Rudolph Schindler never achieved tremendous acclaim in his lifetime. Maybe he was too scruffy in his trademark open-neck shirt and sandals; perhaps his perfectionism kept him from taking on the predictable, repetitive projects that would lead to a successful "look"- or was he just too easily pinned down as a hard-to-pin-down dreamer? Finally, he committed the ultimate Tinseltown sin: His artistry outweighed his schmoozing.

Unlike fellow emigre Richard Neutra, Schindler never knew how to translate brilliance into sweet talk and guru-like pontification. Neutra was always ready for the spotlight. His stylish, clean-lined buildings made him LA modernism's leading man. His chic elevations and glistening walls of glass were instantly seductive.

If Neutra is the big-budget master, Schindler would be the indie innovator, creating cutting-edge quality on a shoestring. They are usually thought of as a pair-similarly educated Austrians whose friendship ended in a bitter rivalry. But a closer look shows them to be two very different architects responsible for two very different, if equally distinguished, bodies of work.

Schindler's output stands in marked contrast to that of today's architectural globe-trotters with building sites from Bangladesh to Brazil. Of his 500 projects, around 150 were realized, almost all of them located in the Greater Los Angeles area. "I came to live and work in California," Schindler once stated. "Out of a care fully built-up conception of how the human being could grow roots in this soil, I built my house." Eventually becoming a naturalized American citizen, he died in LA in 1953. He felt his work should be "as Californian as the Parthenon is Greek."

A significant number of Schindler's buildings have been demolished or severely compromised. The most noteworthy of those that remain are highlighted in this Artforum driving tour. Bringing home the uniqueness of Schindler's career, it traverses hills, hills, and more steep hills. Unlike Neutra's clients, Schindler's could rarely afford the best lots. But what the latter was able to do with land better suited to mountain goats than human beings continues to amaze. Turning to relatively cheap and commonplace materials, Schindler worked wonders.

Ever down to earth, Schindler preached against the cold categorization of the International Style. "I am not a stylist, not a functionalist, nor any other sloganist," he asserted. "Each of my buildings deals with a different architectural problem, the existence of which has been entirely forgotten in this period of rational mechanization." His crusade was to invent a new kind of interior and to get away from the old tenets of structure. He felt that modern engineering had freed contemporary architects to mold living spaces. Materials and methods would no longer rule how people enjoyed their lives. Instead, he advocated and achieved a new concept of "space architecture"--the interaction of space, climate, light, and mood.

After the ebb and flow of theoretical doctrines over the last 100 years, followers of architecture have embraced synthesized modernism on a mass level. The crisp, clean white box has become the purest symbol, the flag bearer of pure design. But after the symbolic white box, then what? In the absence of an architectural messiah, the public is driven to become more discerning in its appreciation of the century past-returning to classic modernism to find its unsung heroes. The focus has narrowed to the pivotal city of Los Angeles, with its history of architectural adventure and freedom. Figures like the late Franklin D. Israel and Michael Rotondi acknowledge Schindler's influence, and the Gehry school's use of basic readymade materials is considered to have a precedent in his work. It's thus no accident that Schindler's time has come. Nearly fifty years after his death, public groundswell has at last afforded him the superstardom he deserves.

1 Tischler House

1949-50

175 Greenfield Avenue, Westwood Starting our Schindler tour in the west and heading east, we begin in cosmopolitan Westwood. Still lived in by Adolph Tischler, this late Schindler design remains in close to original condition. The soaring ceiling lends an almost industrial feel to the living room, augmented by Schindler's famous blue corrugated fiberglass ceiling panels (which over the years Tischler has partially covered with plywood to mitigate the effects of heat and that pesky disco-by-day blue light). But from the street elevation, what Schindler accomplished is miraculous-a tower of massing, broken up in the most unpredictable way with angles that are remarkably complex yet instantly legible as an articulated whole.

