The Korean Heating Effect: from Wright’s Usonian Houses to the Eichler Homes in California

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrates “diversity and mixtures of cultures” in architecture – the topic of this session – by showing how the principle of the traditional Korean floor heating system called ondol was transferred to mass-produced houses in the post-war America. As previously investigated (Kim, 2010 & 2020), the floor heating of Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959)’s Usonian houses was inspired by his own experience of the ondol room in Tokyo in 1910s. Jacobs House I (1936-37) in Wisconsin was the first case. On the other hand, Usonian houses in turn had a strong influence on the Eichler homes that the developer Joseph Eichler (1900-74) mass-produced in California between 1949 and 1974. In other words, the Eichler homes adopted many Usonian features, including the floor heating or what was generally called “radiant heating”. This Usonia-Eichler connection was described by Paul Adamson in Eichler: modernism rebuilds the American dream (2002). Based on these facts, this paper argues that the Korean heating principle influenced, though indirectly, the floor heating system of the Eichler homes. It means that traditional Korean architecture contributed to the development of mass-produced houses in the post-war America, no matter how small the contribution may look. This Korean heating effect also manifests cross-fertilisation of cultures – which is emphasised by the session topic.

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ISBN
978-1-944214-31-9