La Jolla // Salk Institute

Salk Institute for Biological Studies // Louis Kahn // 1960

A second visit to the Salk Institute doesn’t diminish it’s inspiring monumental brutalism. The more time I spend there the more the building softens, and small details start to appear and the shadows create more interesting shapes beyond the one single view straight down the middle. This time I tried to take some photos which capture the interesting oblique views along the colonnades. It’s still hard to believe the building was designed in the 1950s.

Hollywood // Stahl House

Stahl House // Pierre Koenig // 1954

On a beautiful summer’s afternoon we took an evening tour of the Stahl House, also known as Case Study House 22 by Pierre Koenig. We were in awe before we even made it to the house due to the amazing winding drive up from Hollywood where we passed two of Frank Lloyd Wright’s textile block houses.

After being let through the gate and being read the safety rules, the cliff just falls away beyond the pool to an amazing 270 degree view of Los Angeles. The guide told an amazing story of an ordinary couple who used to drive up the hill and admire the view, imagining their dream home on the site. The client was a builder and was interested in modern efficient steel and glass design. So with Keonig they designed a relatively cheap and simple L shaped house, and were convinced to put pool on the site by a real estate advisor friend. It was completed in 1954 for less than $40,000.

The mid century modern house was famously photographed by Julius Schulman and has a tag line of ‘nobody famous ever lived here’…

Exhibition // S, M, L, XL

Architecture and Design Museum // Los Angeles

A group of Los Angeles designers were asked to design something for this exhibition based around Rem Koolhaas’ seminal book S, M, L, XL. Exhibits ranged from minature models, to large 3D printed pieces, stringy things crawling around the walls and my favourite MSA’s reinvented chess set.

They had taken the geometries of a traditional chess pieces and zoomed in, sectioned and booleaned together new pieces. Despite the pieces looking nothing like traditional pieces, there was some how just enough of the original geometry left that it was easy to tell which piece was which. Spina was clever to remove a quarter of each piece giving them sectional properties and revealing more complexities of the interior geometries. Titled ‘In Turn’ it looks like they used a rotational deformation to generate the new pieces from old geometries.

#36 // Wayfarer’s Chapel

p92 // Lloyd Wright // Rancho Palos Verdes // 1951

Undoubtably Lloyd Wright’s (son of Frank Lloyd Wright) greatest work, this Swedish chapel sits atop a beautiful cove overlooking the Pacific Ocean. It is worth visiting just for the beautiful views, gardens and axes set up by the landscaping and chapel. I didn’t find the chapel incredibly awe-inspiring, it felt like it was sited strangely and the entry felt back-to-front. However, the timber columns were beautiful splitting like tree canopies and I enjoyed Lloyd Wright’s clever use of simple geometries mixed with the organic columns, landscape and ferns growing inside the chapel.

 

// 227 remain //

#35 // Bright & Associates

p199 // Franklin D. Israel Design Associates // Venice // 1991

I wondered why this building was listed in as one of ‘263 Key American Buildings’ but it was obvious when I found it was the office and factory of the Charles and Ray Eames for over forty years. They seem like the original hipsters of the industrial back streets of Venice Beach, imagine all iconic furniture and toys that were designed, prototyped and made in this building. Refurbished in 1991, its now a series of small offices reminiscent of Eric Owen Moss’ work reinventing industrial buildings on the other side of LA in Culver City.

// 228 remain //

#34 // Chiat-Day Building

p200 // Frank O Gehry // Venice // Los Angeles // 1991

Well, it just has to be seen, the giant binocular building by Gehry. An earlier work by Gehry this building typifies his recipe, a juxtaposition between three weird and wonderful elements with a simple red brick boxy building at the back. To the left of the binoculars there is a white building with his typical square windows punched out through two offset layers of facade and to the right of the binoculars a really strange copper clad oversized ‘thing’ – I don’t know what it is. The building was advertising offices and has now been taken over of course by Google! However, they are doing their best to hide its strangeness by growing giant leafy trees along Main street, leaving only the iconic binocular entry visible.

 

// 229 remain //

#33 // Andalucia Apartments

p41 // Arthur & Nina Zwebell // Los Angeles // 1926

A warm Sunday morning walk along the Sunset Strip took me into the quaint suburbs of West Hollywood (now known as WeHo!). Havenhurst Drive was just gorgeous and this historic courtyard apartment building with its tiled roofs, arty fountains and cute garage doors, fits right in to the leafy street. This set of apartments is famous for setting the stage for the courtyard housing type in LA, making the most of the bountiful climate, communal gardens and a level of craftsmanship / individuality.

In addition to the Sunset Hotel and tiny office building by Schindler, that were impossible to photograph with the bright sun, some other sites include; the infamous Mirabelle restaurant, P-A-T-T-E-R-N-S (Marcelo Spina – SCI-Arc faculty) Prism Gallery’s plastic facade and the looming Chateau Marmont.

