![]() ![]() Philip Lovell, a New York transplant-turned-naturopath who advocated for natural cures and wrote about them in a Los Angeles Times column called “Care of the Body.” The house, with its outdoor sleeping porches, abundant vegetation, and expansive windows, embodied the values Lovell championed. ![]() One such home was the Health House, an iconic building designed by Richard Neutra for Dr. Renowned architects of the early 20th century became involved in the crusade, including Alvar Aalto, who designed Paimio Sanatorium, a tuberculosis clinic in Finland, and a special chair known as the “Paimio scroll chair,” which “allowed patients to recline while slim back-slats provided cooling and hand grips helped in getting up.” The chair was a hit not only in clinics, but soon found its way into many of the modernist homes that became popular in California in the mid-20th century. As the sanatoriums matured, so did their design. Seen as “a natural sanatorium,” by 1911, there were around 23 long-term health clinics in Southern California. These institutions stressed the medicinal benefits of fresh air, exercise, and the natural elements at a time when humans were looking for an escape from an urban lifestyle that was literally killing them.Įnter Southern California, with its abundant sunshine, fresh air (at least, at the time), deserts, and mountains. When the Industrial Revolution had polluted many European cities and the spread of tuberculosis was rampant, open-air asylums, water and sunbathing clinics, and the like began popping up. According to Lyra Kilston, author of Sun Seekers: The Cure of California, the origins of the modern, healthy-living regime we associate with the Golden State has its roots in 19th-century Europe. Southern California has long attracted those seeking a mild climate, a healthy lifestyle, and sunshine. ![]()
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