Burns House

David Heymann, an architect and writer, and Sandra Fiedorek, an artist, are in residence at the Burns House for a month (November-December), as part of a sabbatical from teaching at the University of Texas School of Architecture.

​

David Heymann offered these observations:  "The Burns House (1975) was the first house commission Charles Moore took on in Los Angeles. He was still Dean at Yale, and this house job resulted in his own relocation to his beloved Los Angeles and program leadership at UCLA. Staying in it, one is reminded that two long generations ago, in the endless slow economy of the 1970s and 80s – before money became cheap and concentrated wealth spread ­– the hidden driver of architectural design was the necessity of stretching a budget. Most architects then could estimate building costs quickly and accurately, and so doing for the best of them was the portal into conceptual invention (immaterial surface tactics can be understood in this light as the surest way to get the most from the least).

​

The Burns house accomplishes more per square foot than most spaces I’ve ever seen. The building might best be described as a very complicated first-year student’s enthusiasm in color and foam core, were that student an uninhibited genius with a lifetime of experience. Working with a small footprint, small lot, and relatively small budget, Moore’s plan and section are an absurd, multi-layered, multi-colored, multi-leveled spun-sugar confection, cobbled over the frame of a manic pyramidal double stair that somehow gives each of the house’s sybaritic sub-realms direct outdoor access to the pool, while still allowing for an actual, soaring pipe organ hall.

​

It’s tempting to think that in Los Angeles, Moore found himself in a culture that helped focus even more what was, layered over his knowledge of how to build, already present in his thinking: the tactics and perverse economy of stage and set, of lighting and suggestion, of action and plot, of motive and desire. All of these are fully in play at the Burns House, and—like in one of Hitchcock’s California films—are sharpened by the contradiction of the clear, bright ocean air that envelopes the absurd false innocence of its Santa Monica Canyon site."