// 230 remain //

Hollywood // Pantages Theatre

Hollywood // Los Angeles // 1930s

Opened in the 1930s the Pantages Theatre was a luxury movie house and is presently the site of many broadway musicals including the Lion King, Wicked etc. I love stepping off grotty Hollywood Boulevard, showing my ticket and entering another world, its like stepping into the 1930s with the grand staircases, secret cocktail bar hidden down in the basement under the stairs, luxurious art deco bathrooms and best of all the amazing art deco chandeliers through out the building. The dark lighting makes it impossible to photograph but here are a few of my favourite lanterns;

Chicago // The Art Institute of Chicago

The Art Institute of Chicago was fabulous – I wished we had had more time. It had a huge collection with art from all eras, but I really enjoyed the relics from Louis Sullivan buildings and collected glass windows and textile blocks by Frank Lloyd Wright. I wish we could have stayed to visit some of his buildings in the area.

Chicago // 610 S Michigan Ave

Spertus Institute // Krueck & Sexton Architects // 2007

Great facade on the famous Michigan Avenue.

#32 // Sears Tower

p143 // Skidmore Owings Merrill // Chicago // 1974

As diligent Chicago tourists we made a pilgrimage to the infamous Sears Tower. It’s the tallest building in Chicago and was the tallest in the world for almost thirty years until Taipei 101 was completed. By corporate skyscraper extraordinaire architects Skidmore Owings Merrill, the tower is made of nine smaller towers ‘bundled’ together to make a strong structure. The building spans two entire city blocks and is 110 storeys high.

We visited the infamous 360 degree viewing sky deck at level 103, and tried not to be disturbed by the glass breaking incident that had happened only three days before our visit, in one of the amazing glass boxes that protrude out from the side of the big black monolith.

Although it felt like a generic slightly dated tourist experience, the view and perspective of Chicago was worth it.

// 231 Remain //

#31 // 860-880 Lake Shore Drive

p91 // Mies Van Der Rohe // Chicago // 1951

The first of Mies’ famous skin and bones skyscrapers – a residential building. His black steel skyscrapers have been replicated so many times across Chicago it can be tricky to pick the original Mies. A lovely neighbourhood at the edge of Lake Michigan.

// 232 remain //

#26 – #30 Chicago Skyline

#26 // Carlson Pirie Scott Building // p6 // Louis Sullivan // 1904
#27 // Chicago Board of Trade Building // p53 // Holabird & Root// 1930
#28 // Chicago Tribune Tower // p45 // Howells and Hood // 1927
#29 // Inland Steel Building // p104 // Skidmore, Owings & Merrill // 1958
#30 // 333 Wacker Drive // p168 // Kohn Pederson Fox // 1983

These five are grouped together as we viewed them all from a pleasant ninety minute Chicago River cruise. The cruise claimed to be about the architectural history of Chicago but really it was an out of work actor pointing out the buildings and gossiping about Chicago’s football and baseball teams. Nevertheless, it was interesting to hear the anecdotes of all the high-rises and really getting a vision for how the city was competing with New York to be the corporate giant in the early 1900s, then how today they still see themselves as a major marketing and advertising headquarters for the US.

We ventured up two forks of the Chicago river and heard how it had been reversed and dredged so the dirty water of Chicago stopped flowing out into the crystal blue Lake Michigan and instead flowed back in keeping the lake clean. We had to pass through a lock before heading out onto the lake for nice views of the Chicago skyline.

// 233 remain //

#25 // John Hancock Center

p134 // Skidmore Owings & Merrill // Chicago // 1970

Another iconic Chicago skyscraper – this one hundred storey black monster was the pinnacle for observation in Chicago, before the Sears Tower took over a decade later. It still has a popular observation deck and revolving restaurant with views to four states.

Still the tallest skyscraper from this perspective;

// 238 remain //

#24 // Lake Point Tower

p132 // Schipporeit-Heinrich Associates // Chicago // 1968

Of the hundreds of famous skyscrapers in Chicago – this was my favourite. It’s a residential tower with a plan shaped like a three leaf clover. It’s brown anodised steel sends you straight back to the seventies and its curvy yet monumental form reminds me of James Birrell’s centenary pools back in Brisbane. This building is the only tower on the lake side of Lake Shore Drive so it sits out by itself and has been home to many rich and famous hipsters. It’s architects were students and staff of Mies van der Rohe.

(http://chuckmanchicagonostalgia.wordpress.com/2012/07/10/photo-chicago-lake-point-tower-apartments-dramatic-aerial-based-on-mies-van-der-rohe-concept-worlds-tallest-in-1969/photo-chicago-lake-point-tower-apartments-dramatic-aerial-based-on-mies-van-der-rohe-concept-worlds-tallest-in-1969/)

// 239 remain //

#23 // Marina City

p121 // Bertrand Goldberg // Chicago // 1964

These twin towers, also known as the corn cobs, were and still are, a shock to the system in Chicago. Sitting right next to a sleek black Mies van der Rohe tower, they look weird, but some how I kind of like them. They have a concrete ruin quality about them, with their crazy round car parks at the bottom they are starting to look like they’re under demolition. Their creative use of concrete shell construction signalled a new era of skyscrapers in the early 1960s.

// 240 remain //

#14 // Bullocks Wiltshire

p51 // John and Donald Parkman // Los Angeles // 1929

Now Southwestern University School of Law

In its day this building was a shocking radical Art Deco masterpiece. It was a revolutionary department store in the suburbs! People were shocked by its ten storey presence, when they were used to only shopping in downtown. The building is heavily ornamented with copper, nickel, bronze, brass and marble exuding 1930s wealth and glamour.

