case study house no. 2

Share this story

The Case Study houses that made Los Angeles a modernist mecca

Mapping the homes that helped to define an era

Los Angeles is full of fantastic residential architecture styles, from Spanish Colonial Revival to Streamline Moderne. But the modernist Case Study Houses , sponsored by Arts & Architecture and designed between the 1940s and 1960s, are both native to Southern California and particularly emblematic of the region.

The Case Study series showcased homes commissioned by the magazine and designed by some of the most influential designers and architects of the era, including Charles and Ray Eames, Richard Neutra, and Pierre Koenig. The residences were intended to be relatively affordable, replicable houses for post-World War II family living, with an emphasis on “new materials and new techniques in house construction,” as the magazine’s program intro put it.

Technological innovation and practical, economical design features were emphasized—though the homes’ scintillating locations, on roomy lots in neighborhoods like Pacific Palisades and the Hollywood Hills , gave them a luxurious allure.

With the help of photographer Julius Shulman , who shot most of the homes, the most impressive of the homes came to represent not only new styles of home design, but the postwar lifestyle of the booming Southern California region.

A total of 36 houses and apartment buildings were commissioned; a couple dozen were built, and about 20 still stand in the greater Los Angeles area (there’s also one in Northern California, a set near San Diego, and a small apartment complex in Phoenix). Some have been remodeled, but others have been well preserved. Eleven were added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2013.

Here’s a guide to all the houses left to see—but keep in mind that, true to LA form, most are still private residences. The Eames and Stahl houses, two of the most famous Case Study Houses, are regularly open to visitors.

As for the unconventional house numbering, post-1962 A&A publisher David Travers writes that the explanation is “inexplicable, locked in the past.”

Case Study House No. 1

J.R. Davidson (with Greta Davidson) designed this house in 1948 (it was actually his second go at Case Study House No. 1). It was intended for “a hypothetical family" with two working parents and was designed to require "minimum maintenance.”

• Open in Google Maps

Case Study House No. 2

Case Study House No. 2 was designed in 1947 by Sumner Spaulding and John Rex. Arts & Architecture wrote that the home’s layout “achieves a sense of spaciousness and flexibility,” with an open living area and glass doors that lead out to adjoining terraces.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Samuel Dematraz (@samueldematraz) on Oct 28, 2018 at 1:07am PDT

Case Study House No. 7

Case Study House No. 7 was designed in 1948 by Thornton M. Abell. It has a “three-zone living area,” with space for study, activity, and relaxation/conversation; the areas can be separated by sliding panels or combined.

Eames House (Case Study House No. 8)

Legendary designer couple Charles and Ray Eames designed the Eames House in 1949 and even Arts & Architecture seemed kind of blown away by it. The home is built into a hillside behind a row of Eucalyptus trees on a bluff above Pacific Palisades. It's recognizable by its bright blue, red, and yellow panels. The Eameses lived in the house until their deaths. It’s now open to visitors five days per week, though reservations are required.

Entenza House (Case Study House No. 9)

The Entenza House was built in 1949 and designed by Charles Eames and Eero Saarinen for Arts & Architecture editor John Entenza. According to the magazine, “In general, the purpose was to enclose as much space as possible within a reasonably simple construction.”

Case Study House No. 10

Case Study House No. 10 was designed in 1947 by Kemper Nomland. The house is built on several levels to mold into its sloping site. Recently restored, the home sold to Kristen Wiig in 2017.

Case Study House No. 15

Designed by J.R. Davidson in 1947, Case Study House No. 15 has south walls made of huge glass panels. Its flagstone patio and indoor floor are at the same level for that seamless indoor-outdoor feel. According to the magazine, the floorplan “is basically that of another Davidson house, Case Study House No. 11,” which has been demolished.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Samuel Dematraz (@samueldematraz) on Nov 15, 2018 at 6:13am PST

Case Study House for 1953

Craig Ellwood’s Case Study House for 1953 is usually numbered as 16 in the Case Study series . It has a modular steel structure and “the basic plan is a four-foot modular rectangle.” But the interior walls stick out past the exterior walls to bring the indoors out and the outdoors in. The Bel Air house hit the market in November with a $3 million price tag.

Case Study House No. 17 (A)

Case Study House No. 17 (A) was designed by Rodney Walker in 1947. A tight budget kept the house at just 1,560 square feet, “but more space was gained through the use of many glass areas.” The house also has a large front terrace with a fireplace that connects the indoor living room fireplace. The house has been remodeled .

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Case Study House #17, 1947 (@casestudy17) on Jun 11, 2016 at 2:20pm PDT

Case Study House No. 17 (B)

Case Study House No. 17 (B) was designed in 1956 by Craig Ellwood, but “governed by a specific program set forth by the client.” Ellwood took into account the clients' collection of contemporary paintings and made the living room “purposely undersized” to work best for small gatherings. The house was extensively remodeled in the sixties by Hollywood Regency architect John Elgin Woolf and his partner, interior designer Robert Koch Woolf.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by BAUKUNST™ El Arte de Construir (@i_volante) on Aug 13, 2017 at 4:42pm PDT

West House (Case Study House No. 18 [A])

Case Study House No. 18 (A) was designed by Rodney Walker in 1948. The house is oriented toward the ocean, but set back from the cliff edge it sits on to avoid noise issues. As A&A says, "High above the ocean, the privacy of the open south and east exposures of Case Study House No. 18 can be threatened only by an occasional sea-gull." The house features a "bricked garden room" separated from the living room by a two-sided fireplace.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by CaseStudyHouse18A (@casestudyhouse18a) on Oct 6, 2018 at 8:44pm PDT

Fields House (Case Study House No. 18 [B])

Case Study House No. 18 (B) was designed by Craig Ellwood in 1958. Ellwood didn’t attempt to hide that the house was prefabricated (the magazine explains that he believed “that the increasing cost of labor and the decline of the craftsman will within not too many years force a complete mechanization of residential construction methods”). The components of the house, however, are “strongly defined with color: ceiling and panels are off-white and the steel framework is blue.” According to A&A' s website, the house has been remodeled.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by MCM Daily (@dc_hillier) on Oct 29, 2018 at 8:32pm PDT

Case Study House No. 20 [A])

This two-bedroom house was meant “to serve young parents who find they can afford just that much,” according to architect Richard Neutra’s description. He also wrote that he used several different kinds of natural wood in the house.

Bass House (Case Study House No. 20 [B])

The Bass House was designed in 1958 by Buff, Straub, and Hensman for famed graphic designer Saul Bass. It's “unique in that it was based upon the experimental use of several prefabricated Douglas fir plywood products as part of the structural concept,” including hollow-core plywood vaults that covered the central part of the house.

Case Study House No. 21

Pierre Koenig designed Case Study House No. 21 in 1958. It was originally completely surrounded by water, with a walkway and driveway spanning the moat at the front door and carport, respectively. The house was severely messed with over the years, but restored in the ’90s with help from Koenig.

Stahl House (Case Study House No. 22)

Pierre Koenig's Stahl House , designed in 1960, is probably the most famous house in Los Angeles, thanks to an iconic photo by Julius Shulman . The house isn't much to look at from the street, but its backside is mostly glass surrounding a cliff's-edge pool. Tours are available Mondays, Wednesdays, and Friday—but book well ahead of time, as they sell out quickly.

Case Study House for 1950

The unnumbered Case Study House for 1950 was designed by Raphael Soriano. It's rectangular, with living room and bedrooms facing out to the view. However, in the kitchen and eating areas, the house “turns upon itself and living develops around a large kitchen-dining plan opening upon a terrace which leads directly into the living room interrupted only by the mass of two fireplaces.” According to A&A 's website, the house has been remodeled.

Frank House (Case Study House No. 25)

The two-story Frank House was designed by Killingsworth, Brady, and Smith and Associates in 1962 and it sits on a canal in Long Beach. A reflecting pool with stepping stones leads to its huge front door and inside to an 18-foot high courtyard. The house sold in 2015 with some unfortunate remodeling .

Case Study House No. 28

Case Study House No. 28 was designed in 1966 by Conrad Buff and Donald Hensman. According to the magazine, “the architects were asked to design a house that incorporated face brick as the primary structural material to demonstrate its particular advantages.” They came up with a plan for two symmetrical wings joined by glass galleries.

Site search

• Los Angeles
• San Francisco
• Archive.curbed.com
• For Sale
 in LA
• For Rent in LA
• Curbed Comparisons
• Neighborhoods
• Real Estate Market Reports
• Rental Market Reports
• Homelessness
• Development
 News
• Transportation
• Architecture


More From Forbes

The case study houses forever changed american architecture.

• Share to Facebook
• Share to Twitter
• Share to Linkedin

Scenes from the new showroom of Herman Miller which shows classic designs by Charles and Ray Eames, ... [+] in Culver City, Ca., Oct. 1, 2009. (Photo by Jay L. Clendenin/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

The Case Study House Program’s vision belonged to Los Angeles-based Arts & Architecture magazine Editor John Entenza.

Entenza sponsored and publicized some design competitions in the magazine and emphasized modern, affordable, easily built houses.

He announced the Case Study House Program's launch in the January 1945 issue of Arts & Architecture magazine . He envisioned the program to solve the problem of housing shortages and anticipated the coming building boom that would follow War World II and the Depression.

The front side of the Eames House Case Study #8 designed by architects Charles and Ray Eames in ... [+] Pacific Palisades. June 30, 2005. (Photo by Mark Boster/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

A 1937 Harwell Harris house has a Streamline Moderne exterior with a white curved porte cochere in ... [+] front (wide enough for the original owner, powerful architecture magazine editor John Entenza s 1925 Ford) and a round bedroom wall in back overlooking Santa Monica Canyon. Peter Rabitz, a co–worker visiting from Germany, enjoys the view into the canyon on a recent visit. (Photo by Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

A 1937 Harwell Harris house has the porte cochere at left and entrance to house at right. (Photo by ... [+] Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

The goal of the program was for each architect to create a home "capable of duplication and in no sense being an individual performance," Entenza said in his announcement.

"It is important that the best materials available be used in the best possible way in order to arrive at a good solution of each problem, which in the overall program will be general enough to be of practical assistance to the average American in search of a home in which he can afford to live in," he noted.

Architect Pierre Koenig designed two of the iconic Modernist houses in Los Angeles in the 1950s ... [+] known as Case Study House 21 and 22. Drawing of one of Koenig's designs. (Photo by Anacleto Rapping/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

The Case Study House Program served as a model for post-war living, providing the public and the building industry an opportunity to access affordable, mid-century modernism and simple designs.

Floor-to-ceiling glass, steel frames, horizontal lines, modular components, open-floor plans and multi-purpose rooms were all elements of the Case Study’s take on modernism. The furnished projects provided places for owners to enjoy a family-friendly home with public and private spaces to relax, watch TV, listen to music and entertain, merging indoor and outdoor worlds with walls of steel and glass to allow ample light.

Initially, Entenza invited Richard Neutra, Charles Eames, Eero Saarinen and five other architects to submit prototypes and planned that all eight houses would be open to the public until they were occupied. The project was ambitious. The Eames and Entenza houses were designed in 1945 but not completed until 1949. Still, the Case Study program was so successful that it ran until 1966 and saw 350,000 visitors tour the open homes before clients took up residence.

Architect Pierre Koenig designed two of the iconic Modernist houses in Los Angeles in the 1950s ... [+] known as Case Study House 21 and 22. Photos of Pierre and Gloria Koenig main living room inside their West Los Angeles home which Pierre designed. (Photo by Anacleto Rapping/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

Twenty homes remain today, but 36 experimental prototypes, many unbuilt, documenting new ideas and residential designs, appeared in the magazine.

