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 strip or use the arrows. Each frame opens the photographs from that year.
