May 22, 2025 | 1960s, 2020s, Week 8
Julius Shulman’s photograph of Case Study #22 including two white women reinforces white supremacy, class, and racial divides. In viewing architectural photography, the photograph and the building can become conflated. Though architectural photography is representational art, supported by angles, lighting, staging, and models, we imagine it to be objective. This article outlines some of the ways that it is, in fact, subjective – and that architectural photography has the power to create and uphold systems of racism, classism and sexism. The white women included in the famous “Case Study #22” photograph have nothing to do with the object of the house; they didn’t have anything to do with the design or building of this iconic house. They didn’t live there or own it. However, by including them in the picture, Shulman has included a narrative of white supremacy and privilege that was completely taken for granted in 1960 in Los Angeles. This house is for wealthy white people, period.
In House Beautiful magazine, I found a similar narrative in this 1961 advertisement for oak flooring (Fig. 1). Amidst the American Civil Rights movement, sit-ins, marches, and protests, a clean, pure, young white girl sits on a beautiful floor in a nightgown, drawing a picture next to a giant bowl of fruit. The floor itself is mostly covered by an expensive rug, signaling luxury, and on the far wall we can see a carved golden cherub hanging – the image of innocence. Two cups sit on the corner of the end table, just on the left edge of the photo, representing her two loving parents, who we imagine must be just out of frame.
Figure 1: A young white girl sits on the floor in an ad for oak flooring
The exception proves the rule: Lenny Kravitz’s homes and designs have been featured in many magazines and news outlets, and while he is Black, he’s also a rich rock star from a celebrity family. Granted, the home tours in Architectural Digest are celebrity homes, but they are still overwhelmingly white-owned. Representation in shelter press is important for all the reasons that it’s important in every other type of media: people often need to see someone who looks like them doing something in order to imagine themselves doing it. Not only that, architectural photography could be used to help further dismantle systems of oppression like historically redlined neighborhoods.
Lenny Kravitz perches on a coffee table in his Paris home, Muhammad Ali looking on from an Andy Warhol painting in the background
May 22, 2025 | 1970s, Week 8
Summary:
The reading, The Lens of Race: Whiteness and Architectural Photography at Case Study House #22 by Dianne Harris, explores how photography and architecture play a part in reinforcing and upholding racial barriers. Harris explains the power of race, and racism, and the power that photos have on this. She describes how these aspects of architecture, along with other factors, play a part in how our culture views race. She describes how modernism was mainly aimed at the middle class, mostly white people. This house can be seen as a representation of this. Many of the pictures feature well-dressed, white men and women within different spaces. The women were featured to help make the house feel “…‘visibly comfortable and accessible’ (At least for the target audience)”. This quote sums up how photography affects race, with the purpose of the photo to evoke a feeling, but to one specific audience(race). Harris exploring the architecture and placement of the house, talking about its position above the city, ultimately symbolizing the “social dominance” and “privilege” implied by this house.
Connection #1: House Beautiful
In House Beautiful, I was looking through the magazines to look for advertisements, and I could only find white women and men in these ads. It makes you think that the target audience for this magazine and these ads were mostly white people. This, similar to the reading, shows the upholding of racial disparities, lacking representation of other races. These are just other “architectural” photos, based on certain products(gas range), that do this.
Connection #2: Redlining
I think that the idea of redlining relates to this topic and reading. Redlining is now an illegal practice that prevented black people from owning homes in certain areas. It involved the FHA determining the risk for investment in different neighborhoods, often based on race. This still has an effect on people today, as some neighborhoods still have this zoning. I think that public/city planning is just a zoomed-out way to look at architecture, and this was another aspect that affected racial barriers in the United States.
Fig 1 Ad for a gas range featuring a white woman
House Beautiful, May 1970, pg. 87
Caption: The new Roper self-cleaning gas range cooks and cleans-automatically.
Fig. 2 City of Richmond zoning map, showing the levels of risk by color. (1923) https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/11/19/911909187/in-u-s-cities-the-health-effects-of-past-housing-discrimination-are-plain-to-see
May 22, 2025 | 1910s, 2020s, publication date, reaction paper, Week 8
Takeaways
Through looking through the article “The Lens of Race: Whiteness and Architectural Photography at Case Study House #22”, I found the authors main argument to be how architecture photography can show glimpses into different social factors represented in interiors at the time they were taken. Specifically, the authors main concept they analyze is how these photographs can promote a specific “reality”, revealing and reinforcing racial issues. Throughout the article, the author gave two key examples that strengthened their argument.