The majority of the homes were built in Southern California; some are located in San Diego and Northern California; a group of Case Study apartments was built in Phoenix.

Many architects such as Ray and Charles Eames, Saarinen, Craig Ellwood and Pierre Koenig became icons of modernism and earned international followings. The Case Study Houses launched the reputations of local architects such as Thornton Bell, Whitney R. Smith and Rodney Walker.

• Editorial Standards
• Reprints & Permissions

• Random Project
• Collaborate

Case Study House nº2

This image is available in several sizes: 250x250 pixels , 620x407 pixels , 1200x788 pixels , 1233x810 pixels , or 1233x810 pixels.

About this building

Case Study House nº2, designed by Sumner Spaulding , John Rex , is located at Chapman Woods, Pasadena, California, United States. It was designed in 1945 and built in 1946-1947.

It has a total built-up area of 185 m2

If you want to learn more about the Case Study House nº2, don't hesitate to check the full article ! Were you'll find a lot more information about it, including historical context, concept development, type of structure and materials used, and more.

This file contains additional information, probably added from the digital camera or scanner used to create or digitize it. If the file has been modified from its original state, some details may not fully reflect the modified file.

File History

About this photo

The image has been post-processed using Adobe Photoshop 25.4 (Windows), so it's possible that the shapes and/or colors have been modified, although these changes are usually minor and meant to improve the quality of the photo.

A shutter speed of means the sensor was exposed for NAN seconds. This is a low enough value to guaranty that the image is probably sharp, even if captured without a tripod or if it has moving objects in it.

Authorship and Copy Right

This image might be subject to copyright. Do not use it without written permission.

• Copyright: 1
• Exposure Time: 4
• F Number: 5
• I S O Speed Ratings: 6
• Date Time Original: 7
• File Date Time: 0
• File Size: 560573
• File Type: 2
• Mime Type: image/jpeg
• Sections Found: ANY_TAG, IFD0, THUMBNAIL, EXIF
• C O M P U T E D: Array
• Image Width: 1000
• Image Length: 558
• Bits Per Sample: Array
• Photometric Interpretation: 2
• Orientation: 1
• Samples Per Pixel: 3
• X Resolution: 720000/10000
• Y Resolution: 720000/10000
• Resolution Unit: 2
• Software: Adobe Photoshop 25.4 (Windows)
• Date Time: 2024:02:28 17:29:25
• Exif_ I F D_ Pointer: 232
• T H U M B N A I L: Array
• Exif Version: 0231
• Color Space: 65535
• Exif Image Width: 1233
• Exif Image Length: 810

By providing your information, you agree to our Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy . We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services.

THE CASE STUDY HOUSES

• Share on Facebook
• Show more sharing options
• Share on WhatsApp
• Print This Page
• Share on LinkedIn
• Share to Flipboard
• Submit to Reddit
• Post to Tumblr

SURPRISINGLY THE AMERICAN ARCHITECTURAL magazine most often found in the foreign architect’s office or School of Architecture is the California publication Arts & Architecture . In its pages the foreign archi­tect and student is exposed to an array of buildings of a remarkably high degree of quality. (He is also exposed to the writings of two of America’s most gifted critics, Peter Yates, in music, and Dore Ashton, in painting and sculpture). The wide acceptance and influence of Arts & Architecture  abroad has cer­tainly been due to its view of architecture as an art, rather than as a vast business enterprise, the ap­proach which underlies a majority of America’s archi­tectural publications. Related POP ART, USA MUSE AND EGO

One of the magazine’s most influential and far reaching programs has been its sponsorship of a series of Case Study Houses , where new concepts of form, material and structure could be tested out in residential architecture. The program was insti­tuted in 1945 and the first of these experimental houses was built the following year. Since this date, over 25 houses have been constructed and several are at present in the design stage or are in process of being built. Photographs and plans of these case study houses have recently been brought together by Esther McCoy in a single volume entitled Modern California Houses, Case Study Houses 1945–1962 , (published by Reinhold Publishing Corp., New York, 1962, $15.00). Esther McCoy has long been associated with Arts & Architecture . As a critic and historian she has con­tributed immensely to our understanding of 20th century architecture in California. Her writing on the work of Irving Gill, Bernard Maybeck the brothers Charles and Henry Greene and R. M. Schindler has re­vealed to us an almost entirely unknown chapter in the history of modern architecture. As we should ex­pect, this book, its text, the quality of its plates and its design layout are as distinguished as the buildings which it discusses and illustrates.

To fully appraise the Case Study program one should first see it within the context of similar endeavors which have been tried from time to time in this country and abroad. Throughout the 20th century, nu­merous “Idea houses” or “Houses of the future” have appeared in exhibitions and others have been spon­sored by home and women’s magazines. In 1927–28 the internationally famous Weissonhof housing proj­ects featured designs by Le Corbusier, Gropius, Mart Stam, J. J. P. Oud and others. A similar project to encourage the acceptance of modern architecture was instituted before the Second World War by the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis in their first “Idea house,” and continued in a second “Idea house” con­structed in 1947 behind the Center. In 1948 The Museum of Modern Art commissioned Marcel Breuer to build an exhibition house in the Museum court­yard; a second house was commissioned in 1950 to the California architect Gregory Ain. In the 1950’s the Guggenheim Museum, as part of its exhibition of Frank Lloyd Wright, built one of his “Usonian” houses.

Few of these programs have been able to sustain themselves for any appreciable length of time and it is difficult to say whether they have actually pro­duced their desired result. Even the influential ex­hibition and publication program of the Museum of Modern Art in architecture and design, first under Phillip Johnson in the early 1930’s, and later in the 40’s and early 50’s under Edgar Kaufman has pretty well fallen into a respectable intellectual doldrum in the hands of Arthur Drexler.

That this path is a precarious one is well illustrated by several of the most recent Case Study Houses, especially the Towri House on the Rivo Alto Canal, near Long Beach, and the Triad Development of houses at La Jolla, all by the firm of Killingsworth, Brady and Smith. In each of these houses there is a decided tinge of what has so aptly been labeled “Hollywood Regency.” Not that their forms are in any way eclectic––there is no evidence whatsoever of “French Provincial” or “English Regency” which is the normal mode of the Beverly Hills version of “Holly­wood Regency.” Yet their own involvement with formalism, with forced symmetry and their self-con­scious concern for uncluttered forms and surfaces has created a preciousness which compromises their total architectural statement. Man’s physical frame may well be symmetrical, but this does not mean that he necessarily lives or operates in this way. There is something dramatic about entering a house over a bridge, or via a series of stepping stones over a pool of water, but in the end is this architecture or simply a stage setting? In their house “A” at La Jolla, Kil­lingsworth, Brady and Smith provide this stagey, im­pressive entrance for guests and visitors and then they furnish an entrance for the family directly off the garage area which frankly conveys the informality of the contemporary California scene.

The view of architecture as an intellectual exercise in the realm of pristine sharp-edged forms and pre­cise proportions has long been a dominant theme in the Case Study program (as it has continually cropped up throughout the history of architecture), but in the earlier Case Study Houses by Craig Ellwood and Pierre Koenig the esthetic articulation of planes and volumes defined by precise rectangular shapes had been dominated by the structural form of the building. In Killingsworth, Brady and Smith there is a tendency to play down the structure as the salient motif and in its place to substitute an involvement with form.

The most recent of the Case Study Houses reveals as well a marked shift in the use of materials and the way in which they are exposed. The employment of steel as a relatively new building material in do­mestic architecture was initiated in the Case Study House program by Charles Eames for his own house and studio, built in 1949. The Eames house was the most successful of all the Case Study Houses in that it illustrated how the mass-produced product might be used in domestic architecture. The Eames house used materials, primarily steel and glass, in such a way that their quality of regularity and order never dominated the total form. In the later Case Study Houses of Ellwood and Koenig the steel frame did become the controlling element in the design, forci­bly establishing the surface, the proportion and the volume of the building. In several of the most recent examples of the Case Study Houses this directness of approach to materials and structure has been par­tially abandoned. The materials and structure no longer are an organic part of the design. As Mies van der Rohe, Walter Gropius and even Frank Lloyd Wright have pointed out, good design, especially in our century and here in America, is as much a result of negative self-restraint as it is positive affirmation. Certainly the success of the Eames house was the result of his adherence to the principle of self-re­straint.

Originally the Case Study House program had an­other dominating characteristic and that was its interest in the direct solution of the problems of the mass-produced project house. The first Case Study House by J. R. Davidson was an admirable and highly influential minimal house (of 1100 sq. ft.) and was reproduced as a mass-produced house. The same was true of Summer Spaulding’s and John Rex’s 1947 Case Study House, where a strict modular system was ad­hered to.

By the 1950’s Arts & Architecture had pretty well abandoned any direct concern for mass housing. The houses of the last 12 to 13 years seemed to be based upon the premise of influencing design through osmosis––by creating visual and structural “master­pieces” which will serve as a source of inspiration in the area of project and mass-produced housing. That the Case Study House Project has created significant monuments of the “modern movement” is undeniable and it is hoped that it will continue to do so, but whether this approach, as opposed to its direct in­volvement, can or will affect mass housing (which constitutes well over 90% of all houses built in the U.S.) is open to serious doubt.

–– David Gebhard

Most Popular

You may also like.

• Eames Foundation

find us on:

Eames House

• Charles and Ray
• Eames House and the CSH program
• Case Study House Bluff
• Photo Gallery
• How to Visit
• Covid-19 Safety Protocols
• Guided Exterior Tour
• Group Guided Exterior Tour
• Interior Tour
• Members Appreciation Day
• Small Wedding
• Specialty Events
• Visitors Submissions
• Memberships
• Corporate Sponsorship
• 250 Year Project

Collections

• On-going Studies
• Conservation Management Plan
• Team Thanks

The Eames House, also known as Case Study House No. 8, is a landmark of mid-20th century modern architecture located in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles. It was designed and constructed in 1949 by husband-and-wife Charles and Ray Eames to serve as their home and studio. They lived in their home until their deaths: Charles in 1978 and Ray, ten years to the day, in 1988.

Charles described the house as unselfconscious . There is a sense of that “way-it-should-be-ness”. Charles and Ray designed a house specifically to meet their needs, but they were those universal needs that we all share as humans. They believed in the honest use of materials and straightforward connections. The details WERE the product!

And then by nestling the house into the hillside, rather than imposing it on the site, they realized their original intent: for the house in nature to serve as a re-orientor. The scent, the sound of birds, the shadow of the trees against the structure whether inside or out, the openness of the site—all the elements join seamlessly.

Charles said, “Just as a good host tries to anticipate the needs of his guest, so a good architect or a designer or a city planner tries to anticipate the needs of those who will live in or use the thing being designed.”

Come visit and explore how the house exemplifies many of the themes of the Eameses’ work: from furniture to exhibitions, the guest/host relationship, the iterative process that leads to meeting the need, the importance of the direct experience, the relation with nature, the life in work and work in life, the importance of details, and more. Together the structure, collections, and landscape tell the story of the couple’s approach to life and work.

The Eames House consists of two glass and steel rectangular boxes: one is a residence; one, a working studio, exploring process, materiality and color.

The Eameses looked at life as being an act of design. The residence is filled with the “stuff” of their living: the stuff that tells the story of their lives, interests and loves.

The Eames House structure and its contents are often the focus of attention, but the landscape is critical to their understanding. As Charles said, “Eventually everything connects”.

Help us share the Eameses’ joy and rigor with future visitors, so they may have a direct experience of Charles and Ray’s approach to life and work.