On the 1.5km walk between metro stations Wiltshire / Vermont and Wilshire / Western one can view another Art Deco masterpiece still showing films today – the Wiltern (at the corner of Wiltshire and Western) – LA must have been such a thriving place in the 30s.

On the same walk there are a couple of other interesting buildings. A Catholic Church with a nice take on stain glass windows;

Wiltshire Boulevard temple;

A giant symmetrical bank – this is at least 15 storeys;

Finally, the ugliest of all – the finger nail building – full of hundreds of apartments!

// 249 Remain //

#13 // Los Angeles County Museum of Art

// p180 // Arata Isozaki, Renzo Piano & Others // 1961 – Current

Refer to Peter Zumthor reconsider’s LACMA exhibition post. Numerous architects have tried to reconsider LACMA, including SCI-Arc’s urban design class – it’s suffering from a lack of axis or spine where you have to change levels and go through buildings just to get from one end to the other. However, they compensate by having a two entrances, and a large number of staff and guards to guide all lost patrons.

// 250 remain //

Exhibition // Calder & Abstraction

As there were no photos allowed in the exhibition, all the photos below are from google but of the same exhibition at LACMA, designed by Frank Gehry. Though these photos don’t nearly do justice to the scale, affect and number of objects in the exhibition.

Titled From Avant Garde to Abstraction Alexander Calder was born around the 1920s and saw many different art movements, yet his oeuvre shown in the exhibition maintains a certain consistency throughout his life. Calder met Mondrian early in the 1930s, this meeting and admiration is reflected through his work in the 30s & 40s.

As well as, his renowned work with large abstract metal sculptures, Calder was also famous for designing mobiles. I wondered what the guard meant when he said ‘no photographs and no blowing!’ Many of his mobiles land on the edges of tables with only one leg or hover over benches supported by only one bent leg.

Exhibition // James Turrell

I’ve decided that appreciating Turrell takes serious art-nerd maturity, and I’m not quite there yet. Though my appreciation grew immensely today by seeing his retrospective at LACMA, which not only presented a large number of his ‘environments’ but also a lot of his sketches, prints, working drawings and notes to installers. The drawings start to show the incredible architectural details that seamlessly hide many lights and projectors to illuminate one box. His sketches show how he works with complicated perspective views drawing and abstracting a grid over each space and one astounding eight page letter described the incredible detail of Lux levels, faint hues and delicate balance of the installation of one of his exhibits. What is truly amazing is how he makes these delicate works looks so simple yet completely unbelievable and not understandable.

I didn’t realise until today that he was born in Pasadena, studied minimalism in New York and returned to LA (as the art world was more innovative and accessible for him here) where he set up a studio in Santa Monica from the early sixties. Some of his works, which I naively say look similar, sitting side by side, range from 1966 to 2008.

Previous visits to his work in Kanazawa and Sydney were so well executed that I hadn’t thought twice about the intensity with which he plays with light, perception and space. Yet, although my ticket said allow an hour and a half to view the exhibition, it only took me 27 minutes. Maybe I’m still missing the mesmerising quality of sitting in a black room looking at a pink light for 5 minutes. His first exhibition was at age 24.

As there were no photos allowed in the exhibition the following are simply from Google to act as reminders about the exhibition.

#12 // Lovell Beach House

p43 // Newport Beach // Rudolf Schindler // 1926

It took a long drive and a short bicycle ride to visit this masterpiece by Rudolf Schindler. From the Newport Beach Pier you can hire a bicycle and ride about twenty houses down along the beach bike path, just past the elementary school and basketball hops to find the house on a corner block.

The weathered beauty looks the oldest building by far on the Balboa peninsula (a strip of sand one road and four houses wide) and I’m sure many locals wish it could be torn down… But to architectural fanatics its still a gem. The top heavy living spaces of timber construction are supported on figure eight shaped cast in situ concrete columns. The terraces, steps and parti walls are elegantly and simply composed around these fin like columns which create a really deep and tall undercroft. The patterns, detail and asymmetry of the windows on all facades is also really interesting and still incredibly influential and relevant today.

// 251 Remain //

California Touring // Pasadena // Rose Parade Float Viewing

This was one of the more bizarre things I’ve done since living in LA… I caught the metro and free shuttle buses with a bunch of grandmas to visit the post-parade float viewing. I’d read a little about the New Year’s Day Rose Parade in Pasadena but really didn’t comprehend how big it was. It turns out more than 1million people see the floats it’s year, they set up ticketed grandstands along 6 miles of Pasadena where families line up to watch the parade. Different stars, pageant queens, princesses, Boy Scouts and marching bands parade around for 2hrs, all broadcast on national TV across America.

Groups of volunteers spend the week leading up to the parade painstakingly decorating the floats with roses…. So many roses! I can only imaging what it must cost, crazy. The floats were available for viewing the afternoon and day after the parade for a ten dollar fee. All I could think of were the thousands of people who had paid $10, to see millions of dying roses…

Downtown LA // Winter Break

Spending the winter break working in a very chilly office for Pita & Bloom (see http://www.pita-bloom.com) … more soon. Its just a short walk over the LA River from SCI-Arc.

SCI-Arc // Impromptu 3D Print Exhibition

Following our final presentation, we made an impromptu exhibition of our colour 3D prints on the Hispanic Steps at SCI-Arc. Each design pair, presented two models – one from midterm which focussed on the external form and texture and one from the final presentation that included a ‘boolean cut’ – a section of the model removed to reveal the interior of the buildings.

