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In his autobiography, Robert Little traces modern architects’
incorporation of nature as a design inspiration to Frank
Lloyd Wright.
“Modern architecture was a revolution – literally a
turning about.” After 400 years of “cribbing ideas from
ancient temples, Renaissance palaces, and Cotswold
cottages” Little writes, “America in 1945 was living in
copybook colonial and half-timbered houses.”
Frank Lloyd Wright, “with the unalterable convictions
of a genius, and a full generation in advance of his nearest
follower, developed the essential philosophy and forms of
new architecture. Wright, during his long career, produced
singlehandedly almost all of the innovations of Modern
architecture – use of natural materials, non-symmetry, open
spaces between rooms, strips of glass, indirect lighting.”
Little goes on that Wright “was followed
in time and comparative stature by three
architect Giants – Mies Van der Rohe, who
saw architecture as Science, Corbusier,
who saw it as Art, and Gropius, who
saw it as Sociology. Wright had seen it
as all three – instinctively and totally.”
“Most of us who had been
exposed to the innovative thoughts
of a Gropius or a Wright were True
Believers, sharing our teachers’ views,
if not necessarily their talents. So when
I came to Cleveland, I was one of the
first “modern” architects in town, relatively
untested but totally secure in my beliefs.”
These beliefs included incorporating advances in
technology. Little recognized that the various levels and
open spaces within the house he was designing for
the Jaffes would heat and cool at different rates, due
in part to the solar gain from the large windows on the
southern side. Rather than use unsightly and decidedly
un-modern radiators, radiant heating was embedded
into the floors and ceilings of the house through
copper tubing.
Unlike traditional houses that had one thermostat that
treated the entire house as one “zone,” Little incorporated
new Honeywell controls that separated this copper tubing
into two zones. Honeywell, in turn, featured the house in
advertisements for the new system, bringing it and Robert
Little additional renown.
The completion of the Jaffe house in 1951, along with
two houses in Gates Mills and two in Akron, led to a builder
in Chagrin Falls hiring Little’s firm to design “speculative”
houses, a departure from the custom house model he had
employed so far.
“We would design for the Average Family and the
Average Site – a totally different concept and approach,”
he wrote. Five houses were designed and built. Two
became “Five Star” homes for Better Homes and Gardens
magazine. Each issue featured a Five Star Home, including
plans and photographs.
In the early ‘50s, the American economy was
transitioning from wartime to peacetime. Thousands of
GIs were back, with many earning college degrees thanks
to the GI Bill. The demand for houses, lots of houses, for
young families was in turn creating demand for new
approaches to home design and construction.
The popularity of Little’s Five Star Homes in
Better Homes and Gardens led to the magazine
commissioning Little to design “The Home for
All America” for the September 1954 issue.
To promote the article (and sell house plans),
96 houses were built across the country to
coincide with the release of the issue. As Little
explains, the Home for All America “sold
more plans than any house in the magazine’s
history. The house was designed with variations
of roof, garage, and exterior materials to produce
52 different-looking houses from one plan – a matter
of combinations and permutations I had learned doing
Target Analysis for Air Force Intelligence.”
The Home for All America was a single-level plan (with
optional basement) – the challenge of separating public
and private spaces, as well as adult and child spaces, had
to be modified from the Jaffe design – but otherwise the
lineage is clear. Combined living and dining areas, expanses
of glass and awning windows, and walls that extend beyond
the living area to create the separation of spaces are all
concepts originated and refined from the Jaffe house.
Even today, 70 years since it was built, the South Park
house feels timeless. One is immediately struck by a sense
that the house could have just been built.
This is a house that can be found anywhere in the
country today, and in many ways is the house that inspired
the transition to modern residential design in America.
AR evolutionary Design
Opposite top right: Mid-century Modern butterfly chairs decorate
the patio. In the window, a George Nelson & Associates Bubble
Lamp designed by William Renwick originally for Howard Miller.
In 2016 Herman Miller took over production rights.
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