• Google Maps
• Google Maps Street View
• Bing Maps Birds Eye View
• Most Popular
• Colleges / Universities
• Famous Architects
• Famous Homes
• Historic Homes
• Skyscrapers
• More…
• Entertainment
• Amphitheatres
• Roadside Attractions
• Theme Parks
• Water Parks
• Baseball Fields (Pro)
• Baseball Fields (Other)
• Hockey Arenas
• Tennis Stadiums
• Soccer Stadiums
• Military Bases
• Military Air Fields
• Navy / Coast Guard
• Military Communications
• Missile Sites
• Radar Sites
• Censored Imagery
• Transportation
• Lighthouses
• Other…
• Government & Politicians
• Auto Racing
• Advertising / Signs
• Novelty / Interesting
• Retail / Dining
• Street Theater
• Theme Parks / Circuses / Fairs
• Random Objects
• Construction
• Fires / Crashes / Disasters
• People Doing Things
• Birds / Animals
• Parks / Playgrounds
• Cars / Trucks
• Fire / Police / Ambulance
• Military (Active)
• Military (On Display)
• In The News
• Movie Locations
• Murder Sites
• Olympic Sites
• TV Locations
• Artwork - Sculpture
• Artwork - Land Art
• Golf Courses
• Geographic Extremes
• Air - Classic
• Air - Fighter Jets
• Cruise Ships

'Case Study House No. 2' by Sumner Spaulding and John Rex

• 'Case Study House No. 2' by Sumner Spaulding and John Rex
• Nearby (13,745)

• Buildings > Homes - Famous

Collections

• Case Study Houses by fin

Please log in if you don't want to post anonymously (anonymous users cannot post links).

Note: VirtualGlobetrotting is an entertainment website is and is not associated with this post, location or person.

Around the World Mailing List

• à propos

Pierre Koenig

Stahl house.

The Case Study House Program produced some of the most iconic architectural projects of the 20th Century, but none more iconic than or as famous as the Stahl House, also known as Case Study House #22 by Pierre Koenig. The modern residence overlooks Los Angeles from the Hollywood Hills. It was completed in 1959 for Buck Stahl and his family.

Buck Stahl had envisioned a modernist glass and steel constructed house that offered panoramic views of Los Angles when he originally purchased the land for the house in 1954 for $13,500. Stahl had originally begun to excavate and take on the duties of architect and contractor; it was not until 1957 when Stahl hired Pierre Koenig to take over the design of the family’s residence.

The two-bedroom, 2’200 square foot residence is a true testament to modernist architecture and the Case Study House Program. The program was set in place by John Entenza and sponsored by the Arts & Architecture magazine. The aim of the program was to introduce modernist principles into residential architecture, not only to advance the aesthetic, but to introduce new ways of life both in a stylistic sense and one that represented the lifestyles of the modern age.

Pierre Koenig was able to hone in on the vision of Buck Stahl and transform that vision into a modernist icon. The glass and steel construction is understandably the most identifiable trait of architectural modernism, but it is the way in which Koenig organized the spatial layout of the house taking the public and private aspects of the house into great consideration. As much as architectural modernism is associated with the materials and methods of construction, the juxtaposition of program and organization are important design principles that evoke utilitarian characteristics.

The house is “L” shaped in that the private and public sectors are completely separated save for a single hallway that connects the two wings. Compositionally adjacent is the swimming pool that one must cross in order to get into the house; it is not only a spatial division of public and private but its serves as the interstitial space that one must pass through in order to experience the panoramic views.

The living space of the house is set back behind the pool and is the only part of the house that has a solid wall, which backs up to the carport and the street. The entire house is understood to be one large viewing box that captures amazing perspectives of the house, the landscape, and Los Angeles. Oddly enough, the Stahl house was fairly unknown and unrecognized for its advancement of modern American residential architecture, until 1960 when Julius Shulman captured the pure architectural essence of the house. It was the night shot of two women sitting in the living room overlooking the bright lights of the city of Los Angeles.

Client: Buck Stahl Drawings: Adam Caruso Chair ETH Zürich Photography: Julius Shulman

The Case Study Houses Program: Pierre Koenig’s Stahl House

Probably one of the most famous and photographed Case Study Houses , the no. 22 was  designed by  Pierre Koenig  in 1960.

The Case Study house 22 was built on a promontory overlooking the city of Los Angeles and has an L-shaped plan with a structure made of steel and glass. Its minimal design, made this house one of the most iconic Case Study Houses and an example of experimental construction methods .

Koenig designed the Case Study House 22 with all the rooms facing the swimming pool spanned by a concrete footbridge that easily links the car parking space with the entrance. The architect created a pavilion made of steel, framing 20-foot wide elements of glass that defined the inner space: a minimal and elegant design.

The wide overhanging roof shelters the interior from the afternoon sun light and sky glare, also covering the outside living area.

Koenig prevented possible erosive actions and seismic events that might damage the structure of the Case Study House 22, encasing the beams with twelve inches of concrete and setting the piers back from five to seven feet from them . The walls, all made of glass except on the street side,  also contributed to make the house resistant to all kind of horizontal forces.

Also, Koenig took full advantage of the site. Since the house is located on a promontory with a 240 degree view of the city, he designed an open plan that the owners could enjoy as much as possible and which expanded to the outside.

Photos by Flickr user  James Vaughan , Pixelsonic  and Sandraespinet

The Case Study Houses Program: Richard Neutra’s Bailey House

The case study houses program: craig ellwood’s case study house 18.

• Case Study House #8

The Eames House, Case Study House 8, was one of roughly two dozen homes built as part of The Case Study House Program. John Entenza, the editor and owner of Arts & Architecture magazine, spearheaded the program in the mid-1940s until its end in the mid-1960s.

In a challenge to the architectural community, the magazine announced that it would be the client for a series of homes designed to express man’s life in the modern world. These houses were to be built and furnished using materials and techniques derived from the experiences of WWII. Each home would be specific in its intention for either a real or hypothetical client, considering various housing needs and scenarios of the era. Case Study House #8 proposed a house for a married couple working in design and graphic arts whose children no longer lived at home.

“The house would make no demands for itself and would serve as a background for life in work, with nature as a shock absorber.” Charles Eames

The first plan of the Eameses’ home, known as the Bridge House, was designed in 1945 by Charles Eames and Eero Saarinen. The design used pre-fabricated materials ordered from industrial and commercial catalogs. Materials were ordered for the Bridge House and the design was published in the December 1945 issue of the magazine, but due to a war-driven shortage, the steel did not arrive until late 1948. By then, according to Ray, she and Charles had “fallen in love with the meadow.” The nature of the site, and the Eameses themselves, yearned for a different solution.

Charles and Ray were summoned by a new problem: how to build a house that would not destroy the meadow, but would “maximize volume from minimal materials.” Using the same off-the-shelf parts, but notably ordering one extra steel beam, Charles and Ray reconfigured the house’s first design into a two-story pair of structures: a residence and separate studio. They integrated the new design into the landscape’s north-south hillside, rather than imposing on it. Construction began in February 1949, and after 16 hours, the foundation and steel frame were complete. The remainder of the modular home was finished by December. 

Charles and Ray moved into the Eames House (Case Study House #8) on Christmas Eve in 1949, and lived there for the rest of their lives. The interior, its objects, and its collections remain very much the way they were in Charles and Ray’s lifetimes. Case Study House 8 offered these spouses and designers space where work, play, life, and nature coexisted.

The Eames House, now a National Historic Landmark, is visited by people from all across the globe. Its charm and appeal are perhaps best explained by Case Study House founder John Entenza, who felt that the Eames House “represented an attempt to state an idea rather than a fixed architectural pattern.”

In 2004, Charles’s daughter, Lucia Eames, created a non-profit organization called the  Eames Foundation  to preserve and protect the Eames House and provide educational experiences that celebrate the creative legacy of Charles and Ray.

The Getty Conservation Institute is continually partnering with the Eames Foundation on the 250 Year Project to conserve this historic landmark for long-term enjoyment. The 2019 GCI publication, the Eames House  Conservation Management Plan , outlines the preservation of the home’s materials and cultural significance. Learn more about the  Eames Foundation , its 250-year preservation plan for the Eames House, and how to visit this historic landmark.

Explore Similar Works

Architecture.

• Billy Wilder House
• Case Study House 9: The Entenza House

More History

Related Products

Browse a curated selection of Eames Office products we think you’ll love

100 Quotes by Charles Eames

Iconic Photos

Famous, Infamous, and Iconic Images

Case Study House No. 22, 1960

Between 1945 and 1966, Californian magazine Arts & Architecture asked major architects of the day to design model homes. The magazine was responding to the postwar building boom with prototype modern homes that could be both easily replicated and readily affordable to the average American. Among many criteria given to the architects was to use “as far as is practicable, many war-born techniques and materials best suited to the expression of man’s life in the modern world.”

Thirty-six model homes were commissioned from major architects of the day, including Richard Neutra, Raphael Soriano, Craig Ellwood, Charles and Ray Eames, Pierre Koenig, Eero Saarinen, A. Quincy Jones, and Ralph Rapson. Not all of them were built but some thirty of them were, mostly around the Greater Los Angeles area.

The magazine also engaged an architectural photographer named Julius Shulman to dutifully record this experiment in residential architecture. Fittingly for Shulman, one of the first architectural photographers to include the inhabitants of homes in the pictures, his most famous image was the 1960 view of Pierre Koenig’s Case Study House No. 22 (also the Stahl House), which showed two well-dressed women conversing casually inside.

In the photo, the cantilevered living room appears to float diaphanously above Los Angeles. “The vertiginous point of view contrasts sharply with the relaxed atmosphere of the house’s interior, testifying to the ability of the Modernist architect to transcend the limits of the natural world,” praised the New York Times . Yet this view was created as meticulously as the house itself. Wide-angle photography belied the actual smallness of the house; furniture and furnishings were staged, and as were the women. Although they were not models (but rather girlfriends of architectural students), they were asked to sit still in the dark as Shulman exposed the film seven minutes to capture lights from LA streets. Then, lights inside were quickly switched on to capture two posing women.

Case Study House No.22 as it appeared in Arts and Architecture . Shulman’s photo with inhabitants did not appear here.

See other Case Study Houses here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_Study_Houses

Result was the photo Sir Norman Foster termed his favorite “architectural moment”. Indeed, the photo captured excitement and promises the house held, and propelled Case Study No. 22 into the forefront of national consciousness. Some called it the most iconic building in LA. It appeared as backdrop in many movies, TV series and advertisements. Tim Allen was abducted by aliens here in Galaxy Quest ; Greg Kinnear would make it his bachelor pad in Nurse Betty , and Columbo opened its pilot episode here. Italian models in slicked-back hair would frolic poolside in Valentino ads. It was even replicated in the 2004 video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. According to Koenig, Case Study No. 22. was featured in more than 1,200 books — more often than Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Notify me of follow-up comments by email.

Notify me of new posts by email.

The Last Case Study House

• Architecture
• case study house
• photography

Above: Designed by Buff & Hensman and located in Thousand Oaks, California is CSH #28, the last house of Art & Architecture magazine’s Case Study House program. Photo: Julius Shulman / Getty Archives 

Located in Thousand Oaks, California Case Study House #28 was the last of the program that began in 1945 by Art & Architecture magazine. The Case Study program was an experiment in American residential architecture whose goal was to create show homes that showcased affordable, modern housing in response to the sudden increase in housing demand created with the return of millions of soldiers after the end of the Second World War. Designed by architect Jack W. Buktenica of the firm of Buff, Hensman and Associates Case Study House #28 was completed in 1966 and demonstrates that after 20 years of the Case Study Program the goal of affordable and modern housing had given way to simply showcasing innovations in modern architectural design and materials. The home is still around today and is listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.

