Laurelwood Apartments

r.m. Schindler property

historical cultural monument (HCM) #228

about r.m. schindler

Rudolph Michael Schindler was one of the seminal master architects who defined Modern architecture in Southern California. Born in Vienna in 1887, Schindler was trained in art and engineering at the Imperial Technical Institute and the Vienna Academy of Arts.

He absorbed the influences of the Austrian avant-garde at the turn of the twentieth century, under the tutelage of pioneers Otto Wagner and Adolf Loos. At the encouragement of Loos, Schindler committed to a career in architecture and emigrated to the U.S. in 1914. Schindler began his American career at the Chicago firm of Ottenheimer, Stern, and Reichert. Yet he used much of his time to study firsthand the work of Frank Lloyd Wright, whom he had come to admire after seeing Wright’s groundbreaking Wasmuth portfolio in Vienna.

In 1918, Schindler joined Wright’s studios in Taliesin, Wisconsin. It was through Wright that Schindler made his way to Los Angeles in 1920 to supervise construction of Hollyhock House. Enamored with the climate, light, and natural beauty of Southern California, Schindler chose to stay in Los Angeles and open his own practice.

Courtesy of Los Angeles Conservancy

laurelwood apartments

While most of his built projects were single-family homes, he also designed multi-family housing including the Laurelwood Apartments (Studio City, 1949) and the Preservation Award-winning Bubeshko Apartments (Silver Lake, 1938-41). His Bethlehem Baptist Church (South Los Angeles, 1944) was his only church design and is one of very few examples of intact Modern architecture in South Los Angeles.

r.m. Schindler property

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R.M. Schindler archival elements courtesy of Architecture & Design Collection, University of California at Santa Barbara

“Completed in 1949, the Laurelwood Apartments were the last apartments designed by master architect

R. M. Schindler, and are one of the finest expressions of his ingenuity.”

“The Laurelwood is one of the finest Modern expressions of the ubiquitous courtyard apartment complex to be found anywhere in Southern California. It is a fitting tribute to Schindler's talent for multi-family residential designs and is in a class with similarly-innovative designs like Gregory Ain's Dunsmuir Flats.”

Courtesy of Los Angeles Conservancy