The story
In 1957 a USC architecture student named Bernard Judge was offered a used aluminum frame. Jeffrey Lindsay had built it in Quebec as Weatherbreak. Judge shipped it to a hillside on Durand Drive, argued with the City of Los Angeles for months to get a permit, hung fourteen tons of water from it, and moved in under a skin of Mylar.
Key dates, 1950 to today
- 1A
1950Jeffrey Lindsay raises Weatherbreak, a forty-foot aluminum frame, in a field outside Montreal. - 2A
1957Lindsay, now in Hollywood, offers the surplus frame to Bernard Judge, a USC architecture student. - 3A
1958After months of revisions, Building and Safety issues permit LA 6184. - 4AWill the building department allow it.1959On July 10 Judge types the five questions the house is meant to answer.
- 5A
1960The frame stands on Durand Drive. On January 12 it is loaded with fourteen tons of water for the city. - 6A
1961Judge and Dora De Larios move in under the Mylar skin. There are no interior walls. - 7A
1962Julius Shulman photographs the house. The city signs a certificate of occupancy. - 8ADemolition permit, 2949 Durand Drive.1971A demolition permit is issued. The house comes down.
- 9A
1983The frame enters the National Museum of American History as object 1983.0019. - 10A
2023Weatherbreak stands again, in Flag Hall in Washington. - 11A
TodayA ring of concrete piers is all that is left on Durand Drive.
Drag the stripSwipe the strip or use the arrows. Each frame opens the photographs from that year.