Designed by Buff & Hensman and located in Thousand Oaks California is #28, the last house of Art & Architecture’s Case Study House program. Photo: Julius Shulman / Getty Archives

Here is the text of the article introducing Case Study House #28 as it appeared in Art & Architecture Magazine in 1966.

CASE STUDY HOUSE NO. 28 BY BUFF, HENSMAN & ASSOCIATES, ARCHITECTS

Co-Sponsored by Pacific Clay Products and Janss Corporation

Interiors by Robert P. D’Amico of Ecological Design Associates with Marge Peterek Landscape

Architect: Jack W. Buktenica.

Photographed by Julius Shulman

This Case Study project grew out of a concern with the problems and advantages of face brick as the basic structural material in contemporary single-family residential construction. Despite its wide use in large scale building, face brick is used on the West Coast for its decorative rather than its structural properties, largely because of cost factors, which in turn are the result of stringent reinforcing requirements in building codes and resistance by labor to improved, more efficient construction methods. The architects were asked to design a house that incorporated face brick as the primary structural material to demonstrate its particular advantages. The solution introduces reinforced grouted walls and piers, laid in a standard one-third bond, and designed to take both horizontal and vertical loads and spanned by concealed steel beams. Joining the brick with glass results in a combination of materials requiring no finish and little maintenance during the life of the building.

The site is a knoll overlooking the Conejo Valley development of Janss Corporation 40 miles north of Los Angeles near Thousand Oaks. The house utilizes the site in its entirety, the overall periphery approximating a square and following the boundaries of the usable portion of the lot. In plan the house is composed of two symmetrical wings connected by glass-enclosed galleries. Living, dining, kitchen and study are in one, the five bedrooms in the other of the two parallel 95′ by 19′ wings. The major spaces and the galleries open onto a 54′ by 54′ central court, paved in brick and containing a swimming pool and planted areas, that forms a visual and physical center for the house. The low profile of the house, leaving views from surrounding sites unobstructed, is emphasized by wide overhangs which shade the extensive glass area (4500 square feet). In addition to their visual and sun control functions, the overhangs house continuous duct plenums for carrying conditioned air; the two central brick piers abutting on the interior court each houses the forced-air units for its wing. Thus the necessary heating and cooling elements have been made contributing visual factors in a concept that combines form, function and mechanical environmental controls.

The covered area of the house is about 5000 square feet, including the two connecting galleries. All interior floors are brick paver, relating to the brick of the central court and the terraces and patios; the family of earth colors in the various brick surfaces also integrates the house with the site and the larger environment. The combination of the past with today’s technology in the juxtaposition of the warm, natural brick with the meticulously detailed stainless steel framing for windows and sliding glass doors has also been reflected in the interior design.

Click on image for full view.

CSH #28 today. Designed by Buff & Hensman and located in Thousand Oaks California it is the last house of of Art & Architecture’s Case Study House program.

Check out these great books!

I have been secretly hoping that you would do a series on the Case Study houses, and whether or not you do a series, I love that you wrote about my favorite Case Study house. What interesting info – I did not realize that this was designed to showcase brick as a building material. This is one of those homes that transports me, that makes me feel that I have always known it. Thank you for this article.

Sign in to Mod The Sims

• Downloads >
• Sims 2 >
• Lots & Housing >
• Residential

Case Study House #2 Redux (modern base-game no-CC house)

Front.JPG - width=1141 height=279

FloorPlan.JPG - width=833 height=731

FullView.JPG - width=1140 height=505

Overview.JPG - width=1144 height=674

Left.JPG - width=1141 height=355

LeftBack.JPG - width=1139 height=388

Right.JPG - width=1141 height=379

RightBack.JPG - width=1141 height=346

• Description
• Download   1
• Information
• Comments   4
• Also thanked & Recommended

Install Instructions

• You may want to use the Sims2Pack Clean Installer instead of the game's installer, which will let you install sims and pets which may otherwise give errors about needing expansion packs. It also lets you choose what included content to install. Do NOT use Clean Installer to get around this error with lots and houses as that can cause your game to crash when attempting to use that lot. Get S2PCI here: Clean Installer Official Site .
• For a full, complete guide to downloading complete with pictures and more information, see: Game Help: Downloading for Fracking Idiots .
• Custom content not showing up in the game? See: Game Help: Getting Custom Content to Show Up .

# case study , # contemporary , # modern , # modernist , # post-war , # base game , # no custom content , # one story , # single story , # flat roof

Sharing, Requests, Help

More Downloads BETA

Here are some more of my downloads:.

This site is not endorsed by or affiliated with Electronic Arts, or its licensors. Trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Game content and materials copyright Electronic Arts Inc. and its licensors. All Rights Reserved.

Site version: v3.5.0. ModTheSims, ModTheSims2 and MTS2 © 2004-2023.

• Hispanoamérica
• Work at ArchDaily
• Terms of Use
• Privacy Policy
• Cookie Policy

Modern, Low-Budget and Easy to Build Living Spaces: the Case Study House Program

• Written by Fabian Dejtiar | Translated by Maggie Johnson
• Published on March 29, 2021

Between 1945 and 1966, the Case Study Houses program , following the Weißenhof-siedlung exposition, commissioned a study of economic, easy-to-build houses. The study included the creation of 36 prototypes that were to be built leading up to post-war residential development. The initiative by John Entenza, editor of Arts & Architecture magazine, brought a team to Los Angeles that featured some of the biggest names in architecture at the time, including Richard Neutra , Charles & Ray Eames, Pierre Koenig, and Eero Saarinen , among others.

The program's experiment not only defined the modern home and set it apart from its predecessors, but it also pioneered new construction materials and methods in residential development that continue to influence international architecture to this day. Take a detailed look at some of the program's most emblematic work together with recommendations for facing contemporary challenges. 

Modern Living Space: Adapting to new needs, activities, and lifestyles

"What is a house?" asked Eames. He soon answered his own question with a drawing that captured the new ways that people used and lived in the contemporary home: listening to music, watching movies, entertaining, and relaxing. These functions led to the introduction of open floor plans and multi-purpose rooms divided between public and private spaces, which quickly became the norm for modern house design. 

In this sense, living spaces also began to stand out for the creative details that began to link the inside of the residence with the outside, mainly by maximizing the use of open air spaces. Sliding doors, furniture, and other elements were another facet to the personalization of spaces in an attempt to satisfy the the tastes and wants of the future residents while keeping in mind their security and privacy.  

Another interesting factor was the attention given to storage spaces such as cabinets, shelves, and closets, especially in kitchens, bedrooms, and bathrooms. In this sense, as shown in the film “House: After Five Years of Living,” made by Eames in 1955, the resident's personal possessions and where they are exhibited play an important role in humanizing a living space.

• 6 Tips for Designing and Building a Tiny House
• Smart Configurations for Small Kitchens
• Storage Spaces for Small Houses: Solutions and Useful Examples

Low-Budget Housing: Understanding New Materials and Reducing Energy Costs 

As can be seen in numerous examples, the decision to use materials such as cement blocks, plywood, and industrial glass dramatically reduced the project's costs. In turn, by using the resistance of the metal, the designers were able to use smaller dimensions for the columns and beams, resulting in smaller frameworks to enclose the spaces. Maintenance costs were even lower. The materials could be left exposed in their raw form or covered with a light coat of paint and could easily be replaced in the event of breakage. 

The low-cost trend gained even more momentum with the development of various methods to reduce heating and lighting expenses. The use of large floor-to-ceiling windows maximized natural light and their sliding fixtures allowed for optimal air-flow. Furthermore, the wide incorporation of plants and green space also worked to keep the home cool and comfortable. 

• How to Make a Facade with Recycled Materials: 16 Notable Examples
• The Golden Age of 3D Printing: Innovations Changing the Industry
• Unfamiliar Living Spaces with Recycled Materials (Spanish Text)

Easy-to-build Living Spaces: Using the Most Efficient Construction Methods

An interesting aspect that could be seen in numerous houses was modular construction - giving homes a simple geometry that not only facilitated the standardization of the building process but also allowed homes to be pre-manufactured as a way to reduce building time. 

Pre-fabricated systems reduced the number of construction jobs that needed time to dry or set and offered a feasible and more importantly, replicable, solution with the intelligent mixing of materials, such as aluminum and wooden frameworks. If a method could not be replicated across different experiments, it still served as an example in the research and development of construction technology in housing. 

Another important element of pre-fabrication is the idea of "core services" that house the plumbing and heating installations that center around kitchens and bathrooms as a way to consolidate one of the living space's biggest expenses. 

• 5 Projects That Illustrate the Huge Potential of Prefab
• This Brazilian Startup Creates Smart, Pre-Fabricated Homes in Half the Time
• This Concept Uses a Pre-Fabricated Timber System to Enable Modern, Self-Built Homes
• This Off-Site Construction System Duplicates Floors in Barcelona Buildings in 3 Days

For more information and examples, we recommend visiting the following links where you can get a first-hand look at the living spaces and their layouts:

• Case Study House #1 / Julius Ralph Davidson
• Case Study House #2 / Sumner Spaulding & John Rex
• Case Study House #3 / William W Wurster & Theodore Bernardi
• Case Study House #4 / Ralph Rapson’s "Greenbelt House"
• Case Study House #6 / Richard Neutra: The Omega House
• Case Study House #7 / Thornton M Abell
• Case Study House #8 / Charles y Ray Eames: The Eames' House
• Case Study House #9 / Charles & Ray Eames, Eero Saarinen: The Entenza House
• Case Study House #10 / Kemper Nomland & Kemper Nomland Jr
• Case Study House #11 / J R Davidson
• Case Study House #12 / Whitney R Smith
• Case Study House #13 / Richard Neutra: The Alpha House
• Case Study House #20 / Richard Neutra: The Bailey House
• Case Study House #21 / Pierre Koenig
• Case Study House #22 / Pierre Koenig: The Stahl House
• Case Study House #23 / Killingsworth, Brady & Smith
• Case Study House #24 / A. Quincy Jones & Frederick Emmons
• Case Study House #26 / Beverley David Thorne

See more articles about topics of contemporary living spaces in the following links:

• Will Open-Source, Technological Solutions Ever Lead to the Dream of Universal Affordable Housing?
• 6 Thoughts On Materials and Construction: Decisions That Improve People's Quality Of Life
• OPEN Architecture and Xiaomi Unveil MARS Case Housing Prototype at China House Vision 2018

Editor's note: This article was originally published on March 25, 2019.

Image gallery

• Sustainability

世界上最受欢迎的建筑网站现已推出你的母语版本!

想浏览archdaily中国吗, you've started following your first account, did you know.

You'll now receive updates based on what you follow! Personalize your stream and start following your favorite authors, offices and users.

The Daily Show Fan Page

Explore the latest interviews, correspondent coverage, best-of moments and more from The Daily Show.

The Daily Show

S29 E68 • July 8, 2024

Host Jon Stewart returns to his place behind the desk for an unvarnished look at the 2024 election, with expert analysis from the Daily Show news team.

Extended Interviews

The Daily Show Tickets

Attend a Live Taping

Find out how you can see The Daily Show live and in-person as a member of the studio audience.

Best of Jon Stewart

The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart

New Episodes Thursdays

Jon Stewart and special guests tackle complex issues.

Powerful Politicos

The Daily Show Shop

Great Things Are in Store

Become the proud owner of exclusive gear, including clothing, drinkware and must-have accessories.

About The Daily Show

Justice Department urges Supreme Court to decide if felons can be barred from having a gun

The request came days after the high court offered some clarification on testing the constitutionality of gun restrictions..

WASHINGTON − Now that the Supreme Court has offered some clarification on testing the constitutionality of a gun restriction, the Justice Department wants the high court to decide if people convicted of both violent and non-violent felonies can be barred from having a firearm.

