Event Description
Hosted by Society of Architectural Historians, Southern California Chapter
Join SAH/SCC as we welcome author, educator, and SAH/SCC Life Member Volker M. Welter to discuss his new book, Exiled in L.A.: The Untold Story of Leopold Fischer’s Domestic Architecture (Getty Research Institute, 2025). The program will be held in-person at the Neutra Office Building in Silver Lake as well as simulcast via Zoom.
In 1936, Leopold Fischer (1901-1975), in exile from Nazi Germany, arrived in California, where he created a small but distinct oeuvre of mostly domestic architecture. In contrast to his famous peers Rudolph Schindler (1887-1953) and Richard Neutra, FAIA (1892-1970), Fischer and his California structures have, until now, escaped the attention of architectural history.
Exiled in L.A. examines Fischers important, yet overlooked, contributions to Southern California architecture. As the whereabouts of Fischers archives remain unknown, Welter grounds the designers California works in comparison with his pre-exile projects and the compositions of fellow architects in California. In the 1920s, Fischer created experimental working-class housing estates in Germany that pioneered ecological construction and living practices. Comparable to their predecessors, Fischers California buildings revolve around the “functioning, the organization of a home,” as he defined domestic architecture in 1926. Featuring new photography and detailed architectural plans, this book is an original contribution to the literature on Southern California’s built heritage.
Welter is a frequent SAH/SCC speaker and a professor in the Department of History of Art and Architecture at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is the author of Tremaine Houses: One Family’s Patronage of Domestic Architecture in Midcentury America (Getty Research Institute, 2019).
Admission fee, registration required
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