Gregory Ain
{{Short description|American architect (1908–1988)}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Gregory Ain
| image =
| image_size =
| caption =
| nationality =
| birth_name = Gregory Samuel Ain
| birth_date = March 28, 1908
| birth_place = Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S.
| spouse = {{plainlist|
- {{marriage|Agnes Budin|1929|1936|end=divorced}}
- {{marriage|Josephine Cohen|1938|1939|end=divorced}}
- {{marriage|Ruth March French, aka Sirun Mussikian|1940|1950|end=divorced}}
- {{marriage|Florence Arkin|1964|1967|end=divorced}}
}}
| children = 2
| death_date = {{death date and age|1988|01|09|1908|03|28}}
| death_place = Los Angeles, California, U.S.
| occupation = Architect
}}
Gregory Samuel Ain{{cite book|url=https://www.anb.org/view/10.1093/anb/9780198606697.001.0001/anb-9780198606697-e-1701633 |title=Ain, Gregory |last=Denzer |first=Anthony |website=American National Biography |year=2001 |publisher=Oxford University Press |doi=10.1093/anb/9780198606697.article.1701633 |isbn=978-0-19-860669-7 |access-date=November 13, 2022}} (March 28, 1908 – January 9, 1988) was an American architect active in the mid-20th century. Working primarily in the Los Angeles area, Ain is best known for bringing elements of modern architecture to lower- and medium-cost housing. He addressed "the common architectural problems of common people".{{cite book
| last = Denzer
| first = Anthony
| title = Gregory Ain: The Modern Home as Social Commentary
| location = New York
| publisher = Rizzoli Publications
| year = 2008
| url = http://www.rizzoliusa.com/catalog/results.pperl?title_auth_isbn=denzer&submit.x=0&submit.y=0&submit=submit
| isbn = 978-0-8478-3062-6
| oclc = 232365832
| access-date = 2008-08-31
| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20080617114603/http://www.rizzoliusa.com/catalog/results.pperl?title_auth_isbn=denzer&submit.x=0&submit.y=0&submit=submit
| archive-date = 2008-06-17
| url-status = dead
}}
Esther McCoy said "Ain was an idealist who gave the better part of ten years to combatting outmoded planning and building codes, and hoary real estate practices."[http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/container/viewer/-Ain--343437 Esther McCoy, "Gregory Ain" lecture manuscript (1982)]
Early life and education
File:AvenelCooperative 2008 05 17 compressed.jpg, Silver Lake, Los Angeles, California]]
Born to Baer and Chiah Ain in Pittsburgh, in 1908, Ain was raised in the Lincoln Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles. For a short time during his childhood, the Ain family lived at Llano del Rio, an experimental collective farming colony in the Antelope Valley of California.
He was inspired to become an architect after visiting the Schindler House as a teenager. He attended the University of Southern California School of Architecture in 1927–28, but dropped out after feeling limited by the school's Beaux Arts training.
His primary influences were Rudolph Schindler and Richard Neutra. He worked for Neutra from 1930 to 1935, along with fellow apprentice Harwell Hamilton Harris, and contributed to Neutra's major projects of that period.
Following his collaborative relationship with Richard Neutra, in 1935, Ain cultivated an individual practice designing modest houses for working-class and middle class clients.
Ain was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1940 to study housing. During World War II, Ain was Chief Engineer for Charles and Ray Eames in the development of their well-known leg-splints and plywood chairs, including the DCW and LCW series.
The 1930s and 1940s represented Ain's most productive period. During this period, his principled quest to address "the common architectural problems of common people", prompted the implementation of flexible floor plans and open kitchens. In the 1940s, he formed a partnership with Joseph Johnson and Alfred Day in order to design large housing tracts. Major projects of this period included Community Homes, Park Planned Homes, Avenel Homes, and Mar Vista Housing. The Gregory Ain Mar Vista Tract became L.A.’s first Modern historic district in 2003.{{Cite web|title=Gregory Ain {{!}} Los Angeles Conservancy|url=https://www.laconservancy.org/architects/gregory-ain|access-date=2020-09-03|website=www.laconservancy.org}} He collaborated with landscape architect Garrett Eckbo on each of these projects, which typify Mid-century modern design. Ain also practiced in a "loose partnership" with James Garrott for roughly 20 years, beginning in 1940.{{cite news
| title = Architect Garrott Moves Office; Takes On Partner
| newspaper = California Eagle
| location = Los Angeles
| pages = 9B
| date = May 2, 1940
| url = https://archive.org/details/la_caleagle_reel21/page/n637/mode/2up
}} They designed their own small office building together on Hyperion Avenue in the Silver Lake neighborhood. Their projects attracted the attention of Philip Johnson, the curator of architecture at the Museum of Modern Art, who commissioned Ain to design and construct MoMA's second exhibition house in the museum's garden in 1950, following that of Marcel Breuer in 1949.Denny, Phillip R. (August 9, 2017). "[https://nytimes.com/2017/08/09/arts/design/gregory-ain-the-architect-the-red-scare-and-the-house-that-disappeared.html The Architect, the Red Scare and the House That Disappeared]". The New York Times. Retrieved 2017-08-12. Print version, "The Architect and the House That Vanished", August 12, 2017, p. C3.