The government told the high court this week their intervention is needed because a disagreement among lower courts has had “widespread and disruptive effects” that are threatening public safety.

The Justice Department made that argument in a filing days after the Supreme Court upheld a law banning domestic abusers from having guns in a decision that only partially addressed many of the issues that have arisen after the court in 2022 set a historical test for deciding if gun regulations are permissible under the Second Amendment.

Writing for the 8-1 majority, Chief Justice John Roberts said courts have misunderstood the methodology behind that decision.

But the court’s three liberal justices, while welcoming the clarification, said there is still not a clear test to assess the constitutionality of gun restrictions.

“Today’s opinion inches that ball forward,” Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote in a concurring opinion . “But it is becoming increasingly obvious that there are miles to go.”

The Justice Department said the court needs to decide if someone convicted of a crime punishable by more than a year in prison can be barred from having a gun.

The cases the government wants the Supreme Court to take up next term involve very different circumstances.

An Iowa man with a long criminal record that includes convictions for theft, assault and intimidation with a dangerous weapon is appealing his conviction of possessing a firearm as a felon.  

A Minnesota man who had served time for a non-violent drug crime – selling cocaine – said he should not have been charged for having a gun after serving his sentence.

A Pennsylvania man argues his decades-old conviction for falsifying his income on an application for food stamps should not prevent him from having a firearm.

A Utah woman likewise said bad checks she wrote 17 years ago are not enough to block her right to a gun.

The statute being tested in all the cases was used in more than 7,600 convictions in 2022, according to the Justice Department. The convictions accounted for 12% of all federal criminal cases.

“Uncertainty about the statute’s constitutionality thus affects a significant proportion of the federal criminal docket,” Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar told the court.

Some of the firearm convictions overturned by lower courts involved murders, carjackers and drug traffickers, she noted.

The split in how courts are resolving the cases arose after the Supreme Court in 2022 struck down a New York law that required state  residents to have "proper cause" to carry a handgun . In NYSRPA v. Bruen, the court said gun  prohibitions must be grounded in history .

In last week’s opinion upholding gun bans for domestic abusers, Roberts said some courts mistakenly read that decision to mean they had to find a “historical twin” for a regulation, rather than a "historical analogue."

But Roberts also said that decision, and two other recent ones that have reshaped the Second Amendment debate, were not an “exhaustive analysis” of the amendment’s limits and protections.

Justices in the court’s liberal wing  − as well as Justice Amy Coney Barrett – emphasized the confusion that exists.

“Courts have struggled with this use of history in the wake of Bruen,” Barrett wrote in a concurrence.

Jackson said the Bruen test “appears to be creating chaos.”

The court could decide in the coming days whether to take up the Second Amendment cases.

Information

• Author Services

Initiatives

You are accessing a machine-readable page. In order to be human-readable, please install an RSS reader.

All articles published by MDPI are made immediately available worldwide under an open access license. No special permission is required to reuse all or part of the article published by MDPI, including figures and tables. For articles published under an open access Creative Common CC BY license, any part of the article may be reused without permission provided that the original article is clearly cited. For more information, please refer to https://www.mdpi.com/openaccess .

Feature papers represent the most advanced research with significant potential for high impact in the field. A Feature Paper should be a substantial original Article that involves several techniques or approaches, provides an outlook for future research directions and describes possible research applications.

Feature papers are submitted upon individual invitation or recommendation by the scientific editors and must receive positive feedback from the reviewers.

Editor’s Choice articles are based on recommendations by the scientific editors of MDPI journals from around the world. Editors select a small number of articles recently published in the journal that they believe will be particularly interesting to readers, or important in the respective research area. The aim is to provide a snapshot of some of the most exciting work published in the various research areas of the journal.

Original Submission Date Received: .

• Active Journals
• Find a Journal
• Proceedings Series
• For Authors
• For Reviewers
• For Editors
• For Librarians
• For Publishers
• For Societies
• For Conference Organizers
• Open Access Policy
• Institutional Open Access Program
• Special Issues Guidelines
• Editorial Process
• Research and Publication Ethics
• Article Processing Charges
• Testimonials
• Preprints.org
• SciProfiles
• Encyclopedia

Article Menu

• Subscribe SciFeed
• Recommended Articles
• Google Scholar
• on Google Scholar
• Table of Contents

Find support for a specific problem in the support section of our website.

Please let us know what you think of our products and services.

Visit our dedicated information section to learn more about MDPI.

JSmol Viewer

Research on the renewal of multi-story high-density urban landscape based on property rights land—a case study of the self-built liu houses in zherong, fujian province, 1. introduction, 2. materials and methods, 3. results: case study—zherong county, fujian province.

• ② History of the County
• (ii) Regional Morphological Feature: Lack of Certain Regularity
• (iii) Architectural Feature: Significant Diversity Exists
• (iv) Summary of Early Liu House Features
• ② Sample B: Mid-term Liu Houses (i) Morphology and Structure of Land Parcels
• (ii) Regional Morphological Feature: Pattern with Certain Regularity
• (iii) Architectural Feature: Balanced Similarity and Diversity
• (iv) Summary of Mid-Term Liu House Features
• ③ Sample C: Late Liu Houses (i) Morphology and Structure of Land Parcels
• (ii) Regional Morphological Feature: Strong Regularity
• (iii) Architectural Features: Highly Unified Similarity
• (iv) Summary of Late Liu House Features
• ② Estimation-Based Renovation Framework of Liu House Areas in Zherong

4. Discussion

• (ii) Individual Construction Driven by the Residents
• ② Mid-term Liu Houses: Morphological and Architectural Features Affected by both the Government and the Residents (i) Land Parcels Shaped by Administrative Planning
• (ii) Collective Construction Driven by Spontaneously Formed Resident Groups
• ③ Late Liu Houses: Unified Morphological and Architectural Features Under Developers’ Direct Control (i) Commercial Real Estate Development
• (ii) Unified Construction Led by Commercial Developers

5. Conclusions

Author contributions, data availability statement, conflicts of interest.

• Zherong County Local Chronicles Compilation Committee. Zherong County Chronicle (1949–1995) ; Zhonghua Book Company: Beijing, China, 1995; pp. 78–79. [ Google Scholar ]
• Dong, W.; Gao, X.; Han, W.; Wang, J. Renewal Framework for Self-Built Houses in “Village-to-Community” Areas with a Focus on Safety and Resilience. Buildings 2023 , 13 , 3003. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Jiao, L.; Wu, Y.; Fang, K.; Liu, X. Typo-Morphological Approaches for Maintaining the Sustainability of Local Traditional Culture: A Case Study of the Damazhan and Xiaomazhan Historical Area in Guangzhou. Buildings 2023 , 13 , 2351. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Conzen, M.R.G. Alnwick, Northumberland: A Study in Town-Plan Analysis ; Institute of British Geographers Publication: London, UK, 1960; Volume 27. [ Google Scholar ]
• Tian, Y.; Gu, K.; Tao, W. Urban Morphology and Conservation Planning. City Plan. Rev. 2010 , 34 , 21–26. [ Google Scholar ]
• Tian, Y. Management Units of Urban Morphology: Significance, Formation and Application. City Plan. Rev. 2021 , 45 , 9–16. [ Google Scholar ]
• Liang, J.; Sun, H. Parcel: An Important Factor for Urban Land Use Control Insights from the American Zoning System. City Plan. Rev. 2000 , 6 , 40–42. [ Google Scholar ]
• Ungureanu, T.; Șoimoșan, T.M. An Integrated Analysis of the Urban Form of Residential Areas in Romania. Buildings 2023 , 13 , 2525. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Duan, J.; Qiu, G. Burgage Cycle and Micro-Intervention Planning and Design. City Plan. Rev. 2010 , 8 , 24–28. [ Google Scholar ]
• Meng, Y.; Zhai, H.; Teoh, B.K.; Tiong, R.L.K.; Huang, S.; Cen, D.; Cui, C. A Data-Driven Method for Constructing the Spatial Database of Traditional Villages—A Case Study of Courtyard Residential Typologies in Yunnan, China. Buildings 2023 , 13 , 2956. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Muratori, S. Studi per una operante storia urbana di Venezia. In Quadro Generale Dalle Origini Agli Sviluppi Attuali , 2nd ed.; Istituto Poligrafico dello Stato: Roma, Italy, 1960. [ Google Scholar ]
• Muratori, S.; Bollati, R.; Bollati, S.; Marinucci, G. Studi per una Operante Storia Urbana di Roma ; Centro Studi di Storia Urbanistica: Roma, Italy, 1963. [ Google Scholar ]
• Chen, J.; Yao, S.; Tian, Y. The Theory and Localization About Typo-morphological Approach. Urban Plan. Int. 2017 , 32 , 57–64. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Caniggia, G.; Maffei, G.L. Architectural Composition and Building Typology: Interpreting Basic Building ; Alinea Editrice: Florence, Italy, 2001. [ Google Scholar ]
• El Moussaoui, M. Architectural Typology and Its Influence on Authentic Living. Buildings 2024 , 14 , 754. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]

Click here to enlarge figure

Share and Cite

Li, N.; Cao, Z.; Wang, K. Research on the Renewal of Multi-Story High-Density Urban Landscape Based on Property Rights Land—A Case Study of the Self-Built Liu Houses in Zherong, Fujian Province. Buildings 2024 , 14 , 1998. https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings14071998

Li N, Cao Z, Wang K. Research on the Renewal of Multi-Story High-Density Urban Landscape Based on Property Rights Land—A Case Study of the Self-Built Liu Houses in Zherong, Fujian Province. Buildings . 2024; 14(7):1998. https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings14071998

Li, Ningyuan, Zhenyu Cao, and Ka Wang. 2024. "Research on the Renewal of Multi-Story High-Density Urban Landscape Based on Property Rights Land—A Case Study of the Self-Built Liu Houses in Zherong, Fujian Province" Buildings 14, no. 7: 1998. https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings14071998

Article Metrics

Further information, mdpi initiatives, follow mdpi.

Subscribe to receive issue release notifications and newsletters from MDPI journals

Supreme Court rules ex-presidents have broad immunity, dimming chance of a pre-election Trump trial

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday ruled for the first time that former presidents have broad immunity from prosecution, extending the delay in the Washington criminal case against Donald Trump on charges he plotted to overturn his 2020 presidential election loss and all but ending prospects the former president could be tried before the November election.

In a historic 6-3 ruling , the court’s conservative majority, including the three justices appointed by Trump, narrowed the case against him and returned it to the trial court to determine what is left of special counsel Jack Smith’s indictment.

Trump celebrated a “BIG WIN” on X. President Joe Biden said the justices set “a dangerous precedent (that) undermines the rule of this nation.”

The ruling reflected a muscular view of presidential power, and left dissenting judges to criticize it as undermining a core democratic principle that no person is above the law.

The court’s decision highlighted how the justices have been thrust into an impactful role in the November presidential election. Earlier, they had rejected efforts to bar him from the ballot because of his actions following the 2020 election. The court last week also limited an obstruction charge faced by Trump and used against hundreds of his supporters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. The split among the justices also in many ways mirrored the political divide in the country.

“Under our constitutional structure of separated powers, the nature of presidential power entitles a former president to absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court. “And he is entitled to at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts. There is no immunity for unofficial acts.”

The chief justice insisted that the president “is not above the law.” But in a fiery dissent for the court’s three liberals, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote, “In every use of official power, the President is now a king above the law.”

Reading from her opinion in the courtroom, Sotomayor said, “Because our Constitution does not shield a former president from answering for criminal and treasonous acts, I dissent.” Sotomayor said the decision “makes a mockery of the principle, foundational to our Constitution and system of government, that no man is above the law.”