2 Modern Creators Shops

1936-38, 1946

8758-8766 Holloway Drive,

West Hollywood

Traveling east on Sunset Boulevard, we next stop at the heart of the Strip. Although many of Schindler's offices, stores, and restaurants (including the venerable Sardi's) have long disappeared, this complex, commissioned by Schindler friend and legendary developer William Lingenbrink, remains somewhat intact. Here the architect breaks up the massing into small units with angled walls and roofs (Schindler also designed a cabin, now destroyed, for Lingenbrink in rustic Calabasas). Thanks to the need for commercial display, Schindler gets to specify walls of glass on the street elevation for a change.

3 Kings Road House (Schindler House)

1921-22

835 N. Kings Road, West Hollywood

Kings Road is the mecca. It is the most important structure of Schindler's career, and not just because it broke all the rules of home design: The concept espoused radical new ideas concerning materials, construction, and spatial relationships. Schindler stated that the rooms would become part of an organic unit, the walls would be few, thin, and removable, and the distinction between indoors and outdoors would disappear. Built for the four some of Schindler, his wife Pauline, and their friends Clyde and Marian Chace, the house provides each occupant with a large private studio for working or relaxing, while the couples shared an entrance hall, bathroom, and an open-air "sleeping basket" on the roof. All bourgeois proscriptions were off. The construction was of concrete tilt-slab poured flat on the ground and lifted into place; it incorporated walls of glass and long narrow glass slits (bear in mind, the house was in the middle of miles of open agricultural land, with a climate to accommodate Schindler's experimental design). The most legendary stay was that of Richard and Dione Neutra; other residents included the progressive dancer John Bovingdon, Galka Scheyer while representing the Blue Four, poet Sadakichi Hartmann, John Cage, and various Hollywood alumni. Now a museum, the Kings Road House is owned by the nonprofit Friends of the Schindler House, with recent help coming from the Austrian Museum of Applied Arts (MAK).

4 Buck House 1934

5958 8th Street, Los Angeles (Mid-Wilshire)

Head southeast past the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and you'll find the Schindler home that everyone likes. Maybe it's because the structure is built on flat ground--a rarity for Schindler--and the visitor is permitted some visual control over the massing and site plan. Like a supertanker in calm seas, the Buck House's low yet massive presence makes a lasting impression. Here the taller captain's bridge is in fact a one-bedroom apartment over the three-car garage. The rooms on the back side have remarkable walls of glass opening onto a private patio garden-a look associated with post and beam architecture popularized twenty-five years later by the Case-Study movement.

5 Mackey Apartments

1939-40

1137 S. Cochran Avenue, Los Angeles (Mid-Wilshire)

Nestled in the sleepy lower middle-class neighborhood south of Olympic Boulevard, the Mackey Apartments got their groove back in a big way when the Austrian government purchased the structure in 1995 from interior designer Waldo Fernandez. Unusual as a Schindler multiunit complex housed in a single building, it boasts a penthouse, extensive built-in furniture, and clever Schindler-specified enclosed garden patios to lend privacy to the lower units. Today it houses visiting MAK Center artists and architects, who get to experience the edgy side of LA first hand-when they're not showing off their artistic endeavors in the complex's garages.

6 De Keyser Duplex 1935

1911. N. Highland Avenue, Hollywood Heights

The pilgrimage continues with a change of direction, north toward the hills up Highland Avenue. Legend has it that Mrs. Harriet Press Freeman (of Wright's Freeman House) convinced Mrs. de Keyser to hire Schindler, even though she had a tiny budget. So for $2 a square foot, Freeman's apparent amour received one of his greatest challenges. The result is a low-cost production that departs from Schindler's usual staggered levels in favor of massing that is straight up and down. The clever use of wrapped-over green roofing material (Mansard goes modern?), exposed brick chimney, protruding timbers, dark red window trim, and white stucco boldly break up the classic box.

