House tour in Silverlake Gregory Ain Greene Residence 1952 / Restoration by Escher GuneWardena Architecture
The Marjorie M. Greene Residence was designed by prominent mid-century architect Gregory Ain in collaboration with architects Joseph Johnson, and Alfred Day in 1952, with an accompanying landscape design by Garrett Eckbo, Robert Royston and Edward Williams from 1953. A devastating fire in 2018 destroyed the residence — Escher GuneWardena meticulously fully restored the house. Elements of the main floor plan of the Marjorie M. Greene Residence closely echo the configuration of the 1950 Exhibition House at MoMA. Until the May 2021 discovery of the presumably lost Ain MoMA House (now located in Croton-on-Hudson, NY), the Greene Residence was the only surviving building associated with the MoMA House.
Escher GuneWardena’s Restoration of Gregory Ain’s 1952 Greene Residence is the winner of the California Preservation Foundation’s 2021 Preservation Design Award for Reconstruction or Contextual Infill and a recipient of a Citation of Merit for Docomomo’s Modernism in America Awards. “The project shows exemplary diligence from a research point of view” — Docomomo US President and jury member Theo Prudon.
Project Team: Construction Phase Project Manager: Tessa Watson Project Researcher: Sasha Plotnikova Landscape Architect: Delia Hitz General Contractor: Bonomo Development/Anthony Bonomo Structural Engineer: Francheschi Engineering, Inc./Paul Francheschi
Participants can visit the house with masks and booties in two groups inside and outside. A talk with the Architects Frank Escher and Ravi GuneWardena moderated by Lilian Pfaff will follow. One group starts at 11 am, the other one at 11.30 am with the talk for both groups at 11.30 am.
Image Credits: 1 Photo by Janna Ireland 2: Tessa Watson/Escher GuneWardena Architecture 3: MoMA 1950 Exhibition House, *Ezra Stoller/Esto 4. Photo by Janna Ireland