The protection afforded presidents by the court, she said, “is just as bad as it sounds, and it is baseless.”

Trump posted in all capital letters on his social media network shortly after the decision was released: “BIG WIN FOR OUR CONSTITUTION AND DEMOCRACY. PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN!”

Biden, in evening remarks from the White House, cited accepted restraints on presidential power all the way back to George Washington and bemoaned that “for all practical purposes, today’s decision almost certainly means that there are virtually no limits on what a president can do.”

Smith’s office declined to comment on the ruling.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer denounced the ruling as “a disgraceful decision,” made with the help of the three justices that Trump appointed.

“It undermines SCOTUS’s credibility and suggests political influence trumps all in our courts today,” the New York Democrat said on X.

The justices knocked out one aspect of the indictment. The opinion found Trump is “absolutely immune” from prosecution for alleged conduct involving discussions with the Justice Department.

Trump is also “at least presumptively immune” from allegations that he tried to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to reject certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s electoral vote win on Jan. 6, 2021. Prosecutors can try to make the case that Trump’s pressure on Pence still can be part of the case against him, Roberts wrote.

The court directed a fact-finding analysis on one of the more striking allegations in the indictment -- that Trump participated in a scheme to enlist fake electors in battleground states won by Biden who would falsely assert that Trump had won. Both sides had dramatically different interpretations as to whether that effort could be construed as official, and the conservative justices said determining which side is correct would require additional analysis at the trial court level.

Roberts’ opinion further restricted prosecutors by prohibiting them from using any official acts as evidence in trying to prove a president’s unofficial actions violated the law. One example not relevant to this case but which came up in arguments was the hypothetical payment of a bribe in return for an ambassadorial appointment.

Under Monday’s decision, a former president could be prosecuted for accepting a bribe, but prosecutors could not mention the official act, the appointment, in their case.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who joined the rest of Roberts’ opinion, parted company on this point. “The Constitution does not require blinding juries to the circumstances surrounding conduct for which Presidents can be held liable,” Barrett wrote.

She also described as unnecessary the analysis of the fake electors claim. “I see no plausible argument for barring prosecution of that alleged conduct,” Barrett wrote.

The work of figuring out how to proceed will fall to U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who would preside over Trump’s trial.

Trump still could face a trial, said Notre Dame law professor Derek Muller. “But the fact remains that it is almost impossible to happen before the election.”

David Becker, an election law expert and the executive director of the nonprofit Center for Election Innovation and Research, called the breadth of immunity granted to Trump “incredibly broad” and “deeply disturbing.”

“Almost anything that a president does with the executive branch is characterized as an official act,” he said on a call with reporters following the ruling. He said that “for any unscrupulous individual holding the seat of the Oval Office who might lose an election, the way I read this opinion is it could be a roadmap for them seeking to stay in power.”

The ruling was the last of the term, and it came more than two months after the court heard arguments, far slower than in other epic high court cases involving the presidency, including the Watergate tapes case.

The Republican former president has denied doing anything wrong and has said this prosecution and three others are politically motivated to try to keep him from returning to the White House.

In May, Trump became the first former president to be convicted of a felony, in a New York court. He was found guilty of falsifying business records to cover up a hush money payment made during the 2016 presidential election to a porn actor who says she had sex with him, which he denies. After Monday’s ruling, Trump’s lawyers asked the New York judge who presided over that trial to set aside his conviction and delay his sentencing. He still faces three other indictments.

Smith is leading the two federal inquiries of the former president, both of which have led to criminal charges. The Washington case focuses on Trump’s alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election after he lost to Biden. The case in Florida revolves around the mishandling of classified documents. A separate case, in Georgia, also turns on Trump’s actions after his defeat in 2020.

If Trump’s Washington trial does not take place before the 2024 election and he is not given another four years in the White House, he presumably would stand trial soon thereafter.

But if he wins, he could appoint an attorney general who would seek the dismissal of this case and the other federal prosecution he faces. He could also attempt to pardon himself if he reclaims the White House. He could not pardon himself for the conviction in state court in New York.

The Supreme Court that heard the case included three justices appointed by Trump — Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Barrett — and two justices who opted not to step aside after questions were raised about their impartiality.

Thomas’ wife, Ginni, attended the rally near the White House where Trump spoke on Jan. 6, 2021, though she did not go the Capitol when a mob of Trump supporters attacked it soon after. Following the 2020 election, she called the outcome a “heist” and exchanged messages with White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, urging him to stand firm with Trump as he falsely claimed that there was widespread election fraud.

Justice Samuel Alito said there was no reason for him to step aside from the cases following reports by The New York Times that said flags similar to those carried by the Jan. 6 rioters flew above his homes in Virginia and on the New Jersey shore. His wife, Martha-Ann Alito, was responsible for flying both the inverted American flag in January 2021 and the “Appeal to Heaven” banner in the summer of 2023, he said in letters to Democratic lawmakers responding to their recusal demands.

Before the Supreme Court got involved, a trial judge and a three-judge appellate panel had ruled unanimously that Trump could be prosecuted for actions undertaken while in the White House and in the run-up to Jan. 6.

Chutkan ruled against Trump’s immunity claim in December. In her ruling, Chutkan said the office of the president “does not confer a lifelong ‘get-out-of-jail-free’ pass.”

Associated Press writers Lindsay Whitehurst, Alanna Durkin Richer, Eric Tucker, Stephen Groves, Farnoush Amiri, Michelle Price and Ali Swenson contributed to this report.

Copyright 2024 The Associated Press, Inc. All rights reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Family grieves loss of soon-to-be father killed in Hawaii Island crash

2 arrested for allegedly trying to hunt on Oprah Winfrey’s Maui ranch

Police: Shooting that left 15-year-old hospitalized was ‘not random’

Honolulu firefighters pull body to shore in Kakaako

Latest news.

Hurricane Beryl rips through open waters after devastating the southeast Caribbean

Dehydrated puppies found in hot plastic bin near bridge

Museum tells the stories of ancient animals through their fossilized poop

Biden administration proposes rule for workplaces to address excessive heat

Colleen Long, Associated Press Colleen Long, Associated Press

Will Weissert, Associated Press Will Weissert, Associated Press

Leave your feedback

• Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-live-biden-addresses-supreme-court-ruling-on-presidential-immunity-and-trump

WATCH: ‘No one is above the law,’ Biden says after Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity and Trump

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is seeking to put the focus squarely onto Donald Trump following his uneven debate performance last week.

Watch Biden’s remarks in the player above.

Speaking Monday after the U.S. Supreme Court ruling granting broad immunity from prosecution to Trump and other presidents, Biden said the high court’s ruling had undermined the rule of law. The court’s conservative majority ruling makes it all but certain that the Republican will not face trial in Washington ahead of the November election over his actions during the violent riot on Jan. 6, 2021.

READ MORE: What does the Supreme Court immunity ruling mean for Trump? 6 questions answered

“No one is above the law, not even the president of the United States,” Biden said from the White House.

During his brief remarks he made no mention of last week’s debate or his performance, and did not take questions.

Educate your inbox

Subscribe to Here’s the Deal, our politics newsletter for analysis you won’t find anywhere else.

Thank you. Please check your inbox to confirm.

Biden seemed relaxed and confident, striking a clear and crisp tone and looking tanned and rested — all of which was in stark contrast to his often halting performance during last week’s debate, when his face was notably pale. The president also had the benefit of a teleprompter for his remarks about the court, something he didn’t have while facing off with Trump.

“I know I will respect the limits of presidential power as I have for the three-and-a-half years, but any president, including Donald Trump, will now be free to ignore the law,” Biden said.

For all the public efforts to shift the focus away from his uneven performance that spooked donors and prompted Democratic anxiety, there have been private discussions on what more Biden could do to counteract what Americans saw during the debate, when he gave convoluted answers, trailed off at times, occasionally stared blankly and sounded raspy-voiced.

There has been talk about whether Biden should be seen more in public through town-hall-style events or interviews and press conferences, which he has generally avoided during his time in office.

But most in his orbit are waiting on more substantial polling to come back in order to assess how bad the damage was before altering course in any substantial way. That’s according to four Biden advisers who were not authorized to speak publicly about internal discussions and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

Biden’s team may not alter anything at all. Many think — or hope — the fraught moment will pass, particularly after Biden’s family encouraged him to stay in the race and keep fighting during a huddle at Camp David on Sunday.

Campaign officials said Monday they had nothing to announce on new events. They said Biden would be campaigning as he has been, hitting battleground states as he has already been doing for months.

An ad released Monday was called “I Know” using clips from Biden’s post-debate North Carolina rally, where he said, “When you get knocked down, you get back up.”

Quentin Fulks, Biden’s principal deputy campaign manager, put the focus on Trump in a call with reporters, saying, “When you do see President Biden out on the trail, he will be talking about the reasons why Americans should be scared of Donald Trump, as he has been for months.”

Even before the debate, the age of the 81-year-old Democratic president had been a liability with voters, and the prime-time faceoff put the issue front-and-center before perhaps the largest audience he will have in the four months until Election Day. CNN, which held the debate, said more than 51 million people watched.

“I think his age was baked in, to a large degree, and I know he can do better than he did on Thursday night. I expected to see better. I’m not sure other voters did,” said Jennifer Palmieri, a White House communications director during the Obama administration and a spokesperson for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign.

She added that, tactically, the campaign has responded by promoting Biden’s strong speech in North Carolina on Friday and by continuing to post strong fundraising numbers. Palmieri also said Biden might also want to sit for more interviews to continue to show that the debate was an anomaly.

“Their focus needs to be on getting him in front of voters that matter the most, and more interviews should be part of that. Don’t be like Trump in your own little universe,” she said. “For now, we’re early, but what they’re doing is working.”

There’s a sense that voters may now be watching Biden more closely for signs that show one way or another whether his debate debacle was a blip — whether he is, as he says, capable of doing the job.

Alan Kessler, a lawyer and member of the Biden campaign’s national finance team, has spent days calming jittery donors, telling them what he says he has personally witnessed when he’s seen the president — that he’s “lucid, strong as he’s always been.”

“To the extent it’s necessary, I’m reassuring people,” Kessler said.

Rebecca Katz, a strategist who worked with Democratic Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman’s winning campaign in 2022, saw potential parallels in Fetterman’s comeback from a shaky debate performance after he had a stroke.

Fetterman’s team highlighted especially bombastic comments his opponent made about abortion during that debate, and also had the candidate travel extensively afterward. He did lots of local television interviews to ensure voters in key markets saw him outside of clips from the debate.

“It’s not a perfect comparison but there is a blueprint for the Biden campaign,” Katz said. “You can have a rough debate night and still win.”

Biden expressed interest in doing at least one interview. At a Saturday fundraiser in East Hampton, New York, Biden said he had spoken with the broadcaster Howard Stern, who had interviewed him in April, where he answered open-ended questions mostly about his early years.

The president told the crowd he was ready for another sit-down with Stern, saying: “I had a great time on his show. And I’m actually going to take a chance in going back.”

The Democratic National Committee and Biden’s campaign, meanwhile, kept up damage control, holding an evening finance call. Over the weekend, they held calls with donors and one with dozens of committee members across the country — some of the most influential members of the party. They offered a rosy assessment of the path forward and gave no opportunity for others on the call to ask questions.

Multiple committee members on the weekend call, most granted anonymity to talk about the private discussion, described feeling like they were being asked to ignore a serious predicament.

Campaign officials have said there was no discussion “whatsoever” of Biden exiting the race nor of any staff shakeups following the debate.

