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KITCHEN I & II
TERENCE GOWER
The Bass House is number 20 in a series of "Case Study Houses" published in the California monthly magazine, Arts and Architecture. The Case Study House Program was initiated in the late 1940's to propose design solutions for the postwar lifestyle and to showcase affordable and innovative building methods and materials.
The Bass House, designed by architects Buff, Straub and Hensman, was number 20 in a series of "Case Study Houses" published in the California monthly magazine, Arts and Architecture (1958). The designers referred to its kitchen as a "laboratory," evoking Le Corbusier's technological metaphor for the house as "A machine for living." The laboratory metaphor was especially fitting for the Bass House kitchen, designed in consultation with the woman of the house, Dr. Ruth Bass, a practicing biochemist.
In interviews, the architects involved in the Case Study House Program recall being caught up in the excitement of designing what a few described as a "brave new world." The use of new layouts and building technologies as a means to reconfiguring how the family functions—and by extension, how society functions—infused the program with a strong sense of purpose and a vision of a utopian future attainable through good design.
Utopias, as is well-known, can often slide into dystopian nightmares. My father, Terry Gower, worked for an architectural firm in San Francisco before opening his practice in British Columbia in the late 1950s. His early work in Canada was infused with the optimism and ideals of the California Modernists. Setting up his office in a small town rapidly led to opportunities to collaborate on major civic projects and to design residences for the town's elite. His firm was involved in the planning of a Corbusian civic plaza consisting of a city hall, police headquarters, museum, and library, laid out in a super-block of gardens, plazas and fountains. This complex was built not far from his recreation centre project, which housed the town's concert hall and sports facilities.
I grew up surrounded by my father's architecture: Our friends' houses, all civic buildings, schools, even the local ski resort. Once my parents had to retrieve me from my father's police station after my first run-in with the law. So much of our environment bore the mark of my father, my family seemed to be taking part in some kind of utopian experiment. What you see in the image of the Gower House kitchen is my mother, like Ruth Bass, posing as the ideal wife and Modernist Mother for an architectural photographer's camera. Taking up her position in the home's security and control centre (the kitchen) the elegant, empowered Modernist Mother is depicted preparing food for her children. The experiment didn't last for ever: my mother quickly tired of her designed utopia, and, pursuing a career in government, hired a replacement to take over her position in our Modernist kitchen. |
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Ruth Bass in the kitchen of the Bass House (Case Study House No. 20),1958.Conrad Buff, Calvin Straub, Donald Hensman, architects. Julius Schulman, photographer. Altadena, California, 1958.
Rosalie Gower in the kitchen of the Gower House, 1965. Terry Gower, architect. John Fulker, photographer, Vernon, British Columbia, 1965.
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