The case study houses were built under the sponsorship or Arts and Architecture magazine. Most of the houses were built in Los Angeles California with the intent to design and build homes using contemporary materials, economy and most of all taste. Most appear to be built with an almost romantic notion of modesty as their fame and modern glamor have elevated these houses to the status symbol of the wealthy and well-to-do. The house pictured above was owned and designed by Charles and Ray Eams, case study house # 8, who were themselves both architects and designers. Their film House after Five years of Living (1989) showcases, through a series of still images, their interior decorative scheme, landscaping, studio space and knickknacks accumulated via world travels or perhaps weekly trips to the local flea market. One gets the feeling by surveying the Eams' home that their decorating choices are somehow a antecedent to the kind of lifestyle images espoused by large home furnishing corporations like IKEA or Crate and Barrel.
The Eams' living space is showcased as an example of a 'bourgeois' living space, a living space inhabited by tasteful and erudite artists. The space of the home -littered with trinkets of non-western cultures; trinkets whose function as objects of display seems to exist on questionable footing, a sort of trailing dialogue with cabinets of curiosities. They -the trinkets- seem to establish the occupant as a world traveler and connoisseur of Kachina dolls among other appropriated non-western objects.
Set amongst these trinkets are elements drawn off of traditional Japanese architecture and aesthetics. One wonders if the desired effect, by borrowing heavily on Japanese aesthetics was a kind of elegant cleanliness, or some grasp at perfection and order without sterility, homogeneity or magnificence.
Yet drawn off of another culture's elemental style the initial critique of such a move is watered down derivative. The image of a Japanese lantern re-imagined as a light fixture of pure white paper seems kitschy. In fact, today, one's first lesson in cheap taste would be a trip to the local IKEA to pick up some paper lanterns in true Blanche Dubois style.
The end result of such appropriation is simply a matter of tasteful appearance. What has Japanese aesthetics done for Charles and Ray Eams? The answer provided by the film suggests a sort of enlightened and joyous lifestyle of nearly rustic simplicity caused by the ingenious design of their beautiful home. On the other hand their ruthless appropriation seems to know no bounds, and makes one wonder if their excessive knickknack collecting isn't responsible for the appearance of such atrocities as Pier One Imports, let alone the very idea that interior decorating could be a worthwhile habit or even a viable business enterprise or that collecting material objects or outsider art objects elevates one's lifestyle image, and adds a notion of 'me' to a place of habitation.
One must have clarity though. It is not my intention here to defame orientalism as a backwards practice that places value on another culture's artistic and intellectual hallmarks while devaluing the ethnic population from which it emerged. Orientalism cannot be untangled into black and white, or even viewed as 'problematic' the exchanges have been so wide and confusing one cannot look at 'pure' or 'virginal' cultures. What is more productive is to enjoy the richness of parody and the stretching of reality. When another culture interprets another culture the visual void seems refreshing if not at times 'real.' The Eams' house is like a post card presentation of other cultures, a edited reflection that allows for their thoughtful impressions of what it must have been like to be a westerner observing something utterly alien to their way of life, collecting those scraps and then putting them on a small table in the entryway to their fabulous home.
House also bubbles with plant imagery. The natural beauty and the home are inextricably linked as they interpenetrate. The flora are suggestive of Eden, paradise, a bountiful and fertile land. The abundant floral imagery have the effect of a showering of beauty upon the viewer. Some remarked-in jest- the film has the quality of an instagram photography app antecedent. Where the Eams' may or may not be guilty of reproducing their beautiful little life on film in order to present a kind of self-gratifying gesture. A hallmark-no doubt- in the legacy of gestures that are meant to point out to others what is so obviously 'beautiful.'
But one must also remember that the natural setting of this house is in sunny Los Angeles. A city mythologized for its fair weather, mild climate, abundant growing seasons. A place who's capital in part hinges on its myth as a utopian realization. The Eams' no doubt must be getting kick backs from the LA county department of tourism, having so faithfully portrayed a vision of LA as wholly uncongested, bucolic almost, but powerfully artistic, stylish and glamorous. Glamor comes in the form of orange juice and green lawns -this topic to be covered in further posts.
The artist's studio is present in the film the natural space of creativity. A place of sanctity from modern chaos, where one could ruminate. Everything in the studio seems perfectly placed, but naturally so. One is intrigued by the notion that beautiful vistas can aid in producing culturally valuable capital.
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