7 Remodeling and Furniture Design for Frank Lloyd Wright's Freeman House

1928, 1938, 1953 1962 Glencoe Way, Hollywood Heights

The life of the Freeman House resembles a Wagnerian opera. The Freemans did not enjoy a great relationship with the Cloaked One and found solace in the more effusive architectural company of Schindler, who designed new furniture that was less formal and uptight. The home was bequeathed to the University of Southern California, whose stewardship has been anything but stellar. Among other things, there is a movement afoot to strip the building of Schindler's additions to make it "pure" Wright. Architectural evolution and history be damned. Gotterdammerung continues.

8 Remodeling and Design at Wright's Hollyhock House

1924-27

4808 Hollywood Boulevard,

East Hollywood

Hollyhock House is the focal point of Barnsdall Art Park. Schindler came to the site in 1920 to supervise Wright's construction. Once again his wandering eye met that of a potential client, Aline Barnsdall, who commissioned him to remodel a bedroom and bathroom at the house in 1924-25 and, later, the guest house, known as Residence B. In 1925 Schindler, in association with Neutra, designed the pergola and wading pool from Wright's leftover concrete blocks and foundation material. (The house is closed for restoration, but the park is open and all structures are visible.)

9 Elliot House

1930

4237 Newdale Drive, Silver Lake Now the tour gets serious. The roughly four square miles of Silver Lake boast the most dense collection of significant architecture in the United States as well as the richest repository of Schindler structures--two very good reasons to keep one's courage while navigating the area's curving, hilly streets. At the Elliot House, the architectural firm of Marmol and Radziner has come in to save a supreme example of Schindler's revelment in the de Stijl aesthetic. Form and function knit effortlessly, flowing up, down, and out to the terrace and patio. With its high walls and ten-foot-tall glass terrace doors, the living room soars. The interior surfaces and built-ins have been correctly taken back to the original humble plywood and fir.

10 Schlessinger House 1952-54

1901 Myra Avenue, Silver Lake Don't let the tone-on-tone Pepto-Bismol and bubble-gum pink paint job throw you. The Schlessinger House, a small structure on a gently undulating site with city views, is an architectural gesture from a genius in full stride--in fact, it was Schindler's final complete design, realized the year before his death. The delicate hanging massing, clerestory windows, and self referential zigzag angles are classic Schindler. But the house was completed after his death, and the interior is missing his trademark plywood built-ins. Don't forget to edit out the nasty, recently installed security lights and parking mirrors that punctuate the clean facade in all the wrong ways.

11 Bubeshko Apartments 1938-41

2036 Griffith Park Boulevard, Silver Lake

Like a clever clothes designer, Schindler realizes It's all in the cut-and here the cut is the almost forty-five-degree angle on which this pair of structures is set to the street. The staggered buildings float effortlessly up the hill, with center and side pedestrian walkways. Each unit has its own entry, almost all have roof terraces that open from the living room, and there is an abundance of built-in furniture. Schindler's aim was to make each apartment feel like a house unto itself. Compare the deadly new apartments just to the south with this multidwelling solution: It's the agony and the ecstasy.

12 Falk Apartments 1939-40

3631-3635 Carnation Avenue, Silver Lake

At 1830-1830% Lucille Avenue, you'll pass the lower elevation and entrance to Manola Court (next stop), just before reaching the Falk Apartments. These four units work successfully as four residences on a tight triangular corner lot. The apartments are carved out on two overlapping grids, producing volumes that stack and interlock to provide airy living spaces and Hollywood views. The garages at the corner of the property form a barrier, providing privacy. The roof terraces and penthouse with panoramic views and walls of glass were made famous by period photos of the building's split-level Hollywood glamour.

13 Sachs Apartments (Manola Court)

1926-28, 1934-40 1811-1815 Edgecliff Drive, Silver Lake

Every unit in Manola Court, which runs street to street up a hill and Is bisected by a pedestrian walkway, has a separate outdoor entrance. Reminiscent of the urban density of Hong Kong's tiered and towering midlevels, a building that could have been too weighty is as light as a feather. After technical and budgetary problems stemming from his previous use of concrete, Schindler made a wood-frame skeleton and stucco skin into a surprisingly delicate sculpture. Residents have included architectural notables Michael Rotondi, Hodgetts & Fung, and Emmet Wemple.

