Frank Gehry's Danzinger Studio SOLD: A Cubist Compound

Via Curbed LA: In this real estate market, only a Frank Gehry design could sell for $195,000 more than the asking price. Owner Philip Noyce (a Hollywood director) originally asked for $1.395 million in November. Curbed LA reports that the home was just sold for $1.59 million.

The Danziger Studio was built by Frank Gehry in 1964 as a cubist commercial compound. It was roundly criticized by local architects at the time as "not honest" and "contrived" but later recognized as a significant step in Gehry's architectural progress. Here's how it evolved into a live-work home, from when we last featured it:

In 2008 it was updated and re-conceptualized as a dual live-work space by the studio of Glenn Williams Architect. The residential part has two bedrooms and one bathroom in a two-story building. It's joined by a central courtyard to the work studio, which has a reception area, several offices, and a bathroom.

Photos by Kathlene Persoff, courtesy of the official listing with Timothy Enright of The Enright Company.

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Comments

[m1jones]

11:09 PM on 01/15/2011

This is a very ordinary floor plan, massing, and detailing. The same plan is found in many modernist LA houses/workshops. Charles and Ray Eames house/studio (late 1940's) is a much better execution of the plan - and also filled with Eames furniture! The fortress-like facade of the Gehry building would have been much more effective if it contained a lovely outdoor patio or at least a great tree, typical of many wonderful LA houses. But this patio is as prison-like as the rest of the house. I think the value must be based on what Gehry did in his other buildings. Or the buyer wanted bragging rights.

[coastalcarla]

05:41 PM on 01/15/2011

Blech. Not my style at all. Looks like someone forgot to finish it.

[HappyMarsden]

01:11 PM on 01/11/2011

Wow. That's really ugly. And tawdry looking. And there's even IKEA furniture. Somehow, I would have expected something better from the work or living space of Frank Gehry.

[R Z]

01:41 PM on 01/11/2011

while i am with you that the ikea stuff is horrible- i kinda like the original designs that were kept like industrial ceilings and floors. the courtyard seems well and private too, which is nice for LA.

[Belles Architecture]

10:43 PM on 01/10/2011

This is proof positive that good design is good economics. I am always happy to see strong comments on ANY building. This is far better than bland "any-street" USA. I think MANY people see the beauty of this Ghery design-as indicated by the selling price. People are not buying the name, they are purchasing the feeling that good design provides.
http://www.bellesarchitecture.com

[Richcrafter]

08:50 PM on 01/10/2011

Not impressed.

[beyondliberal]

03:00 PM on 01/10/2011

Sorry; stand.

[mslindac]

04:03 AM on 01/10/2011

That's butt-ugly. It looks like an office building.

[JScott]

10:37 AM on 01/10/2011

but it is, jeez.

[Bobolini]

02:39 AM on 01/10/2011

The description calling it a cubist house is silly and misinformed - Cubism is a very specific period of painting/sculpture that often overlays two points of view into one composition. It is not a house shaped like a cube. Morphosis is a little more "cubist" in their plan compositions.(Picasso, Braque and Ozenfant were cubists)

Most of the comments below are very drab and uninformed. It would be nice if people who care about architecture would go to bat for some real issues.

Yes, Gehry is very, very important - That is why people like the Pritzker prize jury have honored his work. There are a lot of draw backs to being experimental and architects like Gehry, Wright or say Schindler make horrible mistakes detailing their ideas because they are often doing things no one else has ever done before. Gehry's early buildings, while wildly creative, were often poorly detailed, horrible to furnish and layout (I have personal experience with this) and awkward. But he has a few masterpieces and it is really unfair to say the emperor is not wearing any clothes - Way too many brilliant people totally disagree with you!

[ghost geezer]

01:28 AM on 01/10/2011

I'm reading the other comments, and I see something lively here. This man is roundly
hated by the usual suspects. Philistines unite.

[ghost geezer]

01:22 AM on 01/10/2011

I noticed the comment that at one time "local architects" considered this building "dishonest." I wonder just what these fine peers of the right angle realm meant by that. 89 degrees pretending 90? What? Criticism is a line item affair. What are we looking at, specifically, that has been deemed "dishonest?"

Dishonesty is, for example, faking arches where arches aren't really holding up anything. Is there such fakery anywhere in this building? It is not my cup of tea, but that is because I am saturated by what is repetitive in modern architecture. I see posts, lintels, and cantilevers. They are doing what they do.

I think that there is some dishonesty somewhere else, imbedded in jealousy.

[Linda McIntyre]

11:37 PM on 01/09/2011

Wouldn't give you a dollar for it.

[ghost geezer]

01:25 AM on 01/10/2011

Once Edward Albee was insulted by Ethyl Kennedy, who dismissed his plays as vulgar, snapping that she would never see any of them He retorted, "I'll never see any of yours, either."

[bart4u]

11:16 PM on 01/09/2011

I like it but it's to much money for the space. My favorite is any mid century house.

[Hardyman1966]

10:44 PM on 01/09/2011

All that money and he couldn't afford to finish the  ceilings?!?!?

[balkan-2]

11:04 AM on 01/10/2011

And Handy would like to throw some gyp board and nice crown molding?

[Hardyman1966]

12:10 PM on 01/10/2011

No, HaRdyman wouldn't.  Just finish the job.

[camanokat]

02:33 PM on 01/11/2011

First thing I thought of: How fun dusting those ceilings every week.

[Douglas90723]

10:16 PM on 01/09/2011

This design is before Mr. G. lost his sense of direction in architecture and went totally off the rails.

I could live here.....nice.

[simontherm]

11:22 PM on 01/09/2011

dude....SOOO with you...he's become Emperor's New Architect

[Douglas90723]

12:24 AM on 01/10/2011

fanned and thanks simon. I wanted to use stronger language but I restrained myself. One university wants to tear down the dorms he designed as they find it totally useless due to many maintenance problems.

[ghost geezer]

01:26 AM on 01/10/2011

Did he now? Well, just what rails were those? The ones that have turned our architectural landscape into a thudding monotony of boxes?

[Douglas90723]

02:18 AM on 01/10/2011

Architects like Gehry have turned the landscape into a sea of insane weird designs.

[Sandmanj]

10:11 PM on 01/09/2011

Boring - to the point of just plain bleak.