The Most Dangerous Architect In America
Gregory Ain wanted to create social housing in Los Angeles. Dogged by the FBI, his hope for more egalitarian architecture never came to be.Does it surprise you that an architect dedicating his life's work would be declared, with the pressure of the real estate industry and communism scare, a public enemy and had the FBI trying really hard to discriminate against him for years? That architect is Gregory Ain, who developed attainable methods of egalitarian housing solutions and the architecturally beautiful examples he designed and built. His illustrious but low-key career spanned from working for Rudolph Schindler and Richard Neutra, collaborating with the Eames to figure out the plywood chair molds they famously produced, being awarded a Guggenheim on the advice of Walter Gropius and Mies van der Rohe, working with landscape architect Garrett Eckbo on the housing projects, to teaching at USC and Penn State and later ironically "retiring" from architecture. Photo from "Gregory Ain: Low-Cost Modern Housing and The Construction of a Social Landscape." The exhibition took place in April 2021 at the WUHO Gallery in Hollywoo...
Gregory Ain wanted to create social housing in Los Angeles. Dogged by the FBI, his hope for more egalitarian architecture never came to be.
Does it surprise you that an architect dedicating his life's work would be declared, with the pressure of the real estate industry and communism scare, a public enemy and had the FBI trying really hard to discriminate against him for years?
That architect is Gregory Ain, who developed attainable methods of egalitarian housing solutions and the architecturally beautiful examples he designed and built. His illustrious but low-key career spanned from working for Rudolph Schindler and Richard Neutra, collaborating with the Eames to figure out the plywood chair molds they famously produced, being awarded a Guggenheim on the advice of Walter Gropius and Mies van der Rohe, working with landscape architect Garrett Eckbo on the housing projects, to teaching at USC and Penn State and later ironically "retiring" from architecture.