Democratic Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania said he thought voters were more concerned with the issues at stake, anyway. “I’ve been at this a while, and I know his work,” Casey said.

The window of opportunity for that is shrinking anyway. The Democratic National Committee has announced that it will use a virtual roll call to formally make him the nominee before the convention begins in Chicago on Aug. 19. But when that will happen and what it will look like is still unclear.

Associated Press Writers Josh Boak, Michael Rubinkam in Scranton, Pa., and Thomas Beaumont in Des Moinse, Iowa contributed to this report.

Support Provided By: Learn more

Breaking down Supreme Court decisions on Jan. 6 cases, homeless camps and agency power

Politics Jun 28

• Skip to main content
• Keyboard shortcuts for audio player

'House of the Dragon' recaps

'house of the dragon' season 2, episode 2: a real no-twin scenario.

Glen Weldon

Emma D'Arcy as Rhaenyra. Theo Whitman/HBO hide caption

This is a recap of the most recent episode of HBO’s House of the Dragon . It contains spoilers. That’s what a recap is.

Chaos in the Red Keep! The heir to the king is dead! Li’l Jaehaerys’s body – and only his body, as assassins Blood and Cheese have scampered off with his head – has been discovered, and the guards are rounding up everyone. By this logic, their next move should be to run to the now-empty royal barn and shut its doors.

King Aegon is furious, and takes it out on the late King Viserys’s elaborately sculpted facsimile of Old Valyria, the Targaryen ancestral home. Confronted with the destruction of his line’s future, Aegon destroys a representation of its past. Way to live in the now, there, My Grace.

Aemond finds the secret door Blood and Cheese used in the room that he and Criston Cole were plotting in. He then picks up a coin that the show seems to want to invest with symbolic importance, but I rewound several times and still couldn’t make out its design, so your guess is as good as mine.

Catch up with the season premiere of House of the Dragon, along with all of last season's recaps, here on NPR . And stay updated this summer: Recaps will appear on Sunday evenings after each episode ends.

Alicent is a wreck over the news and blames herself, suggesting that the gods are punishing her for … something she has the good sense not to mention to her father. (Read: The fact that Cole’s White Cloak is more of an Ecru Cloak, these days.) Otto is predictably sanguine: “Some good may yet come of this,” he says. Real goblet-half-full guy, is our Otto.

At the Small Council, Aegon is fuming and foaming, blaming everyone, including Criston Cole, who tells the king that he was “abed,” but not what he was adoing, or awhom he was adoing it with. Lord Larys appears with news that they’ve caught Blood red-handed (and platinum-headed).

Otto suggests Aegon can garner public support and sympathy for himself while turning the people – and the Great Houses who are still undecided — against Rhaenyra. He suggests a funeral procession through the streets of King’s Landing, so that the smallfolk can see Rhaenyra’s cruelty for themselves. That Citadel extension course in marketing is really coming in handy.

Neither Alicent or, especially, Helaena is exactly jazzed about the idea, but they acquiesce. During the procession, the wagon bearing Jaehaerys’s body hits a pothole, because although Aegon II is always announcing Infrastructure Week, nothing ever gets done. The wagon rocks back and forth; Jaehaerys’s tiny body gets jostled. If you, at this point in the proceedings, felt certain that Jaehaerys’s precious little noggin was gonna come loose and bounce down the street like a platinum-haired soccer ball, then A. You are a bad person, and B. Come sit here by me.

Meanwhile, in the Red Keep’s dungeon, Blood hastily confesses that Daemon hired him and a ratcatcher to kill Aemond. But that doesn’t spare him a mace to the face from Aegon. (In the book, Blood suffers thirteen days of torture before being “allowed to die,” so we’re spared that subplot, at least.)

“Mistakes were made.”

On Dragonstone, at the Painted (But Actually Not Painted, Technically Glowing) Table, Rhaenyra hears from her advisors about Jaehaerys, and that she’s being held responsible. She’s legit shocked, but Rhaenys the Always Right isn’t; she casts an accusatory look at Daemon, who avoids her penetrating and insightful gaze. Rhaenyra’s a bit slower on the uptake, but she gets it eventually.

Alicent (Olivia Cooke), Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans), Aegon II (Tom Glynn-Carney), Criston Cole (Fabien Frankel), Ironrod (Paul Kennedy), and Orwyle (Kurt Egyiawan). Ollie Upton/HBO hide caption

In private, Rhaenyra lays into Daemon about the murder. He attempts to shift the blame, and conspicuously refuses to tell her what his specific instructions to Blood and Cheese were, if they couldn’t find Aemond. (You’ll remember the show cut away from that scene before he gave those instructions.) She starts listing his manifold shortcomings – can’t be trusted, thinks only of himself, etc. It’s about damn time; dude’s got more red flags than the Kremlin on May Day.

Daemon … doesn’t take this well. He snarls, hurls his goblet across the room and backs Rhaenyra into a corner, because that has always worked for him. But Rhaenyra’s not having it. She finally sees him for what he is, and lets him know it. He still resents that King Viserys passed him over for Rhaenyra, and has convinced himself that that Viserys chose her because he knew that she could never overshadow him the way Daemon would. Rhaenyra corrects him: Viserys didn’t fear him, he distrusted him, just as she now does. She calls him pathetic; he storms out.

This was a corker of a scene, and one that Emma D’Arcy dominated, even when Daemon was physically threatening Rhaenyra. That’s because Rhaenyra’s written and performed with more nuance than Daemon is, with access to wider range of emotions. As a character, Daemon’s still stuck in Underwritten Perma-SmirkTM mode; here’s hoping Matt Smith gets a bit more to work with as the season plays out.

Daemon (Matt Smith) and Rhaenyra (Emma D'Arcy). Theo Whitman/HBO hide caption

Rhaenyra summons Baela to her chambers. Player Scorecard Time: Baela is one of two kids that Daemon had with his previous wife, Laena Velaryon, who last season immolated herself by dragonfire. (Laena’s dragon, Vhagar, is now ridden by Aemond.)

Rhaeyra asks Baela to take her dragon Moondancer and monitor King’s Landing, making sure to fly high enough to avoid their weapons.

We get a few scenes establishing that both Criston Cole and Alicent feel guilty about Jaehaerys’s murder, given that they were both in, let’s say, a compromising position when it happened. They decide to take a break.

'House of the Dragon' season premiere: I told you the rats would be a whole thing

A guilt-ridden and sexually frustrated Cole needs to do something with all that pent-up energy, so he lashes out at Ser Arryk; accusations of dereliction of duty get heatedly exchanged. Cole takes Arryk’s insubordination as a flimsy excuse to task him with infiltrating the heavily defended Dragonstone to kill Rhaenyra. What transforms this Mission: Impossible into a Mission: Highly Unlikely, of course, is that Arryk can pose as his twin brother Erryk.

On Dragonstone, Baela and Jacaerys compare their Daddy issues, which is as good a topic as any for these two to bond over, given that they’re betrothed to each other. Jacaerys acknowledges both his dads – his dad-on-paper, dear queer Laenor (“He had a weakness for cake,” which, hell yeah he did!) and his biological dad Harwin Strong (“They called him Breakbones”).

In which an ill-advised attempt is made to give Aemond some depth

We interrupt this episode to remind you that this is a Game of Thrones show on HBO, so yeah anyway here’s your periodic network-mandated Brothel Scene, ya filthy animals.

Aemond is visiting his favorite sex worker, and confesses to her that he regrets killing Lucerys. Now, I suppose this is another example of the show trying to lend its characters a bit of nuance, something I’d normally appreciate. (As I said, Matt Smith’s Daemon desperately needs more layers – that guy’s a big hunk of narrative matzo.)

But this one really doesn’t sit right, because the show has already tried to issue Aemond a pass for that lethal act. You’ll recall that the season 1 finale went out of its way to depict Lucerys’s murder as a wilful, disobedient act by Aemond’s dragon Vhagar. Between that, and the bit in this scene where Aemond whines that Lucerys used to tease him because he was different, it seems like the writers don’t understand the difference between humanizing a villain (a good thing!) and thinking they need to excuse them (very bad!). Enough with the mealy-mouthed pop-psych justifications! Let Aemond be Aemond, show!

We get a quick scene in King’s Landing with Hugh the blacksmith – the guy who asked King Aegon to pay for the weapons and armor he forged, last episode. That payment still hasn’t come, and he’s got a sick kid and a wife who’s finding it harder to put food on the table, due to Queen Rhaenyra’s blockade of the bay. Seems random, I know, but it isn’t – Hugh’s thread will get embroidered into the “Die, You!” Tapestry soon enough.

Cut to: the island of Driftmark, home of House Velaryon. Alyn the sailor, whom we met last episode, greets his brother Addam, a shipwright. They discuss the war, and Addam mentions that Lord Corlys, head of House Velaryon, “owes you. He owes us .” Hunh. How about that. Sure seems like they’re introducing a lot of non-noble randos for us to follow, all of a sudden. I wonder what that’s about. (I mean, I don’t, because I read the book. But you should.)

Addam (Clinton Liberty) and his brother Alyn (Abubakar Salim). Ollie Upton/HBO hide caption

Cut to: Pillow talk between Corlys and Rhaenys, both of whom worry about Daemon’s ambition. They mention that he’s left Dragonstone on his dragon Caraxes to try to capture the stronghold of Harrenhal, in the Riverlands.

Speaking of Dragonstone: Rhaenyra is pondering over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore in a spiffy new season 2 set. She summons Mysaria from the dungeons, and asks about her role in Jaehaerys’s murder. Mysaria gives Rhaenyra a version of the spiel she gave Daemon last week: I’m a leaf in the wind, I go where the money is, etc. She mentions that Daemon promised her her freedom, but Rhaenyra is unmoved. Mysaria, who knows how to read a room, mentions that the powerful men of the Seven Kingdoms have never seen her as a person. This, as intended, lands with Rhaenyra, who sees a bit of herself in Mysaria – down to the scar she still carries from her own stint as Daemon’s lover.

On the beach of Driftmark, Addam spies Seasmoke, the dragon once ridden by the dearly departed Laenor (who let’s remember is not dead, just … departed). The beast seems restless. Foreshadowing? More like fiveshadowing.

Seven things to look for in season 2 of 'House of the Dragon'

In King’s Landing, we meet still another random, lowborn dude that we’ll see a lot more of in the weeks ahead. (His name’s Ulf; clip and save for your records.) For now, we follow him through the streets until he stumbles across a grisly scene – by order of King Aegon, every ratcatcher in the city has been hanged by the neck. And yes, Cheese is among them, though the birds have pecked enough holes in him that it’d be more accurate to call him Emmentaler at this point.

Let’s give the boy a Hand

In the Red Keep, Otto storms in on Criston Cole and King Aegon, bitterly berating them for ordering the mass execution of innocent citizens. He fumes to a tipsy, uncaring Aegon that the king’s brutal action has just squandered all the goodwill that Jaehaerys’s funeral procession earned them.

It’s good to see Rhys Ifans let off the leash in this scene – gone is Otto’s static pose of sage and sober-minded concern, replaced by the fury of man who can no longer stomach serving someone as weak as Aegon. Otto gets to spit words like “idiot,” “fool,” “thoughtless,” “feckless,” “self-indulgent,” “ill-considered” and “trifling” and throws his whole body into it. For my money, though, it’s Ifans’s hilarious, slow-burn reaction to hearing about Criston Cole’s Erryk vs. Arryk plan that’s the high point of this episode.