14 Oliver House 1933-34

2236 Micheltorena Street, Silver Lake

Neighboring houses face straight onto the street, but this gem sits at a forty-five-degree angle to command the views-and your attention. The organic brown color of the Oliver House (still in original hands) is historically correct, and the clerestory windows are miraculous. There is so much glass that the gabled roof seems at times to float on air, a device that Neutra and John Lautner also played with (some say they all pinched it from Wright).

15 Wilson House 1935-39

2090 Redcliff Street, Silver Lake

From Redcliff Street, it looks like yet another unassuming site; but from Kenilworth Avenue, the elevation is bravura. Happily, the Wilson House is now owned by art-world professionals (one is director of Art Center's Sculpture Department), and a considered and thorough restoration is in the works. Complicating the task is the fact that Schindler himself undertook several remodelings. The low, dark entry projects to a dramatic open living space with lake and mountain views, and the butterfly roof accommodates clerestory windows to draw light in. Private rooms are below, and the expansive walls of glass let nature in on all levels.

16 Walker House 1935-36, 1939,1941 2100 Kenilworth Avenue, Silver Lake

Somewhat dull from the street, the Walker House gets interesting as it cascades down the hill on five levels, affording the most dramatic views of the Silver Lake Reservoir of any Schindler design. The blue green paint is matched to the original. The built-in furniture also cascades--the entry shelves become a wood partition and couch, then dining cabinets, then a kitchen table and low dining cabinets. The articulated columns supporting the lowest level of the structure are practically a classical colonnade,

17. Droste House

1940

2025 Kenilworth Avenue,

Silver Lake

A difficult, steep site, but one permitting spectacular views over Silver Lake Reservoir. The interiors are the star attraction In this project, built for the Dutch Consul in Los Angeles. It's reported that as the Droste House was nearing completion, Schindler asked the owners to sit where they would dine each day, so he could customize the depth of the window to provide a maximum view. Schindler was forced by the topography to anchor the structure with garages, then build a two-story living room on top. The roof is gabled, but Schindler makes it look totally flat from the street.

18 McAlmon House 1935-36

2717-2721 Waverly Drive, Silver Lake

Easy to see and appreciate from the street, these two structures consist of a preexisting bungalow that the architect moved and wrapped in Schindler skin, and at the top of the hill an extremely sculptural main house massing. The effect resembles two cubist lizards sunning on the hill. The long, thin lot accentuates the architectural seduction--climbing the almost endless concrete steps up to the main house feels like wading upstream through an architectural river.

19 How House 1925

2422 Silver Ridge Avenue, Silver Lake

This building across the reservoir is set apart in more ways than one. Constructed using the same slab-cast concrete method as Pueblo Ribera, the interior Space Architecture" here becomes more important than the exterior Californian feel-in fact, it marks a developmental moment in the expansion of Schindler's theory of interior space just before he built the Lovell Beach House. Meticulously restored and maintained, the coloration alone is worth the visit. Not surprisingly, the use of concrete is reminiscent of Schindler's recent employer, Frank Lloyd Wright. Here, form is liberated and open, with soaring interior spaces and comer windows similar to those at the Freeman House.

20 Armon House 1946-49

470 Canyon Vista Drive, Mt. Washington

Continuing eastward: The Armon House is little known even among scholars of the architect's work and has only recently been brought to the public eye by Schindler expert Judith Sheine. Joseph Armon and Schindler apparently fought about the shape of the fire place, and the owner refused to allow photographs of the house to be published. Although a small residence, the volumes and shapes inside are the start of a spatial sensibility that follows Schindler through his mature phase.