The first example is how the Case Study Project aimed to bring higher living standards to the masses. The problem with this is that most middle-class homeowners at the time were assumed to be white, due to years of redlining. As a result of this, the famous image of the Case Study House #22 still carries that assumed reality to it, even if the original intention wasn’t malicious. The second example to author give is the choice of including the two white women in the photograph. Having this feature added to the image shows another underlying meaning, with the women being elevated in the seemingly perfect home overlooking the chaotic streets of Los Angeles.
Application
Past Case
Figure #1: A curtain ad using an image of a living room.
House Beautiful, 1919, p.125 A
Everybody’s Planning New Curtains This Fall
For my past example, I chose a curtain ad from the 1919 edition of the House Beautiful magazine. When looking at the image used for this advertisement, there were some immediate similarities to the Case Study House from the reading. The first obvious one is the use of white women as the main subjects. This leads back to the same specific reality that is being shown in the Case Study House. However, looking closer at the image, it is also important to consider the context of women being used for this curtain ad, as this further shows the reality of women overseeing the decorating of the interior.
Current Case
Figure #2: Image of a home overlooking a landscape.
Photo from apalmanac.com
For my current example, I chose a modern-day showcase of the similar themes being shown in the Case Study House. In this image, the elevated view is being shown, giving the feeling of the homeowner being in higher power than the outside landscape. One big difference here is that instead of a city, this architecture photograph uses nature. This shows that while there is a shift in what these photographs are trying to invoke, there are still some similarities.
May 22, 2025 | 1950s, 1960s, Week 7
In the article “A World of Color and Bright Shining Surfaces: Experiences of Plastics after the Second World War,” author Tom Fisher chronicles the public relationship with plastic from utopic propaganda by plastic producers in accessible literature, to its shiny advertisements as clean, bright, and joyful, to the general skepticism surrounding it as a horrific radiator of toxic poisons. Fisher explores a variety of publications regarding this topic, and the general goal of the article was to juxtapose the characterizations of plastic: shiny and amazing, or phony and dangerous.
I think that within this juxtaposition there are many a greater conversation to be had. First, with the reminder at the beginning of the article that the creation and promotion of plastic as a material is directly in the interest of benefitting the producers and sellers, exponentially more than it is to benefit the consumer. This imbalance of benefit is stretched with the necessity of plastic to be advertised specifically to women, who have been far and away the primary target of capitalist consumerism. Fisher’s examples of advertisements and promotions being accessible to “everyday readers” epitomizes this need to facilitate the success of plastic as a product, as it was common for the time to assume that women would need their information dumb-downed for them. Within this conversation, one will find the means to expose the exploitation of women through consumerism and the continuation of that phenomenon today. Lastly, the need for plastic’s characterization to be fixed by the material producers via consumerist propaganda is compounded today with the impending doom of the climate crisis, excessive waste production, and the current conversations surrounding microplastics. I unfortunately cannot focus on all of these conversations, so for the purposed of this article I will be concentrating on the necessity of industries to advertise to women to be successful.
Figure 1. Molded Plastic Dinnerware
House Beautiful, October 1951, no 93 pt. 2, pg 299
House Beautiful is a magazine whose principle articles are interrupted by pages upon pages of advertisements, and its primary audience has been entirely “home-makers”, so, women. The chosen advertisements present plastic dishware as life-saving, colorful, and critical to high class living for the modern women. Figure 1 exclaims that plasticware is the loveliest way to serve, and Figure 2 calls out directly to the “Women of America.” These depict the methods that industries use to target a specific audience: they solve a problem you didn’t know you had, or make a specific call to action for a unique group of people with assumed shared experiences. House Beautiful was not the only magazine used as a tool to grow consumerism, but the plastic industry of the mid-twentieth century was the master of advertisements.
Figure 2. Women of America! Declare Your Independence. House Beautiful, July 1961, pg. 22.
Today, the advertisements strategies that the plastic industry perfected, have grown into a flourishing $600 billion beauty industry targeted at women and young girls. This time, the hook is not just what is missing from your life, but what is directly wrong with you. Furthermore, this promotion of capitalist consumerism has compounded the plastic waste dilemma by exponentially escalating the consumption and disposal of plastic containers, as plastic has been the leading material of makeup packaging.
Figure 3. Loreal Paris makeup advertisement.
From In Fashion Business.
The examples that plastic has made in the mid-twentieth century are not lost in this century at all. If anything, today’s industries have profited greatly off of the exploitation of women as strictly consumers that the plastic industry developed. These marketing behaviors are not instinctual, they are fabricated, and they are learned. With social media and advertisements on every screen, we are all exposed at young ages to the consumerist worlds that teach us that we cannot live without them. We must unlearn this practice, not just for the sake of our planet, but for the sake of our dignity.
