I recently posted an article celebrating the Lovell Beach House designed by architect Rudolph Schindler. The home is interesting from an architectural perspective given it’s place in the history of the modern movement, but also from the perspective of it’s place in the wellness arts.
It seems that the owner, Dr. Phillip Lovell, was a popular and well-established medical practitioner with a very popular radio following in Los Angeles during the 1930’s. In the era before the rise of the AMA’s dominion over the practice of medicine, he was also a homeopath. Then, as now, to be a homeopath means that the practitioner commits their energies to healing the whole person rather than to addressing any specific symptom or transient condition. The homeopath invests their energies to finding the root cause – emotional, psychic, physical, spiritual – informing the symptoms being manifested, and then treats the root cause, thus curing the condition.
To reinforce his convictions and to give physical reality to the health benefits and lifestyle he espoused, Dr. Lovell commissioned two homes for himself and his family. The first was the so-called Lovell Beach House designed by Rudolph Schindler. The second was the Lovell Health House, designed by Richard Neutra.
Both works are recognized as significant contributions to the history of the modern movement in architecture.
It occurs to me that perhaps the success of Dr. Lovell as a practitioner, his commissioning of these significant architectural artifacts, and the constellation of architectural history with that of homeopathy should be considered as milestones, not only within the history of architecture, but also within the history of the modern homeopathic movement, as well.
Comments