Greta Magnusson-Grossman

[1] Magnusson descended from a family of Swedish cabinetmakers, and was a woodworking apprentice at furniture manufacturer, Kärnans in Helsingborg after she graduated from Ebba Lundbergs Högre.

In 1940, in the midst of World War II, she left Sweden and moved with her husband to Los Angeles where they opened the Magnussen-Grossman Studio on Rodeo Drive.

[11] Her work attracted Hollywood clientele, and she designed interiors for stars such as Greta Garbo and Ingrid Bergman.

[12] Through the 1960s, she was a prominent figure in the experimental architecture world, and was influenced by European Modernists and the Bauhaus, including Walter Gropius and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.

[13] In 1943, her split-level house in Beverly Hills was the first project that allowed Grossman to act as both interior designer and architect.

Her work reflected both the International Style of fellow European emigres such as Rudolph Schindler and Richard Neutra, with the airy, open-plan housing of the Case Study program architects, such as Craig Ellwood, the Eameses, and Pierre Koenig.

[15] Of her sixteen built projects, fourteen of the houses were located in Los Angeles, one was in San Francisco and one was in her native Sweden.

[1][2] In 1966, Grossman retired from the architectural scene in Los Angeles and moved with her husband to a house she designed in Encinitas, just north of San Diego.