May 22, 2025 | 1970s, reaction paper, Week 7
Summary:
The reading, A World of Color and Bright Shining Surfaces: Experiences of Plastics after the Second World War, by Tom Fisher, describes the influx in prevalence of plastics within the interior as surfaces, but also everyday items. Fisher describes the promotion of plastics and the industry’s ways of positively portraying products, emphasizing their cleanness and smoothness. The Society of the Plastic Industry unified producers in this goal. Consumers still had concerns, especially about the durability of plastic, with the smooth surface often becoming dull over time. Later, there were also questions about its environmental impact as well as the effect of plastics on human health, with these products potentially leaching toxins into consumers. Plastics became ingrained in society, and consumerism, and the product’s practicality show the two-sided view of these products.
Connection#1: House Beautiful
The House Beautiful connection that I found had to do with carpets. As I flipped through the pages of a book, I saw countless examples of ads promoting carpets. All of these were either nylon, acrylic or polyester. I thought that it was interesting how many of these there were. They were also very upfront about it being plastic, with this seemingly being their way to promote and sell the product.
Connection #2: Building with Recycled Plastic
The connection I found has to do with converting plastics into a building system. Plastics are used in many ways in our everyday lives, and these products are just thrown away. This article describes how plastic is being incorporated as a building material. This connects to the article because it is not necessarily using plastic for surface materials, which can be harmful to humans’ health, but is still being utilized and recycled to create an efficient building system.
Fig 1 Advertisement for a green and black acrylic carpet
House Beautiful, May 1970, p.69
Original Caption: The new colorful, colorfast carpet for everywear, anywhere.
Fig. 3 Prefabrication/manufacturing of recycled plastic material https://www.bbc.com/storyworks/building-a-better-future/why-plastic-waste-is-the-perfect-building-material-
May 22, 2025 | 1970s, 2020s, Week 8
Reading Summary/Takeaway: In this article, Diane Harris explores how race and whiteness are so deeply embedded into the built environment and further architectural photography. Harris utilizes Julius Shulman’s 1960s photograph of the Case Study House #22, or the Stahl Residence, to illustrate the overwhelming representation of white architects and human subjects in architectural photography. The photograph is one of the “most famous architectural photographs of the 20th century,” capturing a house designed by a white male architect and inhabited by white female subjects. The photograph was intended to capture a vision of the ideal domestic life, however, it ignores the struggles that other races faced in postwar America.
Harris argues that Shulman’s choice to depict white females in the photograph illustrates the deep-seated racism in architecture. Because architectural photographers rarely include people, Shulman’s choice to depict white females is particularly significant as it demonstrates his vision of who should inhabit the space. Harris also argues that the floor-to-ceiling windows that allow for a supreme view of the city of Los Angeles further contribute to the “iconography of whiteness, class status, and gender norms.” This photograph not only depicts the architectural form of the home but furthers associations of home ownership and class with white people.
Application:
Historical Case: This furniture advertisement (Figure 1) from a 1971 issue of House Beautiful depicts an “ideal” family that is white, with a mother, father, and three children. The photograph captures the parents doting on their children in their summer house, further establishing associations of wealth, home ownership, and domestic life with white people. This advertisement captures similar ideals to those depicted in Shulman’s 1960s photograph of Case Study House #22, as both represent a comfortable, carefree, everyday moment in the home of a white family.
Figure 1. An advertisement for Simmons Hide-A-Bed-Sofa in the summer home of a young white family.
House Beautiful 1971, Vol. 113, Pt. 2
“A summerhouse sofa has to seat people with wet hair and bare feet. It also has to sleep two. Comfortably.”
Current Case: In the 21st century, we increasingly see home and design advertisements that depict diverse groups, unlike the “ideal” white nuclear families depicted previously. This furniture advertisement (Figure 2) on West Elm depicts a black father and son in a playroom. The depiction of a black family is intended for consumers of all races to envision themselves in the space, further redefining what the “ideal” home and family life looks like in the 21st century.
Figure 2. This furniture advertisement depicts a black father and son in a playroom.
“Independent play(room)” West Elm, https://www.westelm.com/pages/features/playroom-upgrade/.
Comparison: These furniture advertisements, one from 1971 and the other from 2025, demonstrate how the image of an ideal home has evolved in the past few decades. The 1971 furniture advertisement (Figure 1) depicts a white family, further establishing associations of wealth, home ownership, and domestic life with white people. In comparison, the 2025 furniture advertisement (Figure 2) depicts a black father and son in a playroom, demonstrating a diverse household with the same means as a white family. In general, these advertisements demonstrate the steps consumer society has made towards equality through the representation of diverse groups.