SCI-Arc // Incompatible Objects // Final Review & Animation

Incompatible Objects – Final Animation
5960 Sunset Blvd, Hollywood, Los Angeles

Rachael McCall & Adrian Cortez

The project is a redux of Emerson College Los Angeles, a project currently under construction by Morphosis. It is a satellite campus where 220 film and media students are based for a semester. The building includes, housing, parking, classrooms, three theatres, offices, seminar rooms and street level retail.

SCI-Arc 2GAX Studio – Florencia Pita
13 week project, first semester of MArch II

Ten critics including;
Florencia Pita – FPMOD & Pita+Bloom – SCI-Arc Faculty
Marcelyn Gow – Servo LA – SCI-Arc Faculty
Ramiro Diaz-Granados – Amorphis – SCI-Arc Faculty
Hernan Diaz Alonso – Xefirotarch – SCI-Arc Graduate Programs Chair
Tom Wiscombe – Tom Wiscombe Design – SCI-Arc Faculty
Elena Manferdini – Atelier Manferdini – SCI-Arc Faculty
Marcelo Spina – PATTERNS – Sci-Arc Faculty

SCI-Arc // Finals Week

As the weeks of the semester disappeared, there were mounting senses of fear, terror, sleeplessness and also excitement as ‘finals’ drew closer. Its an exciting time at SCI-Arc, as for two weeks straight, student work lines the hallway going up and coming down twice a day… each time one walks out of the studio another class is presenting, another 50 models are on display and another set of glossy posters have been pinned to perfect alignment along the walls. ‘Deck the halls’ as another classmate labelled it… the maintenance men were busy, day and night sweeping the floor, sanding and repainting the walls perfect white and loading and unloading the uncomfortable black chairs for the oodles of critics who came to see what we were up to inside the old train depot…

At 4am some nights, pure chaos reigned…

Which suddenly transformed into an ordered review in the morning…

The new-to-architecture students produced some amazing black and white models;

Reiser+Umemoto – Nanako Umemoto’s studio produced some stunning airport designs;

A sense of fear was in the air as Hernan Diaz Alonso’s student’s waited to present their Soane House redux projects and beautiful 3D prints spray painted gold and silver;

Anna Neimark of First Office had a seminar class who presented beautiful ‘stone henge’ drawings using all types of lines and shading;

 

Some earlier work from Anna Niemark’s seminar;

Final coats of olive oil were added to models;

Ramiro Diaz Granados held an elective where they model in 3D coat and made beautiful line drawings from the ‘normals’ of all the points;

The mega drawings of the ‘design development’ seminar reappeared on the walls;

Florencia Pita & Erick Carcamo’s Visual Studies seminar presented more colour 3D prints;

Another seminar hung models off the walls;

The thesis pit got a little festive;

Vending machines were emptied nightly;

The bits and bots seminar taught robots to paint – some great outcomes;

Unwrapping of 3D prints in our studio;

Downtown LA // Central Los Angeles Area High School #9 for the Visual and Performing Arts

I asked a friend, ‘what is that Dinosaur looking thing that hangs over the freeway’… they replied ‘cheap Coop Himmelb(l)au’. A morning walk took me to visit their Visual & Performing Arts School on the edge of Downtown LA. A the fun but rough set of buildings fit in well in the rough & tumble area. I jostled through the group of teenage skateboarders ‘hanging out’, to get a few photos.

 

Central LA // Echo Park & Lago Vista

On a quick Saturday trip to Echo Park, a beautiful lake just outside Downtown LA, I discovered this ‘Bauhaus inspired’ 1970s apartment gem by Allyn Morris.

  

Images (http://silverlakelosangelesurbanvillage.blogspot.com.au/2009_10_01_archive.html)

 

 

SCI-Arc // Visual Studies Midterm

Our ‘visual studies’ subject was a bit of a battle at first, as we struggled to grasp the complexities of ZBrush, a program normally used for building 3D characters for video games and movies, and also grappled with our lecturer asking us to 3D scan natural objects. I scanned a macaroon, which I then enhanced in ZBrush to make more realistic. The next step of our assignment was to make the macaron more ‘fantastic’, where it became purple and autumn-y, and finally I paired up with a guy who had a ‘croissant’ to make our ‘fantastic landscape’.

We printed our landscapes on metallic paper and make a small exhibition at SCI-Arc.

SCI-Arc // Mega Drawings Midterm

 

The design development subject’s Mega Drawings were a hit this year – the class worked in groups to develop their projects from a previous semester. The final products were exhibited in December in the Downtown LA art walk.

The SCI-Arc Library and infamous Japanese curry truck that we welcome each Monday & Friday lunch time.

#11 // Samitaur Constructions

p201 // Los Angeles // Eric Owen Moss // 1984 – Current

The Samitaur Tower is a piece of public art, fit with around six projectors to project onto the plexi-glass.

