Driving up California’s historic Highway 101 offers picturesque views of the surreal coastline and sun-soaked beach towns, especially while passing through San Diego and its various communities. After entering Leucadia in Encinitas, you’re welcomed with a large colorful wall mural that sits adjacent to a small boutique hotel that beckons modern design lovers and surfers alike.
Robert Schwartz’s Schwartz House has a quintessentially midcentury modern interior complete with sunken living room, open floor plan and iconic midcentury furniture.
The Alden B. Dow Home and Studio in Midland features a sunken parlor that is level with an expansive pond. The Japanese-style landscaping embodies Dow’s philosophy that “gardens never end and buildings never begin.”
The Robert E. Schwartz House, designed by Robert Schwartz and nestled in Northwest Midland, features a dramatic concrete and styrofoam dome constructed with Dow Chemical technology.
Glenn Beach’s 1956 Gilbert Currie House is characteristic of the midcentury modern style with its streamlined, texture-rich exterior.
The Josephine Ashmun Residence by Alden B. Dow
The Josephine Ashmun Residence by Alden B. Dow
Beginning in 1949, the Phoenix Civic Center was designed in stages by Alden B. Dow. His plan grouped a public Library, a little theater, an art museum, and support facilities around a square interior courtyard whose landscaping included a pool and native plants.
Completed in 1941 along with the house, Dow's office is the transition point between the studio and the residence he shared with his wife Vada and their three children. Nestled down a short flight of steps, the room is an energetic and idiosyncratic study of contrasts, from the round lines of the George Nelson Saucer Pendant and the strung gourds to the sharp geometric planes of the layered ceiling. All throughout the studio and home, Dow makes use of his patented Unit Blocks, created from recycled cinder ash residue from the Dow Chemical Company coal furnaces. Here, the white rectilinear forms balance graphic colors.
The cathedral ceiling of the living room diffuses light throughout the open space. Between the edge-grain fir ribs, fluorescent tubes hidden behind strips of Dow Chemical's Ethocel plastic provide light and—thanks to phosphorescence in the basket-weave—originally glowed at night. Since then, the panels have had to be replaced.
Bird Chairs, Diamond Chairs, and Dining Chairs by Harry Bertoia provide ample seating on this cantilevered porch, which is screened in by a delicate copper mesh and provides views of the expansive Dow Gardens—connected by an Asian-inspired footbridge.
According to Dow's philosophy, all structures must exhibit honesty, humility, and enthusiasm. Honesty refers to the straightforward use of materials to meet a need, while humility encourages a balance between buildings and their surrounding environment. Enthusiasm is