In the late early 1950s, Ain's practice was diminished as he was perceived as a communist. For example, in 1949, he was listed by the California Senate Factfinding Subcommittee on Un-American Activities as "among the committee's most notorious critics."[https://archive.org/stream/reportofsenatefa1949cali#page/688/mode/2up Report of the Senate Fact-Finding Committee on Un-American Activities (1949)] The growing "Red Scare" caused him to lose several opportunities, including participation in John Entenza's Case Study Program.
Ain also taught architecture at USC after the war. Then, from 1963 to 1967, he served as the Dean of the Pennsylvania State University School of Architecture. He then returned to Los Angeles and died in 1988.{{Cite news
| last = Kaplan
| first = Sam Hall
| title = Ain's Contributions Remembered
| newspaper = Los Angeles Times
| date = January 24, 1988
| url = https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1988-01-24-re-37795-story.html
}}
Ain's papers are kept at the Architecture and Design Collection, at the Art, Design & Architecture Museum, at the University of California, Santa Barbara.{{cite web|url=http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt5c6036jh/entire_text/|title=Finding Aid for the Gregory Ain papers, 1926-1972|website=The Online Archive of California|publisher=California Digital Library}}
Gregory Ain is the focus of a long standing project, The Bauhaus Ranch and documentary, No Place Like Utopia,[https://www.noplacelikeutopia.net No Place Like Utopia] directed and produced by Christiane Robbins and Professor Katherine Lambert, AIA. This film is based on their extensive and rigorous research that maintained that Ain's 1950 MoMA Exhibition House, "Our View of the Future", had never been destroyed as had been alleged by architectural historians. They publicly offered their position in 2015 and materialized this thesis in their cross disciplinary installation, "This Future Has a Past", first exhibited at the 2016 Venice Architecture Biennial and then at the Center for Architecture, NYC in 2017.{{cite web | url=https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-most-dangerous-architect-america-built-house-vanished | title=Gregory Ain, the "Most Dangerous Architect in America," Built a House—Then It Vanished | date=16 August 2017 }}
Buildings
- 1936: Edwards House, Los Angeles, California
- 1937: Ernst House, Los Angeles, California
- 1937: Byler House, Mt. Washington (Los Angeles), California
- 1937–39: Dunsmuir Flats,{{Cite web
| title = Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument Application
| year = 2009
| url = http://cityplanning.lacity.org/StaffRpt/CHC/3-19-09/CHC-2008-4976.pdf
}} Los Angeles, California
- 1938: Brownfield Medical Building, Los Angeles, California (later destroyed)
- 1938: Beckman House,{{Cite news
| last = Thornburg
| first = Barbara
| title = Modern architecture mixes with traditional furnishings in Los Angeles house
| newspaper = Los Angeles Times
| date = August 23, 2008
| url = http://www.latimes.com/features/la-hm-anderson23-2008aug23,0,2970926.story
}} Los Angeles, California
- 1939: Daniel House, Silver Lake (Los Angeles), California
- 1939: Margaret and Harry Hay House,{{Cite web
| title = Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument Application
| year = 2009
| url = http://cityplanning.lacity.org/StaffRpt/CHC/1-21-10/CHC-2009-3555.pdf
}} North Hollywood, California
- 1939: Tierman House, Silver Lake (Los Angeles), California
- 1939: Vorkapich Garden House, for Slavko Vorkapich, Beverly Hills, California (later destroyed)
- 1941: Ain House, Hollywood, California
- 1941: Orans House,{{Cite news
| last = Schneider
| first = Iris
| title = New life for Gregory Ain house in Silver Lake
| newspaper = Los Angeles Times
| date = August 2, 2013
| url = http://www.latimes.com/features/home/la-lh-gregory-ain-house-silver-lake-tony-unruh-20130801,0,1224262.story
}} Silver Lake (Los Angeles), California
- 1942: Jocelyn and Jan Domela House, Tarzana, California
- 1946: Park Planned Homes,{{cite book
| last = Treib
| first = Marc, and Dorothée Imbert
| title = Garrett Eckbo: Modern Landscapes for Living
| publisher = University of California Press
| year = 1997
| url = http://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft6g50073x&chunk.id=d0e4565&toc.depth=1&brand=ucpress}}{{cite web
| url = http://solarhousehistory.com/blog/2025/1/11/park-planned-homes
| title = Park Planned Homes
| last = Denzer
| first = Anthony
| date = January 11, 2025
}} Altadena, California
- 1947–48: Mar Vista Housing, Mar Vista (Los Angeles), California