Eric Owen Moss, current director of SCI-Arc, is an interesting character. His work for the last 27years has almost solely been based within a couple of blocks in Culver City, a developing suburb of LA, between downtown and Santa Monica. Moss, slowly but surely works through a number of really interesting projects for the one client Samitaur Constructions. The earlier projects show his deconstructivist tendencies, where remnants of the old warehouses poke out of the new buildings etc. His projects during the 90s moved into forms involving Boolean operations, all drawn by hand… Moss was doing Booleans before they were being done in computer programs… More recent projects include the Stealth, the Samitaur Tower (a piece purely for the public… which will slowly be activated with film nights and the like), through to the current projects under construction the Pterodactyl.

http://archidose.blogspot.com.au/2011/01/culver-city-contemporary.html

The Pterodactyl is being built over the top of an existing parking lot and will have offices, which cantilever over the side. Due to its complexity the project has taken ten years to start (a lot of time was spent finding the right computer program to check structural steel drawings in), but it is finally under-construction and already full let to an advertising firm.

The Waffle – is the latest piece currently under-construction;

 

Apparently the cactii pots in this structure are joined together to make structural trusses;

Pioneering double-curvature glass project;

The Pterodactyl currently under-construction;

 

//252 remain //

California Touring // Santa Monica, Venice, Beverly Hills // LA in 1 Day

Start with a walk through Santa Monica, looking at all the beautiful art deco buildings – try not to be distracted by the fabulous newly refurbished shops on the third street promenade.

Hire bikes under the Santa Monica pier and cycle south along the beach to the funky suburb Venica. Pass the trapeze artists on the circus equipment, Muscle beach and all the weird and wonderful sights of Venice Beach, including the skate bowl;

Cycle through the backstreets of Venice looking at all the different types of architecture along the canals.

Further north past Santa Monica, cycle towards Malibu.

Jump back in the car and drive along Sunset Boulevard into Beverly Hills. Get lost trying and failing to find stars homes.

Drive up the weaving streets trying to get as close as possible to the Hollywood sign;

Park next to Harrison Ford on Hollywood Boulevard;

Visit the fabulous Marilyn exhibit at the Hollywood Museum housed in an art deco Max Factor building;

Drive down Rodeo Drive;

And back to Downtown LA on Wiltshire;

Have a sunset dinner with the Mariachi and Mojitos in the Mexican village “El Pueblo” just across the road from beautiful Union Station;

#1 // Walt Disney Concert Hall // Re-visited Again

The Disney Concert Hall never disappoints, although a strangely cloudy day for LA, a town planner friend visiting from Melbourne provided the perfect opportunity to visit Gehry’s master piece again. This time we had the opportunity to climb right up to the roof terrace and weave amongst the sloping fins around the perimeter of the building. It was a really interesting experience peeking behind the facade at the details and construction which appears so smooth and shiny on the outside – the mess of steel behind is well hidden. Despite the little signs on the titanium ‘do not touch surface hot’… we had to touch – and indeed the glinting silver surface was very hot – you could fry an egg on it, even though the sun was hidden behind the clouds. The roof and curvature frames some interesting views across downtown.  A must for LA visitors for a warped and interesting perspective of the city.

 

SCI-Arc // Introduction to Digital Design

All masters students’ time at SCI-Arc begins with a mandatory week long course ‘Introduction to Digital Design’… In our case we were learning the software ‘Maya’ and each given a drawing by Ernst Haekel to try and imitate under the premise of ‘Still Life’ – referencing the Beaux Arts tradition where academics first projects were always still life drawings.

The follow screen shots show my progress as the week continued…

The presentation… One guy in our class has a sense of humour – adding some cartoon characters to his drawing!

Some other exhibitions going on at Sci-arc last week…

California Touring // Malibu // The Getty Villa

The Getty Villa is now known as the second campus of the Getty Center and is separated from the Getty Center by about a half an hour drive. It was commissioned by Getty before the Getty Center (opened 1997) as an extension of Getty’s gallery in his home nearby. Getty mandated that the villa be replica Greek architecture, which caused a lot of controversy in the 1960s. The Villa’s exhibitions focus on Greek and Roman antiquities, which contrasts the modern exhibitions at the Getty Center.

I thought I wouldn’t like the replica architecture but I was easily seduced by its beautiful cool, secluded location up a steep hill in Malibu and the gardens and ponds are so well maintained it was a pleasure to visit. There are two courtyard gardens, the smaller square one, which is mainly a herb garden and a long colonnade flanked rectangular garden. The gift shop sells herbs from their gardens – a nice touch.

California Touring // Malibu // The Getty Villa // Additions

Between 1997 and 2006 architects Jorge Silvette and Rodolfo Machado worked on renovating the Getty Villa. I’m not sure if I love or hate their work as from a visitor’s point of view as it kind of overwhelms the Villa – though I’m sure there were many constraints the architects were working in and it’s overall a beautiful and well detailed project.

The additions appear to be giant board concrete walls around the villa, which no doubt retain a lot of the hillside around, hide two giant nine storey car parks and help pedestrians circulate around the complex levels of the site.

From the south car park you walk up many flights of stairs and around the perimeter of the new structure looking down at the villa. You pass through beautiful new cafes, gift shops and a lovely water feature before descending back down to enter the villa. It’s a little bit convoluted and strange going up five levels to come back down three, but never-the-less the architects describe it as ‘presenting the villa as an archaeological dig’….

My zipcar of choice hidden away in the huge car park.

