Michael Maltzan: Seven Sides

Los Angeles has long been famous for defining and promoting modern domestic architecture, both within the United States and internationally. Michael Maltzan, founder of the studio Michael Maltzan Architects, has written a new chapter in the evolution of contemporary architectural objects as domestic spaces. His recently completed single-family house, the Pittman Dowell Residence, translates contemporary concepts into architectural reality: in the once-remote space inhabited since 1952...
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Los Angeles has long been famous for defining and promoting modern domestic architecture, both within the United States and internationally. Michael Maltzan, founder of the studio Michael Maltzan Architects, has written a new chapter in the evolution of contemporary architectural objects as domestic spaces. His recently completed single-family house, the Pittman Dowell Residence, translates contemporary concepts into architectural reality: in the once-remote space inhabited since 1952 by Richard Neutra's Serulnic Residence, Maltzan has designed a modernist landmark which responds to the newly urbanized environment. The house, while it can be simply described as heptagonical, is uniquely complex: the interior is divided by non-parallel walls that intersect--providing a level of privacy without ever once utilizing a door--and converge upon an irregularly shaped outdoor room. This publication presents an in-depth view of the seven-sided architectural form through the points of view of seven different contributors. It serves further as an accessible and intimate account of how architecture in the twenty-first century can change perceptions of space and inspire new ways of living in contemporary cities. The Pittman Dowell Residence is positioned and contextualized through themes of history, domesticity, materiality, effect, space, manipulation and form.