Gregory Ain

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Gregory Ain (born March 28, 1908 in Pittsburgh , † January 9, 1988 in Los Angeles ) was an American architect. He was mainly influenced by Rudolph Schindler and Richard Neutra .

Life

Gregory Ain spent his youth mainly in the district of Lincoln Heights in Los Angeles . His parents only moved him briefly to the socially utopian project Llano del Rio in the Antilope Valley . As a teenager he was working Rudolph Schindler inspired architectural study. He studied at the University of Southern California (USC) from 1927 to 1928 . However, he broke off his studies because he was dissatisfied with the course there.

Ain worked for Richard Neutra from 1930 to 1935 . Then he began houses for members of the working class with flexible layouts and open kitchens to build. In 1940 he was able to obtain a Guggenheim Fellowship to study the construction of prefabricated houses. During the Second World War he was a senior engineer for the office of Charles and Ray Eames. After the war, he entered into a partnership with architects Joseph Johnson and Alfred Day, as well as landscaper Garrett Eckbo. The purpose of the partnership was to build large residential projects. At the same time, he started teaching architecture at USC. One of his students was Frank Gehry . After his partnership with Johnson, Day and Eckbo ended, he teamed up with black architect James Garrott and opened an office in Silver Lake . In 1950 Ain was commissioned to build a building for the Museum of Modern Art .

Gregory Ain was targeted by the FBI as a suspected communist during the McCarthy era. J. Edgar Hoover considered him the most dangerous architect in America. As a result, he lost numerous orders and gave up the opportunity to realize more ambitious projects. From 1963 to 1967 Ain was the Dean of Architecture at Pennsylvania State University .

architecture

Avanel Cooperative in Silver Lake .

Ain saw himself not only as an architect, but also as a social activist. Gregory Ain believed that modern architecture could help people. During his career he always built houses that should be affordable at moderate prices. He was a pioneer in social housing and wanted to combine social with good design.

His partnership with Johnson, Day and Eckbo aimed to create residential complexes with a connection between indoor and outdoor life that were intended to promote community life. The most important example of this are the Mar Vista Tracts he built in 1948 . They were declared the first Modern Historic District by the City of Los Angeles . His Los Angeles Community Homes project could not be realized due to denied loans. The reason was that the abolition of racial segregation envisaged.

Web links

literature

  • Anthony Denzer: Gregory Ain: The Modern Home as Social Commentary , Rizzoli 2008, ISBN 978-0847830626

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The missing house of America's 'most dangerous architect' , Larchmont Chronicle, September 28, 2017.
  2. ^ A b Isaac Kaplan, The “Most Dangerous Architect in America” Built a House — Then It Vanished , Artsy.com, August 16, 2017.
  3. a b Gregory Ain on the pages of the Los Angeles Conversatory.
  4. ^ Rus Meyer: Gregory Ain Mixed Social Responsibility With Great Design , ArchitecturalDigest.com of March 31, 2015.