#5 // The Getty Center // Re-visited

p233 // Los Angeles // Richard Meier // 1997

It’s impossible to write about the Getty – it’s such a massive fabulous art gallery that I don’t know where to start. You take a tram up the hill from the car park along a winding path designed by Richard Meier. Everything is aligned along axis and square grids… Meier literally spent 10 years designing the project.

As I’ve taken the architecture tour of the Getty before, this trip I ventured out into the hot Californian sun on the garden tour to explore the central garden which is the only part of the Getty not designed by Meier.

The guide explained how the garden changes with the seasons and I can imagine it would be a very different experience at other times of the year.

Exhibition // A. Quincy Jones

I thought I wasn’t going to get to this exhibition because it is out at UCLA near Santa Monica (an hours bus ride from DTLA) but very glad I did. The exhibition was fabulous, accompanied by a great book and ten pack of post cards, which I couldn’t resist. Unfortunately no photos were allowed inside the exhibition but the photos above show the beautiful setting of UCLA’s Hammer Gallery, a square building with galleries and theatres around the edge and a beautiful courtyard in the middle. There was a delicious cafe with fresh lemonade and it was a great escape from the busy traffic outside and horrible bus ride to get there.

Below are some pictures from the exhibition catalogue. I can really see how A. Quincy Jones (and his contemporaries) around the time of the case study houses affected Queensland architecture and still do today. His office was very prolific and he was happy to focus on the middle class (which is a nice change from some of the giant ego type architects around at the time). They did more than 5000 projects and I like their drawing style.

#10 // Neutra’s VDL II House

p129 // Los Angeles // Richard Neutra & Dion Neutra // 1975

I was a little nervous setting out on a bus trek into the suburbs of Los Angeles to visit Neutra’s house but it was actually much easier then I thought. I jumped on the bus and within ten minutes was transported from big bad dirty DTLA (downtown LA) into the beautiful suburbs of Echo Park, Silverlake and Glendale, an excellent escape. You literally go under a few freeways, over the hill and around the corner and you reach suburban paradise – no wonder the post war modernist architects were so prolific in this area.

From the bus stop outside Silverlake library (where there was a cute community gardening day happening) you walk around the corner about 500m towards ‘Silver Lake’, which looks more like kawana-esque deep dam, to Neutra’s house. Apparently Neutra was originally right on the edge of the lake but now it’s been reclaimed and there is a four lane road, dog walking pens, fitness equipment, boardwalk etc.

At the house you are greeted by CalPoly architecture students who are doing an elective subject that involves restoring the house, building models of it, taking tours etc. The dean of CalPoly’s architecture school lives in the back pavilion.

The hanging blue strings in my pictures are part of an installation by a local artist that will remain installed throughout different areas of the house until mid September.

The house was where Neutra lived and was commissioned for Neutra by one of his rich clients (bizarre thinking in this day and age). Neutra’s client saw where his architect was living (a craftsman bungalow in Pasadena) and decided that was no where near good enough for such a great modernist architect so gave him the money to build a home that reflected his style and vision for his clients. This house became a great place for architects in the 60s, as Neutra and his wife held many parties over looking the lake, Neutra did his work from there, taught and gave lectures at the house and even housed a lot of his staff there. This all seems amazing as the house is so compressed and about the same size as my family home in Australia.

Originally when Neutra moved to California from Europe in the 1930s (I think), he and his wife lived with Schindler and his wife, at Schindler’s Kings Road house (see post #7 below). Schindler and Neutra worked together successfully for a number of years before they had a falling out and Neutra moved to the bungalow in Pasadena, then later to this house.

The house is called VDL II because it was an experimental house – Neutra kept adding and changing things and it partially burnt down at one point, so this is at least the second or third variation of the house on this site. Models are on display showing the different variations of the house. They also show Neutra’s architectural ideas developing from horizontal planes referencing Frank Lloyd Wright’s prairie houses to more vertical fins and a vertical rhythm throughout the house. Here Neutra was obsessive about making all lines and planes, joinery and furniture line up perfectly. The house was very ‘futuristic’ for the 60s containing and hiding all the new technology of the day including a built in electric can opener in the kitchen and elevator that I would not be able to fit in.

The house is made up of a front pavilion and back ‘barn’ pavilion, around a beautiful courtyard. The barn was home to Neutra’s children and staff. The front building is three storeys with flat roofs and reflection ponds at each level that bring reflections of the lake right into the house. Neutra uses mirrors, reflections and wide sliding windows throughout which bring the outside-in and make the house seem a lot bigger then it actually is. The top level is quite special, simply a carpeted room with a back rest rail (so you sit on the floor) with glass on all sides, a roof deck and great views.

Models of the house built by CalPoly students.

Beautiful surroundings at the edge of Silverlake.

// 253 remain // RM

Central LA // Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust

Holocaust museums aren’t really my favourite place to visit but there does always seem to be interesting architectural ideas associated with them (Berlin, Vienna, Prague, Copenhagen etc.) – they’re always such a sombre experience. I was introduced to this building at the Southern California Architecture exhibit at MOCA and saw it as a good opportunity to see some maya (like) work in real life – then when I found it was right next to the Grove (a fabulous shopping complex), I knew I had to visit.

