Standing in a modernist home designed by architect Scott Mitchell of Scott Mitchell Studio in the Hollywood Hills, as I did recently, you feel calm, almost serene. The materials, primarily concrete, wood, and glass give both a feeling of solidity and a lightness because of the windows, views, and the way the indoors is activated by the outdoors. Mitchell’s spaces seem minimalist (although the size of the homes are often maximalist).
If Scott Mitchell is not a name you know, but you have been to LA, you have probably experienced his work at one of his few commercial projects, Nobu Malibu that, like the homes he designs, gives you a feeling of intimacy in a large space where the outdoors is the star as much as the simplicity and openness of the interior space.
At a Scott Mitchell Studio designed home, you quickly understand that to live this way you need wealth, but the spaces are not displays of conspicuous consumption. Rather they convey a laid-back luxury, a sense of harmony and peace. French poet Charles Baudelaire in his poem, Invitation to a Voyage, wrote of an escape from reality into a realm of “luxe, calm and voluptuousness,” which is what Mitchell’s architecture makes you feel. And you wonder: How does he do this? How does he pull off this harmonious feeling of simplicity?
To answer this question, I met with Mitchell at the MAK Center for Architecture’s Schindler House on N. King’s Road in Los Angeles. Schindler, who Mitchell cites as one of his most important influences, was an Austrian born architect who worked with Frank Lloyd Wright on the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo and the Hollyhock House for which Schindler did most of the drawings and oversaw the construction. Schindler eventually broke with Wright and remained in Los Angeles, where his home, the Schindler House, is now open to the public.
“It’s a powerful emotive piece of architecture,” Mitchell said of Schindler’s home. “Simple but powerful. And it’s a very simple example of materials and honest expression of structure. Everything you see is revealed.”
As Mitchell led me on a tour of the 1922 house where Schindler and his wife lived and where they both had studios, he pointed out certain architectural aspects that inform his own work. “At the front door, there is a device deployed, this idea of compression and release.” he said, “We’ve got a really tight doorway. We come in – we’re in that moment of compression and we release {when we enter into the room] with a higher ceiling… You can feel the influence of Japanese Shinto [principles].”
To create his California Modernist homes, Schindler incorporated many Japanese architectural concepts such as the use of natural materials, redwood, glass, as well as concrete, multifunctional spaces, open layouts, screens or sliding glass instead of walls, and indoor/outdoor flow that expresses a connection to nature. Fundamental to Japanese architecture are the concepts of ma (empty space), moya (the building having a central core), and engawa (which in Japan is usually a wrap-around veranda for the house). All of these are at play in the Schindler House, as well as in Scott Mitchell’s Hollywood Hills house.
As we continued our exploration of the Schindler house, Mitchell pointed out one aspect that I hadn’t noticed. “There’s no paint… All the materials are honestly expressed and that’s something that I think is really sophisticated and poetic. It creates a humanistic experience for the viewer.”
Mitchell also spoke of how Schindler’s study is oriented so that you have a feeling of being protected, of being sheltered. At the same time, Schindler strove to have natural light from all four sides in the room.
You may wonder, as I did, how did Scott Mitchell develop such a unique and high level architectural practice. To understand that you need to know something of Mitchell’s biography:
Mitchell’s father was in the Air Force and the family lived for some years in Amman, Jordan where Mitchell absorbed a reverence for the desert and its vast vistas, as well as for the permanence of ancient ruins, and their organic materials. The family then lived for a time in Japan, where Mitchell absorbed the harmonious designs of Japanese Shinto Temples and Japanese architectural concepts.
Mitchell went to Texas A&M where he received his undergraduate architectural degree. He then moved to New York, where he worked for Preston T. Phillips, a protégé of Paul Rudolph on homes in the Hamptons. Nonetheless, while in New York Mitchell admits to feeling intimidated by his architectural peers. He had a good practical education at Texas A&M but it was not a theory school. “It’s like they were speaking a language that I didn’t understand,” Mitchell said of his colleagues. So, Mitchell decided to get a graduate degree at an architecture school where he could learn the academic side. He ended up choosing SciArc in LA, where Frank Gehry had taught and which Thom Mayne helped found, feeling that LA would be a good place to put roots down and where there would be more opportunity.
In the Hamptons, Mitchell had met Sandy Gallin, a very successful Hollywood producer and talent manager. Gallin, however, had a passion and a talent for decorating, design, and selling luxury homes, so much so that it later became his occupation. As noted in articles in The Hollywood Reporter and Architectural Digest, Gallin didn’t create showy homes, he made homes that were comfortable and cozy – and he did so with Scott Mitchell on nine homes. Gallin opened the world of his high profile contacts to Mitchell, and the aesthetic they shared evolved into Mitchell’s signature style.
Walking through the Hollywood Hills House, Mitchell pointed out many features that inform the experience of the space and that resonate with Schindler’s practice. In this particular home, high in the hills above LA on Curson Terrace, you arrive to park at a motor court. As you leave your vehicle, you first glimpse the incredible view, and then enter a narrow space – a stairway or an elevator that leads to an expansive entry way space – compression and release.
There is no paint in this home, but the concrete walls have tie back holes which create texture and become design elements of their own. There is a grain where the boards have all been put through a wire brush machine and they are offset by a millimeter and a half, so that as the sun moves throughout the day, the skin of the house changes and evolves with the shadows.
Sometimes a room is just a shade darker, which is another way to create that feeling of compression, intimacy, and feeling secure. The door fixtures have a specific handfeel, designed for Mitchell by Sun Valley Bronze that imparts a warmth to the room. Heavy masonry elements are up against the light – all techniques, Mitchell said, straight out of Schindler’s playbook.
“It’s an experience you are after,” Mitchell said, and the key to that is harmony of architecture, interior, and landscape. “You need all three of those things firing on the same cylinders, and then you can do something really meaningful.”
The flow between the rooms is meant to reflect the Japanese concepts Schindler also used. What Mitchell loves is when there can be several distinct structures on a property, be it main house, guest house, and/or gym, all on the same level. In the Hollywood Hills house there is an incredible lower level screening room with a full wall screen and conversation pit and couches. From the screening room you can easily exit back to the motor court and guests can be on their way after the screening. The overwhelming feeling is that it all makes sense, as if this is how it was meant to be.
Over the last few years, Mitchell has sought to challenge himself by taking on new projects that extend his architecture into new areas. “The truth is,” Mitchell said, “What you don’t want to do is the same thing over and over and over.”
“We’ve been flirting with different typologies,” Mitchell told me. His current projects include an Aman luxury resort in the Exumas in Bahamas, a luxury apartment building in Porto, Portugal, and a private family museum in Italy.
However, Mitchell confided that doing these other projects has made him realize, not without some small measure of irony, that what he truly loves is “the single family space.” When you are designing someone’s home, Mitchell said, it’s emotional. “They’re excited about it. They are happy to step up to the plate… to make something extraordinary.” Finally, when you are working for an individual (as opposed to a company), there is more of a personal connection. You are taking a journey together, Mitchell explained, and he has discovered that is what matters most to him and what he enjoys most.
“On a daily basis, I’m talking to some of the most interesting people on the planet and really spending time with them and getting to know them. And I feel really lucky about that.”