Compose styles
Rather than blending styles toward a middle, this gives them roles. The first one carries the structure, the next comes in as the accent, and anything after that shows up in a single detail. Where they fight each other, it says so before you start.
How to divide the work
- Composition
- Follow Case Study Houses: Run the floor from living room to terrace, openings full width
- Type
- Set in Case Study Houses's manner (Space slender steel columns at a regular bay, dimensions left visible), and let International Style's lettering (Align sans serif signs to the column grid, flush with the wall) appear only where you want the eye to catch.
- Material
- Ground in Case Study Houses's material (Assemble catalog steel, glass and colored panels without modification); bring in exactly one thing from International Style (Steel and concrete frame, white rendered planes, large sheets of glass).
- Colour
- Build on #edecee, #5ca5a8, #1f211a and admit one accent from #eeece5, #9ca3a5, #252729.
Where they fight
- Case Study Houses and International Style both belong to Modern Architecture, so the difference is small. Push the roles further apart than feels comfortable.
Caution
- Case Study Houses Copying the glazed openness while neglecting sun and privacy control produces a hot, exposed house that photographs well and cannot be lived in.
- International Style A white box alone misses the structure, free plan, industrial materials and social program, and ornament stripped without tuned proportion and detail reads as cheapness, leaving openings with no reason for their position.
Image prompt
Produce four original images that take their structure from Case Study Houses (style, 1945–1966) and their accent from International Style (style, 1920s–1960s). ## What to make Make the kind of thing Case Study Houses exists for: building a light framed house quickly on a sloping site with a view, or proposing bright living where industrial components stay visible. Choose one subject and hold it across all four. ## Structure comes from Case Study Houses - Lightness of steel and glass - Indoors flowing outdoors - Off-the-shelf components - Horizontally open plans Composition: Run the floor from living room to terrace, openings full width. Type and lettering: Space slender steel columns at a regular bay, dimensions left visible. ## Accent comes from International Style, used sparingly - Rectangular volumes - Glass planes - No ornament - The free plan Let one material quality come from it: Steel and concrete frame, white rendered planes, large sheets of glass. ## Colour and feeling Build the ground on #edecee, carry the structure in #5ca5a8 and #1f211a, and let a single accent come from #9ca3a5. These are read off real works, so a direction rather than a fixed palette. Feeling to carry: futurity, intimacy, calm, trust. ## Where they fight - Case Study Houses and International Style both belong to Modern Architecture, so the difference is small. Push the roles further apart than feels comfortable. ## What goes wrong - Case Study Houses: Copying the glazed openness while neglecting sun and privacy control produces a hot, exposed house that photographs well and cannot be lived in. - International Style: A white box alone misses the structure, free plan, industrial materials and social program, and ornament stripped without tuned proportion and detail reads as cheapness, leaving openings with no reason for their position. ## Across the four Keep the roles fixed in all four. Vary the framing, the scale and the arrangement so the set shows what this pairing can do rather than four versions of one picture. ## Constraints - Do not imitate, reference or name any specific artist, studio, brand, character or copyrighted work. - Do not reproduce the composition of an existing work. - Produce original compositions in the general period languages described above.
Related entries
- Case Study Houses 1945–1966 / Style / Modern Architecture
The experimental housing program commissioned by Arts & Architecture for the postwar shortage: steel and glass from off-the-shelf parts, popularizing an image of bright modern living open to the California climate.
- International Style 1920s–1960s / Style / Modern Architecture
Strips ornament and aims at a universal architectural language crossing borders: the box, the free plan, steel, concrete and glass.
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