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A Letter from Los Angeles

Immediately after World War Two and just before McCarthyism, ten Communists commissioned a modernist, racially integrated housing co-operative in the Silver Lake neighbourhood of L.A.

Previous page: Street view of the Avenel Cooperative, Los Angeles, CA, designed by Gregory Ain in 1946. Photographed by Julius Shulman in 1949. (Getty Research Institute (2004.R.10) / J. Paul Getty Trust)

The Los Angeles-based modern architect Gregory Ain (1908–88) was a pioneer in low-cost housing in the 1930s and ’40s. During this period, Ain collaborated closely with the era’s design luminaries, including Rudolph Schindler, Richard Neutra, and Charles and Ray Eames. He developed a series of innovative housing projects that today remain compelling models for high-quality, […]

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