The architectural concept of disappearing into the mound works really well as you can really see how the holocaust made people simply disappear. The exhibit inside doesn’t quite work with the interesting architecture but is very visual and small enough not to be too overwhelming. The last area outside is an enclosed courtyard with concrete tiles all over the walls with little holes dotted in them where you can poke a message. There are four million or so (can’t remember the exact number) holes at different sizes representing the different ages of all the children that died in the Holocaust… the woman in front of me was crying as she wrote a message, rolled it up and poked it into a small hole.

Exhibition // Zumthor Reconsiders LACMA

Visiting the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), next to La Brea Tar Pits, felt like walking in of a bit of a 1990s & 2000s architectural theme park on Thursday. I walked through Renzo Piano’s red columned axis and into an exhibit of Zumthor’s (previously beautiful timber box-y type architect) proposed giant black blob building for the site.

I didn’t realise until I was inside, that the exhibit was not only about Zumthor’s recent proposal (2013) but also displaying the whole history of the site from the 1890s to now, which was a lot more interesting then the giant black building proposal. Normally I’m an advocate for crazy buildings but this one really seems a bit much. I’ll probably love it and be writing about it when it’s finished!

Currently LACMA is made up of a mismatched set of nine or so buildings from the 1930s through to 2008. It was really interesting to see the recent master plans by European architects (who I’m familiar with from UQ studies) and each of their very different proposals for what would seem like a very foreign project in LA. Koolhaas (Dutch) had a go in 2001, Renzo Piano (based in London) from 2004-2010, and now Peter Zumthor (Swiss) in 2013.

The original architect and his three buildings (above).

Koolhaas’ proposal in 2001. He thought the campus really was too much of a mess, should all be knocked down and started again… Not quite in LACMA’s budget.

Renzo Piano’s master plan model (above) 2004-2010. This is my favourite scheme – it must be UQ training coming out… Piano carefully weaves a new building through the middle of the existing buildings creating a grand and unified axis without demolishing the other buildings – a very Feduchi -like adaptive re-use option.

Finally here are the photos of what is proposed to be built by Peter Zumthor. He calls it a black lily pad (Monet reference?). It just looks so massive. Half the existing buildings will be demolished and the ‘lily pad’ will extend across the existing park all the way to the tar pits so they will become part of the museum…

The biggest model I’ve ever seen!

#2 // Los Angeles City Hall // Revisited

p47 // Los Angeles // John C. Austin, John and Donald Parkinson, Albert C. Martin Sr // 1928

I made my second visit to Los Angeles City Hall, braving the high security and three vintage lifts to get up to level 27 observation deck. The deck wraps around a large triple height function hall at the pointy top of the building. It was spectacular… Free and well worth the visit!

The observation deck is at the level with the satellite dishes in the photo above.

The panorama above shows the view to the LAPD building in the center, Thom Mayne’s Caltrans building on the left and the Times building on the right… Beyond you can see the towers of the financial district.

This panorama (above) looks from the financial district (left) across the ridge of One Bunker Hill at the LA Music Center buildings and down through Grand Park (see post below).

Hollywood to the left, Pasadena to the right and Union Station (terracotta roofs and palm trees) in the foreground the right.

Above is a zoomed in view of Union Station… You can see the influence of the Spanish Mission style.

Finally, the view out to the east (above). If you can spot the large red and yellow apartment building in the center, I live in the smaller white apartment building behind it… Another block back to the right you can just see a 550m long building – SCIArc.

Downtown LA // Grand Park

This is my local park – about 15min walk. It was just finished last year and connects the LA Music Center (inc. Disney Concert Hall) and two other buildings with the Los Angeles City Hall. Although in my aerial photo from city hall it may look flat, it surely is not. It spans over four massive city blocks and each block rises 3-4 storeys.

There are big car parks and access to the metro underneath but it’s a rare haven in the dirtiness of downtown. It is flanked by a couple of court buildings. I follow @grandpark_la on Instagram and they have heaps of great events – Farmer’s Markets (looked great but empty when I was there), lunch time concerts, outdoor movies, free Bootcamp (maybe I’ll go one day!) and much more.

I love their hot pink seats, tables and selection of native plants.

Downtown LA // The Times Building

The Los Angeles Times, is a big deal here, it’s the only newspaper I’ve heard about so far and is just everywhere. They like to call themselves the west coast version of the New York Times. Recently, our food tour guide was published in the LA Times and that particular tour sold out immediately.

I noticed this old building from the street and would have called it Art Deco but my guidebook says otherwise. The style is official called ‘Monumental PWA Moderne’, which is post Art Deco. The architect was Gordon B. Kaufmann from 1931-1935. Kaufmann’s name seems to be popping up a lot – he worked on LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art) and some of the buildings in the music precinct near the Disney Concert Hall.

I only saw the extensions to the building from the observation deck at city hall – this I think makes them very successful. If you look carefully there is a glass box added on the parapet and a dark horizontal boxy building added to either side (1970s). Their integration reminded me of my vision for the Mayne Hall extension at UQ.

Downtown LA // Caltrans Building

On a short escapade out of my apartment in-between receiving furniture deliveries I visited the Caltrans building. Caltrans is short for California Transport, it’s opposite a big police building and you go there to get your license and all the parking inspectors etc. are based there. It’s about five blocks up from my building on the same street. It feels like the boundary between ‘little tokyo’ and the formal downtown or financial district.

The building was designed by Morphosis, whose founder Thom Mayne I really admire. Thom Mayne gave a lecture while I was in Sweden, which I really enjoyed, and he was one of the founders of Sci-arc and is still influential there today.

