On top of the risk to life and property, the wildfires currently ripping through neighborhoods in and around Los Angeles carry an extra level of dread. Pacific Palisades, where a wildfire erupted early Tuesday and, as of this writing, had spread across nearly 16,000 acres, is home to an unusually high concentration of architecturally significant buildings. Many are at risk, and an unknown number may have already been lost.
Among the notable structures within the Palisades Fire’s official evacuation zone are Case Study Houses, the Getty Villa museum, the ranch of performer Will Rogers, and works by some of the most important modernist architects of the 20th century, including Richard Neutra, Eero Saarinen, A. Quincy Jones, Charles Moore, and Ray Kappe.
Another notable building threatened by the Palisades Fire is the Eames House, once the private residence of influential 20th-century designers Ray and Charles Eames. A groundbreaking example of modernist design when it was completed in 1949, the home consists of two glass-and-steel rectangular buildings nestled into a hillside. One was the Eames’s residence, the other their studio.
“The Eames House is just top of everybody’s mind right now,” says Katie Horak, founding president of the Southern California chapter of Docomomo US, a nonprofit organization dedicated to documentation and conservation of buildings, sites, and neighborhoods of the modern movement. “It’s such an important, pivotal house and it’s in a eucalyptus grove, which makes it particularly vulnerable”.
In a post Wednesday morning on its Instagram account, the Eames Foundation reported that the property was so far unharmed by the fire.
The Eames House was one of the famous Case Study Houses, landmark modernist designs that were commissioned in the 1940s and ’50s by Arts & Architecture magazine. Another Case Study House, designed by Charles Eames and Eero Saarinen, stands right next door.
Now an affluent enclave that’s home to many Hollywood celebrities, the Pacific Palisades neighborhood has a long history of architectural expression. “It’s anything but cookie cutter. It was always a place that allowed a sense of freedom and experimentation and to kind of play with the land, but also to build places that were very innovative, experimental, and creative,” says Adrian Scott Fine, president and CEO of the nonprofit Los Angeles Conservancy.
By the time modernist architectural ideas were taking root, especially in Los Angeles, the area was primed for experimentation. “Much of the center part of the city had been pretty well developed by the late ’20s and ’30s. The hilly regions, just because of building engineering methods, really hadn’t built out until the postwar period,” says Horak. “The modern architects loved the challenge of some of these hilly sites and the materials that they [were] experimenting with made them conducive to building on these types of sites”.
That’s also put them in danger. Horak says she knows of at least one famous modernist home in the neighborhood that’s been outfitted with a fire suppression system, but the costs of such protections can be high. The current fires resulted from a combination of unusually strong Santa Ana winds and extreme drought conditions.
“We do know we’ve lost some important historic legacy businesses and no doubt a number of historic, architecturally significant residences scattered throughout Pacific Palisades,” Fine says.
The fate of other buildings may not be known for days. “It’s still so windy and the embers are still flying. It’s just too soon to feel any comfort,” Horak says, noting that she’s particularly anxious about the Eames House. “We’re all just breathlessly waiting for news that it’s safe”.
