For those in the know, great; but for those that don’t, the question surely arises – What is the connection between Charles Goodman and Aluminium Houses?

Charles Goodman was a Washington DC based architect who specialised in designing homes in the modernist style. Inspired by, amongest others, the Bauhaus work of Mies van de Rohe, Goodman was appointed in 1957 by Alcoa (The Aluminum Company of America) to design the ‘Care Free House’. This collaboration was set up to demonstrate aluminiums‘ suitability and versatility as both a decorative and structural material within residential environments. It was also intended to display how successfully aluminium integrates with traditional materials such as brick, glass, stone and wood.

For whatever reason, only twenty three of these high quality ‘California Style’ post and beam construct houses were ever built. Fortunately a proportion of these unique properties have either been preserved in their original condition or, renovated with meticulous attention to detail.

You can also view a real estate agent’s video promoting one of these ‘For Sale’ homes.

Reassuringly there is a growing awareness in the United States that such distinctive mid 20th century properties should be protected from the trend towards demolition and MacMansionization, as the Americans’ call it!

Goodman was also responsible for designing several housing developments that have been subsequently ‘listed’, including the superbly landscaped Hollin-Hills in Alexandria, Virginia.

Gooding Aluminium are a national and international supplier of a wide range of high quality aluminium sheets, aluminium profiles , aluminium angle, aluminium channel and stair nosings. For more information about bespoke or ready made aluminium products, subscribe by RSS, or by Email or visit our main site at www.goodingalum.com