(21) Kallis House & Studio

1946, 1949, 1951

3580 Multiview Drive, Studio City Hills

Now we hit the freeways and head into the San Fernando Valley. This is one of the few houses in which Schindler used sloping walls, which reflect the shapes of the interiors. Originally there were two structures--Micha Kallis's painting studio and a one-bedroom residence, carefully sited to accommodate existing oak trees. The terrace joining the structures was subsequently enclosed, but the tilting wall retains the later Schindler feel. The double open-ended garage at the front, resembling a clever car wash, has angled walls as well. Don't miss the facing on sections of the structures--split-stake fencing that gives a camouflage effect.

22 Laurelwood Apartments 1946-49

11833-11837 Laurelwood Drive, Studio City Hills

By the mid-'40s Schindler had designed enough multifamily units to be able to arrive at this elegant solution to dense dwelling on a long, skinny lot. The garages form a barrier on either side of the entry. Their solid massing with overhanging eaves seduces the visitor into the central walkway access, which seems to narrow and unfold, revealing the twenty apartments-ten on each side. The units are simultaneously fanned out and stepped up and then down on the undulating site. Arguably no architect has divided and conquered a rectangle so successfully.

23 Roth House 1945

3634 Buena Park Drive, Studio City Hills

Atop a steep corner lot off the valley side of Laurel Canyon, this house resembles the little tugboat that could. The curved front comprises humble wooden supports for a curvilinear garden. The interior and exterior detailing is angular and busy. The next-to most-recent owners kept the house in its original condition for decades--the green lead-based paint was a reminder that modernism didn't always come in a nice white box. Recently "renovated," it now boasts a glossy Gucci patina and coloration that Roxy Roth might not recognize.

24 Lingenbrink Shops

1939-42

12632-12670 Yentura Boulevard, Studio City

Along the endless commercial strip of Ventura Boulevard, it's a Schindler mini-mall! Look out for La Knitterie Parisienne and Spumante Ristorante at the hub of this elegant series often offices and stores. The shafts of wood-frame stucco thrust into the air, graduating store by store to a high point of articulation. At the western end sits a zigzag glass pavilion that is pure Schindler theatrics. Vestiges of late '30s wood and glass detailing and the unifying low anchor of flagstone are visible throughout the complex. The development was commissioned by William Lingenbrink--a wonderful friend to architecture in Los Angeles. (See Modem Creators Shops above.)

25 Van Dekker House 1939-40

19950 Collier Street, Woodland Hills

The Ventura Freeway takes you to sleepy Woodland Hills. When Schindler arrived in California in the '20s, he was seduced by the wild landscape and the open terrain, and you sense that here. Maintenance has not been a priority for the elderly owner, and the stonework and fireplace, cobwebs, crumbling ruins, and myriad kitty cats give the visitor an instant downed-bomber-pilot-hiding-out-in French-country-barn feeling. The most striking technical feature of the exterior is the dramatic sloping gable," a design solution that can be seen in many later architects' work, notably that of Marshall Lewis.

26 Rodriguez House 1941

1845 Niodrara Drive, Glendale

Fasten your seatbelts for some serious freeway driving--the following four homes are all worth the effort. If you want to win your bet on a Schindler/Neutra face-off, the Rodriguez House is your entry. The setting is verdant and idyllic (there are even ducks quacking across the street) and Schindler shows he's no bohemian when it comes to a major commission. Here the house floats with articulated ribs in a classic L-shape, resting on stone veneer massing and, at the front, pure air. Superbly restored and maintained, the soaring bright interior spaces have exceptional built-ins, and outside, the landscaping sweeps up through and around the architecture.

27 Grokowsky House 1928

816 Bonita Drive, South Pasadena

Here in charming and stately Pasadena, the Spanish Lady" pink stucco looks wrong. However, a tony architectural restoration firm's extensive archaeology assures us it is right-a lesson, even, in how the contemporary eye tends to rely on the recent past when judging historical correctness. Schindler was, after all, impressed by pueblo architecture and America's South west. This modest home has a double-height living room intersected by a bedroom loft. The roof appears flat from the street, but it is hipped to improve drainage, and through the use of ordinary light bulbs housed in frosted glass on both the inside and out, Schindler made the exterior skin glow.

