the lautman collection: photographs of hollin hills in the 1950’s

©Robert Lautman Photography, National Building Museum

The archives of architectural photographer Robert C. Lautman — who documented the growth of modernist architecture in the Washington, DC area, including Hollin Hills — are held at the National Building Museum, and run to some 30,000 prints, transparencies, and negatives. The National Building Museum has kindly digitized these photographs from their Hollin Hills collection for us, and made them available for this website. For any reference, the credit line for any of these photos is: ©Robert Lautman Photography, National Building Museum.

Note: the photographs are organized by “unit type” — the designation architect Charles Goodman and developer Robert Davenport gave to the designs offered for sale. Let us know if you spot any mis-labeled houses!

For more on the different Hollin Hills unit types, please see our “field guide to the houses” on this website.

hollin hills houses

© Robert Lautman Photography, National Building Museum

unit house type 1

unit house type 2

Rebecca Drive. © Robert Lautman Photography, National Building Museum

unit house type 2 (butterfly)

Though undated, these photographs of a Unit 2 Butterfly house on Martha’s Road may have been taken in 1953, when the house served as a showcase for furniture designs by Florence Knoll. The house was featured on the 1953 Hollin Hills House and Garden Tour.