Santa Monica, California

Contemporary Architecture
6TH SEMESTER
 When Frank Gehry and his wife bought an existing home,
built in 1920 in Santa Monica, the neighbors did not have the
Gehry House, slightest idea that the corner residence would soon become
a symbol of deconstructivism.
California Gehry, however, knew something had to be done in the
house before he moved.
Architect :Frank Gehry His solution was daring for the 70s, involved the "balance of
fragment and whole, raw and refined, new and old" and from
Year(s) of that moment the controversy ensued.
construction :1977- Gehry actually kept the old Dutch colonial house, but not in a
1979 conventional manner, the new residence was built around the
old.
Year(s) of Holes were made, walls were thrown and were rebuilt and
remodeling:1991 the quiet old house became a loud cry contemporary among
the mansions of the astonished neighbors.
Floors :2 The neighbors hated him, but that does not change the fact
that the house would become a piece of art intertwined with
Façade :deconstructive the architecture.
The architect's experimentation with new materials is very
Location :Santa Mónica, noticeable, like the new look experienced in a simple two-
story bungalow.
California, United States The Santa Monica home is not a new house built by the
architect, but a modification of an existing building, changing
Coordinates :34° 2' 7" the shape, extending, adding new materials and completely
N, 118° 29' 5" W changing the appearance.
Gehry Residence is located on the corner of 22nd Street and Washington Avenue in Santa
Monica, California,.
The only view of the house are the trees that surround the site, with complete privacy, as
they close all the gaps above eye level with the exception of the window which overlooks
the garden.
The drawings made by the architect represent its context, the landscape around the house is
that of post-war urbanization.
It is surrounded by fields, forests, deserts or grasslands, Gehry's house sits on a small
lot, a few blocks from an endless shopping avenue, Wilshire Boulevard.
His views are full of home crowd representing "the American dream".
Even the suburban lot purchased by Gehry was already occupied.
A two-story building with pink tiles, "a small house without words and charming" as the
architect called, poking her cute mansard roof on the horizon of the green suburbs.
Instead of pulling, Gehry turned the old house at the base of his own dream.
Cut walls, dropped ceilings, and wove the dismembered remains with a new architectural
framework: industrial shell plywood, glass wire, galvanized metal and metal mesh.
"... I loved the idea of leaving the house intact ... I came up with the idea
of building a new home about. We were told there were ghosts in the house
... I decided they were ghosts of cubism. Windows ... I wanted to make them
look like they're dragging. At night, since the glass is tilted reflect light ... So when you
are sitting at this table all these cars are passing by, you see the moon in the wrong
place ... the moon is there but it reflects here ... and you think it's there and do not know
where the hell are you ... " Frank Gehry
Gehry Residence is a deconstructivist work on a conventional suburban California house,
remodeled in phases, over decades, from his reworking seminal 1978 original.
The house meets important properties that make it different, however the principle is really
hated renewal neighbors and your own style, it was difficult to understand the deconstructive
aspect of the house.
The architect explains: "... Armed with very little money I decided to build a new house
around the old and try to maintain a tension between the two, making one define the
other, and making them feel that the old house was intact within the new, from the
outside and from the inside. These were the basic objectives ... "
Gehry used corrugated layers of metal boxes Cubist skylights and windows to create a
larger sense of space and movement implied in the kitchen and dining room.
He removed the walls to expose the wooden structure, which is the method of construction
of the building.

Before starting the process, Gehry made a list of the positive and negative qualities of
the building:
Exterior Positive: A giant euphorbia in the backyard
Interior Positive: plywood walls in the studio, narrow plank floors oak paneled windows
Negative: the neighborhood is occupied by buildings.15
Gehry covered outside the house with a new and unusual skin, used a wrapping process, a
montage of fences around construction.
Used for the outer layers of corrugated sheet metal, with new walls that stand in odd
angles and awnings that continue beyond the house to partially enclose a private
courtyard.

Two wired glass cubes form a link between the old house and the new layer.

Along Washington Avenue,

a large glass cube looks
momentarily interposed
between the old and the
new structure of the
house, its form echoes the
overhead trellis.

The cube light

flooded kitchen
space while
maintaining privacy.
 The original structure is the conventional two-storey bungalow with framing.
Some interior finishes have been stripped to reveal the support of the structure inside the
residence.
The bearing wall is raised inner and outer structural frames wooden support beams, girders
and joists.

New structure
Gehry House is a renewal, in three stages, an existing suburban
building.
The original house is embedded with several additions intertwined conflicting structures,
being very distorted its original structure.
But the strength of the house comes from the feeling that the additions have not been
"added" to the site, but that came from inside the house.
It is as if the house had always harbored these twisted forms inside.
'First Stage'
In the first stage, the forms twist their way out from the inside.
A bucket inclined, for example, consists of the wooden structure of the original house,
breaks through the structure, removing the layers of the house.
As these forms make their way out, take off the skin of the building, exposing the structure,
create a second skin that wraps around the front and the site of the new volume, but
disappears right posterior wall of the house to release her as a stage.
After passing through the structure, forms escape this second skin, but ultimately
prevents them from escaping.
Therefore, the first stage operates in the space between the original and its skin wall
displaced.
This gap is an area of conflict in the stable differences between interior and
exterior, original and added, structure and facade are questioned.
The original farmhouse has become a strange artifact, trapped and distorted by the
forms that have emerged from within it.
Step second
In the second stage, the structure of the rear wall that is not protected by the skin, operates
and planks come out.
The structure almost literally breaks.
Stage three
In the third stage, the courtyards are filled with shapes that seem to escape the house
through the gap in the back wall, which is then closed.

These forms are placed under tension by being twisted relationship with each other and
with the house.
Gehry House becomes a monograph with a complicated relationship between conflict within
and between the forms.
GROUND FLOOR
 1 ENTRY

FIRST FLOOR 2 LIVING ROOM

3 KITCHEN
4 BED ROOM
7 INTERIOR YARD
 4 BEDROOM
5 MASTER BEDROOM
SECOND FLOOR
6 WARDROBE
It makes use of unconventional materials such as fences with trellis, glass inner wire and
corrugated metal sheets, wood framing, corrugated steel, plywood and light wood frames.
The hidden idea behind the work of Gehry in what would be his residence is not the
deconstruction of the old house of 1920 and the discovery of his bones.

The sculpted shape and semi-industrial raw materials support the dynamic movement and
irregular shapes and fluid.

The kitchen floor is covered with asphalt, suggesting apath to the outside of the original
bungalow.
FRONT ELEVATION

REAR ELEVATION
SIDE ELEVATION

SIDE ELEVATION
▪ https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/frank-gehry-santa-monica-home

▪ https://www.slideshare.net/noursalo/frank-gehry-78607871
Presented by,
Prajwal
1IE17AT006