He’s known for actually getting buildings built and they always have a touch of difference or a little bit of craziness to them. Mark Trotter told me about a lecture he went to about twenty years ago where Thom Mayne spent an hour presenting an all yellow building which only spiralled and had different sized windows all over its facade – no wonder everyone thinks Californians are mad.

Caltrans presents a strong but welcoming facade. There is a public square, amphitheatre, small museum and atrium. In the atrium there are thousands of fluorescent light tubes along the shading battens that make a fabulous light feature a night – hopefully I’ll get to see that at some point. The building uses creative folding facades that hide gangways and a couple of interesting shading systems.

California Touring // Venice Beach

The only way to describe Venice beach is eclectic and crazy. We had just driven past some beautiful modern houses and around the canals of the suburb ‘Venice’ but then arrived at this beach. I felt like such a white person and very out of place… You can see everything and anything at Venice beach from a guy playing a grand piano with a cat in it, to awesome skateboarders, daytime night clubs and thousands of tourists. Madness.

California Touring // Long Beach – The Queen Mary

On Sunday morning I had the privilege of spending three hours aboard ‘The Queen Mary’ – a beautiful ship, which spent most of its time from the 1920s to 1960s sailing between London and New York. Now it is permanently moored and has been decommissioned in the harbour at Long Beach, just south of Los Angeles.

There are a number of different tours you can take around the ship, actors dressed up in costume for photographs and many shops and restaurants (even Starbucks!). It also has a museum where there was a Princess Diana exhibition, a convention center (this week it housed the Bridal Expo) and numerous function rooms. On the decks there were three different areas set up for weddings, which looked really fantastic.

My tour included time to roam around all the decks and around the ship. There were fabulous views back to Long Beach. The cylinder building in the distance that looks like an aquarium is actually their performing arts centre! I also got put on the ‘ghosts and legends tour’… Which went down into the boiler rooms and indoor swimming pools inside the ship… Not for the faint hearted or people who are claustrophobic – I thought about leaving the tour a few times when the darkness, special effects and smoke machines got a bit much – it was much nicer out on the decks.

Next to the ship is ‘The Dome’ – the world’s largest geodesic structure. It can fit a football field and a twelve storey building inside. It was built to hold a famous criminal biker millionaire’s (I don’t remember his name) Sea plane. Now it host the roller derby and is the largest sound stage in California… Apparently a lot of night time scenes for Batman were filmed there because it’s pitch black at night and lots of props can be suspended from the ceiling.

California Touring // Huntington Beach

My guide described the fog that hangs around LA every morning the ‘June Gloom’… Well June Gloom has hung around for a while this year… It seems strange going to a beach which isn’t going to be sunny until about 11am.

Our first stop on my beaches tour on Sunday was Huntington Beach. I walked the Main Street, which oozed surf shops, Billabong & Roxy everywhere. The US surfing open had been held there a few weeks ago. We went out to Ruby’s at the end of the pier for a classic American diner style breakfast of massive proportions! It was quite nice. From the diner you can see people fishing all along the pier and the morning surfers out catching waves.

This was also the first time I’ve seen oil rigs both off shore and on shore. They were pumping away.

California Touring // Griffith Observatory

I, and thousands of others, made our way up to the Griffith observatory on Saturday afternoon. Parking looked atrocious – don’t drive there! Inside was a little bit cliche museum-ish but I really enjoyed walking around the ‘parapet promenade’ and looking out to the landscape beyond even though it was a bit hazy.

California Touring // East LA Food Tour

Lisa, a Redondo beach tapas chef, and her sister Diane run a small business that offers five different food tours in Los Angeles. The East LA Latin Flavours tour runs for four hours on Saturday mornings making about ten stops with tastings at each (www.meltingpottours.com)

The tour started in Chinatown (two metro stations north from my place) at Homegirl which is a training cafe run by a pastor for people who are just out of jail or removed from gangs. At this cafe the ‘Homies’ start out the back in the urban farm, gardening, and then get brought into the cafe and trained with hospitality skills.

Next stop was two metro stations east of my apartment at a Mexican restaurant where I tried my first ‘Tamales’ they’re like a Mexican dumpling, we had BBQ pork which was steamed inside a crushed up corn pastry (sort-of-thing). We then stopped at a big indoor Mexican food market where they were selling all kinds of things I’d never seen before… Lots of bases and lards for Mexican sauces, spices, dried fruits (a little bit like the Spice Bazaar in Istanbul). We tried some great sorbets. I had to order mine in Spanish! Phew those six weeks of Spanish classes are paying off.

Next we visited the largest tortilla factory in the world… They are also proud to be the only gluten free tortilla factory using only corn products. We got to try some tortilla chips and home made salsa.

The final area of the tour was in Boyle Heights, which is just across the LA river (concrete canal) from Sci-arc… We went to a number of restaurants trying El Salvadorian Papusas and one place that only serves Goat stew! It was surprisingly nice wrapped up in fresh warm tortillas. The restaurant owner said they use 150 Australian goats per week (eeek!).

An added bonus was seeing the famous street artist ‘JR’ in action… Hayley has had me following him on Instagram all year… Very cool – people were lining up to get their photos taken in his van then sticking them down in the square with corn syrup!