Constance Perkins House [SEP] architect
Constance Perkins House
The Constance Perkins House is a house designed by Richard Neutra and built in Pasadena, California, 1952-55.
Design and construction.
In 1947, Constance Perkins started working as a professor of Art History at Occidental College and here she met Richard Neutra, eventually asking him to design her home.
When Neutra was designing the house for her "he had to reexamine the single-family home and rework conventional patterns of the type." The house itself sits on a little hill in
Pasadena, California. "The tiny house was constructed of inexpensive materials- wood, plaster, and glass; a spiderleg beam extended the space by projecting out into a small reflecting pool that meanders through one of the glass walls of the house...He also measured the physical dimensions of his clients. Constance Perkins was a small woman, so he scaled the house to her."
Neutra and Perkins worked closely together on the development of the building. In August 1953, Perkins sent Neutra a list of "Likes and Dislikes