Modernist homes and Southern CA

Author Neil Jackson writes that the steel-frame architecture of the Modern movement inherently suits the Southern CA landscape:

"Indeed, it could be argued that the Lovell House employed a framing material more suited to the nature of southern California than the omnipresent timber frame, since constructional quality timber is hardly a southern Californian product. The natural terrain of the coastal plain which stretches inland from Santa Monica or Long Beach, is that of the desert: in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains to the north and throughout the Anaheim Hills to the south, it is high chaparral. In neither case is it forested like northern California, so single-storey, thick-walled adobe construction had once been the way of building. Thus Neutra's metal-frame house would seem to provide both a seismically acceptable and readily available contemporary response to construction. The metal frame would be designed to withstand the lateral forces so destructive in earthquakes and the use of steel would take advantage of a minimalist, industrial, building technique inherently suited to the
openness of the hot, barren southland." (154)

Whether intentionally or not, LH's choice to build in the Modernist style in the Southern California landscape reflects a subtle sensitivity to place. It is true that high Modernist residential architecture has become solidly embedded in the local culture of Southern CA - from the Lovell house to John Entenza's Case Study houses. Even along the coasts of San Diego where I used to live, one sees everywhere less famous but clearly Modernist residences, geometric in form and clad in glass. It is no longer being just built by the high theorists. You could say that it has become a local vernacular.

One could potentially argue that this move on LH's part addresses a concern in the sustainable building lit for place-appropriateness when building. If a building is to address a regional vernacular without being condemned of frivolous, sentimental pastiche (as it would surely be if building in a historical Spanish colonial or adobe style), then Modernism is surely just as valid a style as any.

EDIT: At the very end of this same article, the author questions Arts and Architecture magazine's attempts to frame Modernist steel-frame houses as a uniquely Californian style. He reminds us that elsewhere and contemporary to the Case Studies, other noted architects such as Philip Johnson and Mies van der Rohe, were conducting their own radical experiments with prefabrication and steel frames. He does however conceded that CA's development of the steel framed house may have arisen organically from the climate, geographical features (steep slopes, crumbly ground), and historical conditions (WWII), as the Neutra and Eames bunch didn't seem to be heavily in touch with the East Coast crowd. He ends on a note that, while LA is now "known" for these radical, celebrity instances of steel frame houses, it is certainly nowhere near being the dominant vernacular: "It is indicative of the inherently conservative attitude of the Los Angeleno that even today, what is perhaps the world's most automobile-orientated society park their eight million metal-framed vehicles every night outside timberframed houses decorated in Spanish, Tudor or, increasingly, Post-Modern styles."