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Modernica

Case Study House #16

Completed in 1952, this was the first of three houses Craig Ellwood designed for the program John Entenza launched through Arts & Architecture magazine in 1945 to prove modern design could be affordable and repeatable. Built in steel, glass, and concrete, its frameless glass walls run out to a covered patio anchored by a natural rock fireplace. It is the only one of Ellwood's three Case Study houses to survive largely intact.

A study inside Case Study House #16, with a desk, bookshelves, and Modernica furniture.
A molded Modernica chair in a quiet courtyard at Case Study House #16.
The living room and natural stone fireplace at Case Study House #16.
Dining area with molded chairs and a pendant lamp at Case Study House #16.
A dining chair and table framed by the glass walls of Case Study House #16.
Close detail of a dark molded chair beside the dining table.
Green bar stools and the original kitchen at Case Study House #16.
A sculptural potted plant set against the brick courtyard wall.
A potted tree in the brick courtyard at Case Study House #16.

Modernica named its Case Study® Collection after this same program, and the connection runs deeper than the name: structure, light, and materials are treated as a single system, with furniture included as part of that system rather than set inside it as decoration.

Two Modernica daybeds on the terrace at Case Study House #16.
A black daybed set against the stone courtyard wall.
Outdoor dining beneath the redwood pergola.
A wire chair and marble table in the sun.
A patio lounge with a wire chair beneath the pergola.
A Modernica daybed in the planted courtyard.
A daybed and parasol in the afternoon light.
A tall potted plant beside the redwood window frame.

The pieces inside the home belong to the Case Study® Collection itself, each one structurally honest in the same register as the space around it. Set inside the house that gave the collection its name, they carry forward the same idea: that well-designed objects, like well-designed spaces, shape how we live, move, and experience the world around us.

A fiddle leaf fig and desk in the wood-paneled study.
A Modernica desk and chair in the wood-paneled study.
A green molded chair on a yellow rug.
A walnut coffee table with books in the living room.
The back of a Modernica sofa in the living room.
A potted tropical plant beside the living room windows.