Rhys Ifans as Otto Hightower. Ollie Upton/HBO hide caption

“I wish to spill blood, not ink!” whines Aegon, which is a line straight from the book, but it’s a good ‘un. He tells Otto to surrender his status as Hand of the King, and names Criston Cole Otto’s successor. Otto leaves, but not before letting on that he’s always known that Viserys never really named Aegon as his successor. The fact that he accompanies this revelation with a rich, sneering, villainous chuckle? Icing on the cake. That Laenor had a weakness for. That cake.

On Dragonstone, Rhaenyra decides to keep Daemon’s promise and frees Mysaria. On her way down to the docks, however, Mysaria spots a disguised Ser Arryk Cargyll making his way up to the castle. She pauses.

Arryk easily Splinter-Cell s his way into the castle (it’s all about timing the guard’s movements and shooting out the security cams). He tells the member of the Queensguard stationed outside her bedchamber – Ser Lorent Marbrand, if you’re scoring at home – that he’ll take over. As soon as Lorent is gone, he enters her room and advances on her.

And promptly gets interrupted by his brother, Ser Erryk Cargyll. They fight.

The funk soul brothers, check ‘em out now

As epic throwdowns go, Cargyllbowl is no Cleganebowl . But then, how could it be? That matchup was looming for years, and it pitted one character we’d come to know enough to dearly love against another we knew enough to dutifully loathe.

By contrast, these beardy bros haven’t clocked nearly enough screentime to truly register, separately or together. Still, it’s a solid fight, and it places Rhaenyra in more danger than the book version does. But ultimately Erryk defeats Arryk. The victory is fleeting, however, as a remorseful Erryk throws himself on his sword. Which is stupid and pointless but, you have to admit, metal AF .

Back in the Red Keep, Otto is doing the Seven Kingdoms equivalent of packing up his desk into a cardboard box from the supply closet – you know: picture frames, succulents, a couple of Dilbert strips. He’s still angry, cursing Aegon and Criston for their foolishness. Alicent agrees – mostly. Her eyes dart guiltily as she avers that Criston, at least, is loyal, so you know … there’s that.

Pop Culture Happy Hour

What to watch this summer: here are the tv shows we're looking forward to.

Otto says he’ll return to Oldtown, home of House Hightower, where Alicent’s youngest son Daeron awaits.

WHOOP WHOOP WHOOP NEW CHARACTER ALERT WHOOP WHOOP WHOOP. No, you’re not crazy. This is the first we’ve heard mention of Daeron on the show. Daeron’s a teenager who’s been in Oldtown acting as a squire to the head of House Hightower. He’s got a (very young) dragon named Tessarion, and they’ve both got a role to play in this story. Dunno if he’s gonna show up this season, but at least we know he officially exists in the world of this show, now.

Alicent urges Otto not to go to Oldtown, but to Highgarden, home of House Tyrell. (Odds of Daeron showing up this season … shrinking … ) She assures Otto that she can talk some sense into Aegon, and he seems to believe her, because clearly neither one of them has been watching this show.

In fact, when Alicent does try to go to Aegon’s chambers for some of that sense-talking, she finds him weeping – alone, grieving, frightened, caving under the pressure. She leaves.

In her bedchamber, Criston is waiting.

Parting Thoughts

• Rhaenyra, Rhaenys, Rhaena. Daemon, Aemond. Jacaerys, Jaehaerys. And now, with this episode: Daemon, Daeron. I know George R.R. Martin has pointed to English history – all those Edwards and Henrys – to justify so many characters having such maddeningly similar names. But then a thing like Daemon-Daeron comes along and it starts to seem like he’s just goading us.
• House of the Dragon focuses on the noblemen and noblewomen of the Seven Kingdoms. But that means it’s missing something Game of Thrones had in spades – the perspective of the commoner. Don’t get me wrong, all this palace intrigue is fun. But I’ve been missing the earthiness and ego-puncturing humor of characters like Bronn and Davos and Sandor. This episode seems intent on course-correcting that, tossing Alyn and Addam and Hugh and Ulf in the mix.
• I know I’ve already praised it, but Rhys Ifans’s incredulous take upon hearing Cole’s plan was iconic. Jack Benny-level. He should take it on the road, if Westeros has a vaudeville circuit.
• How we feeling about the pacing, this season? I figured we’d be in the thick of it by now. But then Alyn’s still all “War is coming,” and I realized I’m comparing the book, which is a faux-historical account, to a dramatized TV series, which seems in no particular hurry to get to the wildfire factory.

10 options if Democrats actually try to replace Biden

Making a change would be far from easy, despite concerns about President Biden’s debate performance. But here’s who has surfaced before — and could again.

The Democratic Party has spent much of the 2024 campaign burying its head in the sand over Americans’ concerns about President Biden’s age and mental sharpness. Rather than reckon with the problem, its most influential voices have cast it as an overblown media construct.

But the party abruptly jerked its head out of that sand Thursday night, after a meandering, occasionally incoherent and almost universally panned first-debate performance from Biden . At its most pronounced, this has led to calls for Biden to step aside, including from those loyal to him.

That instantaneous reaction is hugely significant, in and of itself. It’s the kind of conversation you avoid — and the party has strained to avoid — until you view it as absolutely necessary. Going there and then having Biden stay would only damage him further, because a bunch of allies would have said either implicitly or explicitly that he is not up to the task.

It’s truly a desperate plan and one that features many hurdles . It would almost surely require Biden’s assent to step aside — he holds almost all of the pledged delegates to August’s Democratic National Convention — and even then the process for replacing him is fraught . It’s not even clear that an alternative would render the party better off.

But it’s a prospect that the party has given some consideration, dating back to when Biden had yet to announce his reelection campaign last year. Names were floated as alternatives or even primary challengers.

So, should the party go this route, who would even make sense? Let’s recap some of the names that have been floated — along with their attributes and drawbacks.

1. Vice President Harris

It’s difficult to see how Harris wouldn’t be the alternative unless she, too, voluntarily steps aside. She is, after all, the vice president. And skipping over the first female and first Black vice president would be dicey for a party struggling to maintain its normally huge margins with Black voters — a major part of its base.

The problem is that Harris is about as unpopular as Biden is. Recent surveys from Monmouth University and Suffolk University have shown disapproval of her outpacing approval by 18 and 16 points , respectively. Harris’s own 2020 presidential campaign went poorly, and the party would have little faith that she would be a marked improvement over Biden.

Republicans have made little secret that they relish elevating Harris, with the Trump campaign even running an ad during Thursday’s debate pointing to the possibility that Harris would have to replace Biden as president at some point.

2. Gretchen Whitmer

This is a name you’re likely to see plenty in the days ahead. The Michigan governor combines being an actually plausible alternative with looking almost ideal on paper.

She’s a female governor who hails from a crucial state (Democrats need to hold Midwestern swing states , given their problems in other swing states). She has won both of her races there by around 10 points. Polling this year has shown her approval rating in Michigan between 54 percent and 61 percent . And she’s more experienced and has more of a national profile than a lot of other rising-star Democratic governors, such as Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and Maryland Gov. Wes Moore.

After Harris, she would quickly rise to the top.

3. Pete Buttigieg

It’s perhaps an undersold fact that the transportation secretary nearly won both the Iowa and New Hampshire presidential nominating contests back in 2020 when he was just a mayor of a midsize Midwestern city (South Bend, Ind.). And if the party is looking for the antithesis of Biden’s inability to drive a message against Trump, it’s Buttigieg. His jousting with Fox News hosts and Republicans at congressional hearings is often shared widely in Democratic circles. He’s a gifted messenger.

If there’s a big drawback with Buttigieg, it’s that he appears to be the wrong candidate to try to arrest the Democratic ticket’s apparent problem with diverse — and especially Black — voters. He got very little support from such groups in 2020.

4. Josh Shapiro

The Pennsylvania governor is one of the more intriguing rising stars in the national Democratic Party, earning plaudits for his big 2022 win and bipartisan credentials . He’s also, like Whitmer, quite popular in a crucial state for the Democratic ticket. Even more than 3 in 10 Trump supporters there like him , according to a poll this year. It’s hard to see how that doesn’t catch Democrats’ eye.

But Shapiro has largely been regarded as an option for 2028, having been governor for just a year and a half. He’s been in statewide office for a while, having previously served as state attorney general, but it would be a rapid rise.

5. Jared Polis

The Colorado governor and former congressman has some of the same bipartisan bona fides as Shapiro. The nation’s first openly gay man to be elected governor has crafted a compelling record and has largely avoided getting bogged down in potentially problematic liberal policies. He has also won big — by double digits in 2018 and nearly 20 points in 2022.

And he has clearly expressed interest in going national one day .

6. Gavin Newsom

Perhaps nobody has surfaced more as an alternative should Biden step aside than the California governor, owing in large part to his efforts to expand his national profile by mixing it up with national Republicans and GOP governors. On that front, Newsom would seem to have some of the same attributes as Buttigieg.

But it’s difficult to see the Democratic Party deciding that the recipe right now is a California governor and former mayor of San Francisco, a city Republicans would be only so happy to run against by pointing to its crime problem. It would be basically inviting Republicans to caricature the Democratic ticket.

7. Raphael G. Warnock

The Georgia senator has won a key swing state twice now in a short time. And his stock would seem to be higher than that of other Black candidates who have graced lists like this in the past, such as Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.).

Warnock’s 2022 campaign, in particular, was seen as a road map for how Democrats could run in 2024. And with Democrats struggling to keep swing states outside the Midwest in play, picking someone who hails from one of them makes a lot of sense.

2024 presidential election

8. Michelle Obama

This is the fantasy option for Democrats — and we mean that in more than one way. She would seem to be the ideal alternative for many, but she also seems unlikely to run.

Obama is the most popular former first lady in America, dating back to Lady Bird Johnson, according to a late-2023 YouGov poll. She has also consistently been liked by a clear majority of Americans, which we can’t say for many political figures.

But she has professed basically no interest in running in her own right; going from that to waging a presidential campaign with just a few months to go is a huge stretch. We also learned this week about reported tensions between her and the Biden campaign .

It’s truly a break-glass-in-case-of-emergency option. And the glass appears to be shatterproof.

9. Amy Klobuchar

The Minnesota senator would make the most sense if Democrats sought a candidate with many of the same attributes Biden has, minus the age problem. She is pragmatic and seemingly broadly agreeable. She has a strong electoral track record in her state.

But she still cuts a very limited national profile, and her 2020 presidential campaign didn’t gain much traction. If the name of the game is picking someone to take the fight to Trump, Minnesota Nice might not be the recipe.

10. Andy Beshear

Perhaps nobody’s stock has risen more in recent months. That owes to the fact that the Kentucky governor was up for reelection in 2023 and won in a very red state.

He has intriguing bipartisan appeal, and he has succeeded in his state without straying too much to the right. (We often see that Democratic governors in red states and GOP governors in blue states have to take positions that don’t comport with their national party.) He even played up his support for abortion rights during the 2023 campaign — something previously unthinkable.

He also reportedly is taking the kind of steps you would expect from someone with national ambitions . But it’s not clear how he would play with liberal base voters whom Democrats need to inject with enthusiasm.

Election 2024

Get the latest news on the 2024 election from our reporters on the campaign trail and in Washington.

The first presidential debate: President Biden and Donald Trump faced off in the first presidential debate of 2024. Here are takeaways and fact checks from the debate .

Key dates and events: Voters in all states and U.S. territories have been choosing their party’s nominee for president ahead of the summer conventions. Here are key dates and events on the 2024 election calendar .

Abortion and the election: Voters in about a dozen states could decide the fate of abortion rights with constitutional amendments on the ballot in a pivotal election year. Biden supports legal access to abortion , and he has encouraged Congress to pass a law that would codify abortion rights nationwide. After months of mixed signals about his position, Trump said the issue should be left to states . Here’s how Biden’s and Trump’s abortion stances have shifted over the years.