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Brecht Landmark
Brecht Landmark
Santa Monica, CA, United States
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Other Projects by dub studios
Brecht Landmark
Santa Monica, CA, United States
"one of the oldest, is about 30 years old, california clapboard, whitewashed, with an upper floor with 4 bedrooms. i have a long workroom (almost 7 meters), which we immediately whitewashed and equipped with 4 tables. there are old trees in the garden (a pepper-tree and a fig-tree). rent is $60 per month, $12.50 more than in 25th street." - Bertolt Brecht, Bertolt Brecht Journals
This story of an addition we designed for the house at 1063 26th Street in Santa Monica can never compete with the history of its former resident. In light of this context, our addition is an effort to complement the building, a previous home of Bertolt Brecht. Where the Brecht house is a square and squat bungalow, our addition is a long and slender bar. While the existing home is articulated with relief, our additions are minimal and smooth. Although Brecht may never have valued a compliment from residents of Los Angeles, a city to which he never developed a true connection, we nonetheless thought it was important to respect and devote some attention to his time in LA.
1930s and 1940s Los Angeles became the adopted home of several exiled artists and intellectuals from Nazi Germany. Author Thomas Mann, composer Arnold Schoenberg, philosopher Theodor Adorno and playwright Bertolt Brecht; all moved to the California coast. Many loved Los Angeles. Thomas Mann was LA’s biggest fan, drawn by the climate it shared with his beloved Mediterranean. Some loved it less. Brecht describes Los Angeles as “Tahiti in the form of a big city”. There is much to say of Brecht and Los Angeles, but as architects in this city, we thought that the best way to critique the critic, would be to give his home a complement.
To design a complement is to make something that has both a quiet, deferential quality as well as an assertive character. Our design is subtle on the street. From this perspective, the addition’s 20’ wide by 22’tall elevation yields to the existing building’s 28’ wide by 26’ tall front. We set the main building back from the front property line, and punctuated it with one warm colored wooden door, a counterpoint to the blue trim on the existing structure. Its only connection to the Brecht house is a glass bridge on the second floor that joins at the location of an existing window. To further accentuate the autonomy of the existing house, we treated it as a relic in a landscape of tall, unkempt grasses, where one can explore the house along hidden paths and secret gardens. It was this deference to the existing house, and the effort to restore its worn down structure, that earned the project approval from Santa Monica’s Historical Commission.
Contrasting the relatively subtle presence on the street, we made an expressive campus of buildings at the rear of the site. The historic building, the addition of our long slender bar, and a garage/outdoor living volume; collectively define a private courtyard space with a swimming pool and lounge landscape. We arranged four distinct lounge spaces around the pool: the living room in the new addition, a deck attached to the relic, a covered, outdoor living area attached to the garage, and an outdoor lounge space. The ground floor of the addition is a completely glazed living area that opens to the courtyard, while the upper floor is a solid floating volume that extends the massing of the building’s front elevation to the rear of the house.
Programmatically, the primary activities of the addition complement the supporting functions in the existing house. The ground floor of the relic has a writing room, a kind of detached reminder of the previous tenant, and a guest bedroom. The second floor, accessible from the glass bridge of the addition, houses the children’s bedrooms and play area.
Complementing is a two-way exchange. While each building on the site holds its own value, it is the relationship between them that makes the project unique.
This story of an addition we designed for the house at 1063 26th Street in Santa Monica can never compete with the history of its former resident. In light of this context, our addition is an effort to complement the building, a previous home of Bertolt Brecht. Where the Brecht house is a square and squat bungalow, our addition is a long and slender bar. While the existing home is articulated with relief, our additions are minimal and smooth. Although Brecht may never have valued a compliment from residents of Los Angeles, a city to which he never developed a true connection, we nonetheless thought it was important to respect and devote some attention to his time in LA.
1930s and 1940s Los Angeles became the adopted home of several exiled artists and intellectuals from Nazi Germany. Author Thomas Mann, composer Arnold Schoenberg, philosopher Theodor Adorno and playwright Bertolt Brecht; all moved to the California coast. Many loved Los Angeles. Thomas Mann was LA’s biggest fan, drawn by the climate it shared with his beloved Mediterranean. Some loved it less. Brecht describes Los Angeles as “Tahiti in the form of a big city”. There is much to say of Brecht and Los Angeles, but as architects in this city, we thought that the best way to critique the critic, would be to give his home a complement.
To design a complement is to make something that has both a quiet, deferential quality as well as an assertive character. Our design is subtle on the street. From this perspective, the addition’s 20’ wide by 22’tall elevation yields to the existing building’s 28’ wide by 26’ tall front. We set the main building back from the front property line, and punctuated it with one warm colored wooden door, a counterpoint to the blue trim on the existing structure. Its only connection to the Brecht house is a glass bridge on the second floor that joins at the location of an existing window. To further accentuate the autonomy of the existing house, we treated it as a relic in a landscape of tall, unkempt grasses, where one can explore the house along hidden paths and secret gardens. It was this deference to the existing house, and the effort to restore its worn down structure, that earned the project approval from Santa Monica’s Historical Commission.
Contrasting the relatively subtle presence on the street, we made an expressive campus of buildings at the rear of the site. The historic building, the addition of our long slender bar, and a garage/outdoor living volume; collectively define a private courtyard space with a swimming pool and lounge landscape. We arranged four distinct lounge spaces around the pool: the living room in the new addition, a deck attached to the relic, a covered, outdoor living area attached to the garage, and an outdoor lounge space. The ground floor of the addition is a completely glazed living area that opens to the courtyard, while the upper floor is a solid floating volume that extends the massing of the building’s front elevation to the rear of the house.
Programmatically, the primary activities of the addition complement the supporting functions in the existing house. The ground floor of the relic has a writing room, a kind of detached reminder of the previous tenant, and a guest bedroom. The second floor, accessible from the glass bridge of the addition, houses the children’s bedrooms and play area.
Complementing is a two-way exchange. While each building on the site holds its own value, it is the relationship between them that makes the project unique.
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