28. Bethlehem Baptist Church 1944

4900 S. Compton Avenue, Los Angeles (South Central)

With glitzy Schindler "restorations" all the rage, this trip to South Central will remind you of the simplicity and humility of the architect's original edifices. Wide horizontal bands of stucco resemble gargantuan wood siding and give the church a strong street presence. These bands are broken and set back to add further impact, soften the corner massing, and allow light in. The original roof-mounted cruciform structure is simple to the point of becoming folk art. Services are now held in a rear building (the main structure is in bad condition and the roof leaks). The only church Schindler built, it is his last public project still standing.

29 Von Koerber House 1931-32

408 Via Monte d'Oro, Torrance

Local design restrictions allegedly called for Spanish Colonial Revival, and Schindler responded with this inspired riff. Roof tiles cover not only the roof but sashay down sections of house and garden walls, and even shimmy inside, to be found inverted around the fireplace and lining the floor of the hearth. Still, the design is pure Schindler, with his classic geometry, sectional diversity, and clerestory windows. Unfortunately, this one's in sad shape. Significant settling, attempts at wall patching, and plastic tenting galore greet the visitor. Yet enough remains to be appreciated not the least of which is the glorious ocean view

Three for the Road

SEVERAL OF THE MOST SPECTACULAR SCHINDLERS are the most difficult to see. Die-hard architectural pilgrims would do well to devote a couple of days to the effort.

A visit to the Wolfe Residence (1928-29) involves a journey of twenty-six famous miles by boat or helicopter to Catalina Island. Who in 1928 would have believed that in the year 2001 this remote summer retreat built for a couple in the costume business would be sold as a $1.5 million fixer upper? A tantalizing part of the view when approaching Catalina, this imposing three-level structure on old Stage Road is suspended over the hillside below--a dramatic moment of evolution in Schindler's career. As architectural historian David Gebhard has noted, Schindler was leaving Wright's organic principles behind and embracing one more doctrine of the Internationalists.

The Lovell Beach House (1925-26) and Pueblo Ribera Court (1923-25) can be combined into a pleasant day trip down south along the coast. The Lovell House, at 1242 W. Ocean Front in New port Beach, is the building that was famously excluded from MoMA'S landmark 1932 "The International Style" exhibition, resulting in Schindler's exile from the modernist mainstream. After decades of anger, debate, and revisionism, it is today regarded as a modernist masterpiece alongside Miess's Barcelona Pavilion and Le Corbusier's Villa Savoye. A media star of his day, Dr. Philip Lovell espoused Physical Culture and a lifestyle revolving around nature, and Schindler's belief in architecture's ability to change' lives met a perfect match in Lovell's theory that health and modernity would be great partners. The structure is elevated on piers to provide unrobstructed views of the ocean with one large, informal living room and no bedrooms--just simply enclosed dressing rooms, next to an open sleeping porch. Underneath, on the beach the articulated concrete frames defined what was an outdoor, living space with fireplace. The Lovells have left quite a legacy; Neutra built them the legendary steel-constructed open-pan Lovell Health House in 1929 (4616 Dundee Drive, Los Feliz).

A little over an hour's drive down the coast, at 230 Gravilla Street in La Jolla, Pueblo Ribera (1923-25) is Schindler's first actual multiunit complex, as well as his inaugural effort in using poured-in-place slab-cast concrete walls. Private garden courtyards become part of the living spaces. Large wooden pergoas were originally suspended high above each unit, with planting to provide shade. The design concept is a natural extension of Schindler's bold new plan for communal indoor/outdoor living at the Kings Road House. These bungalows were rented long- or short-term to beach visitors. A fire and remodeling attempts have compromised the architect's intentions. Of the twelve units, only a handful have kept the Schindler look.