- designated as a Historic Preservation Overlay Zone by the city of Los Angeles in 2003.{{Cite web
| title = Gregory Ain Mar Vista Tract Historical Preservation Overlay Zone (City of Los Angeles)
| url = http://cityplanning.lacity.org/complan/othrplan/pdf/AinMarVistaHPOZ.pdf
| access-date = 2008-08-31
| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20060613210102/http://cityplanning.lacity.org/complan/othrplan/pdf/AinMarVistaHPOZ.pdf
| archive-date = 2006-06-13
| url-status = dead
}}
- 1948: Avenel Homes (cooperative), Silver Lake, Los Angeles, California
- listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2005.{{Cite web
| title = NRHP nomination
| year = 2004
| url = {{NRHP url|id=05000070}}
| format = PDF
}}
- 1948: Albert Tarter House, Los Feliz, Los Angeles, California
- 1948: Hollywood Guilds and Unions Office Building, Los Angeles, California (later destroyed)
- 1948: Miller House, Beverly Hills, California
- 1948: Community Homes{{cite journal
| last = Denzer
| first = Anthony
| title = Community Homes: Race, Politics and Architecture in Postwar Los Angeles
| journal = Southern California Quarterly
| volume = 87
| issue = 3
| pages = 269–285
|date=Fall 2005
| doi = 10.2307/41172271
| jstor = 41172271}} (cooperative), Reseda (Los Angeles), California (unbuilt)
- 1949: Ain & Garrott Office, Silver Lake, Los Angeles, California
- 1949: Schairer House, Los Angeles, California
- 1950: Beckman House II, Sherman Oaks, California
- 1950: Hurschler House, Pasadena, California (later destroyed)
- 1950: MOMA Exhibition House,{{cite press release
| title = Exhibition House with Sliding Walls Opens May 19 in Museum Garden
| publisher = Museum of Modern Art
| year = 1950
| url = http://www.moma.org/docs/press_archives/1434/releases/MOMA_1950_0043_1950-05-15_500515-37.pdf
}} New York City{{cite web
| url = https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/27/arts/design/gregory-ain-moma-house.html
| title = MoMA Built a House. Then It Disappeared. Now It's Found.
| last = Kahn
| first = Eve M.
| date = May 27, 2021
| publisher = Arthur Sulzberger Jr.
}}
- 1950: Walter Ralphs House,{{cite web
| url = https://la.curbed.com/2017/7/31/16061676/historic-midcentury-gregory-ain-garrett-eckbo-ralphs
| title = Landmarked midcentury modern by Gregory Ain in Pasadena lists for $3M
| last = O'Connor
| first = Pauline
| date = Jul 31, 2017
| publisher = Curbed.com
}} Pasadena, California
- 1951: Ben Margolis House,{{Cite news
| last = Goldin
| first = Greg
| title = Ben Margolis and Gregory Ain: A meeting of radical minds
| newspaper = Los Angeles Times
| date = August 18, 2011
| url = https://www.latimes.com/opinion/la-xpm-2011-aug-18-la-oe-goldin-margolis-ain-architectur20110818-story.html
}} Los Angeles, California
- 1951: Leo Mesner House, Sherman Oaks, California
- 1952: Richard "Dick" Tufeld House, Los Angeles, California
- 1953 : Feldman House, Beverly Crest/Beverly Hills PO, California
- 1962–63: Ernst House II, Vista, California
- 1963: Kaye House,{{Cite web
| title = Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument Application
| year = 2008
| url = http://cityplanning.lacity.org/StaffRpt/CHC/12-18-08/CHC-2008-4716.pdf
}} Tarzana, California
- 1967: Ginoza House,{{cite web
| url = http://solarhousehistory.com/blog/2018/12/21/gregory-ains-ginoza-house
| title = Gregory Ain's Ginoza house
| last = Denzer
| first = Anthony
| date = December 21, 2018
}} State College, Pennsylvania
Awards and honors
- Guggenheim Fellowship, 1940
- American Institute of Architects College of Fellows (FAIA)
References
{{reflist}}
Other sources
{{refbegin}}
- {{cite book
| last = McCoy
| first = Esther
| title = The Second Generation
| publisher = Gibbs Smith
| year = 1984
| isbn = 0-87905-119-1}}
- {{cite book
| last1 = Gebhard
| first1 = David
| last2 = Von Breton
| first2 = Harriette
| last3 = Bricker
| first3= Lauren Weiss
| title = The Architecture of Gregory Ain: The Play Between the Rational and High Art
| publisher = University of California, Santa Barbara
| year = 1980
| isbn = 9780940512061}}
{{refend}}
External links
- [http://www.marvistatract.org/ www.marvistatract.org - Gregory Ain Mar Vista Tract Web Site]
- [http://fixupaddon.blogspot.com/ Gregory Ain Model Home Redo & Add On]
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20160303200216/http://www.usc.edu/dept/architecture/shulman/architects/ain/projects.html LA Obscura: Ain Projects]
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ain, Gregory}}
Category:Modernist architects from the United States
Category:20th-century American architects
Category:Architects from Los Angeles
Category:Architects from Pittsburgh
Category:Modernist architecture in California