Posts tagged moby

mobylosangelesarchitecture | 

just got back from coachella (which, i feel the need to state the obvious, was amazing: the weather, the line-up, the audience, the location, etc, etc).

and i posit that these are architectural photos… (or, rather, photos of architecture). in that: they’re photos of a space expressly designed and constructed for a specific purpose. it’s temporary architecture (well, from a broader perspective of impermanence i guess all architecture is temporary), in that it’s erected, filled with technology and people, and then disassembled.

it’s also quite unique, as far as the history of structures is concerned, in that there aren’t too many open-air but enclosed structures designed to hold 25,000 people (the whole festival is around 100,000 people each day, i believe. this is the sahara dance tent, designed to hold around 25% of the festival attendees). it’s also a fascinating structure in that it’s aesthetics are utilitarian but powerful and impactful.

oh, and i just realized that i failed to take a picture of the outside of this gigantic people-hangar… hm. oops.

maybe i’ll try to do that next weekend.

in the meantime: the inside of the sahara tent at coachella.

thanks,

moby

mobylosangelesarchitecture |

i want to at least try to sound smart in describing the burbank city hall.
but i’m not feeling so smart today, so i’ll err on the side of simple.

  1. it’s pretty
  2. it’s tall
  3. it has an impressive eagle at the top
  4. it has some fish around the fountain
  5. it looks like the league of justice
  6. well, it sort of looks like the league of justice
  7. it looks like league of burbank justice
  8. it makes me wonder why very few people erect impressive buildings like this anymore
  9. it’s not beige
  10. if albert speer hadn’t signed up with the third reich and instead had moved to burbank after stopping off in miami he might’ve designed something like this in between tennis games.
  11. it’s photogenic.

ok, i think that’s all i have.

the burbank league of justice.
with cartoony ceramic fish.

moby

mobylosangelesarchitecture | ORANGE. not beige |

ok, what do i know about these 2 houses. very little. to wit: 1. they’re orange. 2. see ‘1’. i’m including them here because i’m impressed that someone would fully commit to not having a beige house.

mobylosangelesarchitecture | 

ok, truth be told i’m a little embarrassed by today’s architectural blog entry.
why?
well, i’m ok writing about/talking about buildings that are decrepit or odd or relevant or historic or ironic or iconic or baffling.
but todays house/building is just, simply, really nice.
pretty, even.
and when do you ever hear anyone use ‘pretty’ as valid, serious, aesthetic criterion for judging a house?
answer: never.
but, well, this is a pretty house.
i mean, it’s incongruous, as it’s a beautiful pallazzo in the middle of the southern californian desert.
but i can’t even try to shoe-horn this house in using other criteria other than, simply: it’s pretty.
and it looks like a nice place to live.
and the grass is green.
maybe i’m a simpleton, but every now and then i think it’s ok to simply stand back in appreciation of something and say, ‘huh, that’s nice.’
so, thanks for indulging my simple-ness.
moby

p.s-also, i’ll be honest, the house was way prettier in person than it is in the photos. mea culpa.

mobylosangelesarchitecture |

so, i recently got to visit a friend of mine in his new (to him) neutra house.
the sten-frenke house. 

in santa monica.

and, to be honest, as a provincial east-sider i don’t make my way to santa-monica very often.

nothing against the west side, but it’s very far away (in my mind it’s kind of like driving to philadelphia from new york, but i’m also prone to hyperbole and exaggeration, so it’s quite possibly a lot closer).

in any case, a friend of mine bought the sten-frenke house and has done a whole bunch of remarkable/beautiful period sensitive renovations to it (currently under construction: the pool house. thus: no pictures of the pool house, as it’s a construction site).

oh, a potentially rhetorical question: who are the neutra’s and schindler’s and lautner’s and koenig’s and eames’ of l.a’s 21st century?

l.a is still a relatively cheap and easy place in which to build a house(compared to, say, any other big city in the western world. i mean, when was the last time someone bought cheap land and built a modest modern house in manhattan?).
so, who are the l.a architects building the neutra and eames houses of the 21st century?

i know they’re there, as l.a is filled with amazing architects.
maybe it’s time to break out the bulldozers and tear down some beige crap 80’s monstrosity houses and let l.a architects build a whole bunch of new, amazing houses.

just a thought.

moby

mobylosangelesarchitecture |

hi, and sorry for not having more oddball architecture posts this week.
meaning: this last week. i’m in chicago now, headed to nyc tomorrow, then aspen in about 10 days, then back to gigantic dysfunctional byzantine l.a.

right before i left l.a i went to santa monica where a friend of mine showed me this amazing suburban case-study (i think) futuristic mid-century house.
i’m trying to find out more about it.
let’s see.
it’s…
the john entenza house!
i feel so satisfied when i can actually find out something about one of the houses or buildings i include here.
so yes, it’s the john entenza case study house.
and here’s a link.
and, according to my thorough research (i looked at 2 websites) it’s the house where the whole case study program/idea was launched/started/conceived of.

so it’s historical architecture where historical architecture was conceived. of.

i’m also including a picture of the pacific ocean inspired by sugimoto but not nearly as good. or as big.

ok, hi from chicago.

moby

MOBY | Los Angeles architecture

MOBY | Los Angeles architecture

mobylosangelesarchitecture |

ok, i might overuse the word ‘favorite’.
but i have a lot of favorites.
like, for example, this house/building/structure.
it’s, all things considered, my favorite place in l.a.
architecturally it’s pretty simple, like a humble little mission chapel.
but it’s history (and current use) is/are pretty amazing.
to wit:
it’s currently an l.a outpost of the international theosophical society:
http://www.theosophical.org/about-us

and in it’s past it was a silent film theater, a directors club where orson welles staged plays, a little lecture hall where carl jung and aldous huxley spoke, and a meeting place for the krotona society:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krotona

now, as a theosophist building, it’s used for yoga and 12 step meetings and spiritual meetings and solstice events and neighborhood concerts etc etc.
it’s a humble little building and even though it’s architecturally very simple and basic it’s my favorite building in l.a.
last december 21st we were gathered in this little building for a solstice concert and it felt as if we were a million miles away from anything even tangentially urban.
but, of course, grimy hollywood is a 10 minute walk away.
so, from my perspective, this little building represents much of what makes l.a a really remarkable, special, hidden place.
and even though it won’t appear in any books on ‘great buildings of l.a’ it is, in my humble opinion, the greatest building in l.a.
thanks
moby

p.s-oh, i’m also including a couple of pictures of lizards because they’re everywhere and i love them.

mobylosangelesarchitecture:

in the sort of almost middle of hollywood is the magic castle.
it is, as the name sort of suggests, a little castle.  where they perform magic.
‘they’ being, in this case, magicians.
i, in this case, am good at stating the obvious.
not to schill for the magic castle, but it’s great.
and aesthetically?
architecturally?
it looks like a magic castle.
which sort of makes sense, as it’s a magic castle.
it makes less sense as it’s baking in the sun beneath the blue sky and palm trees across
the street from a park where spiderman smokes crack and in the shadow of what is, i believe, the worlds
largest japanese restaurant.
a scary ominous victorian sort of castle sucking up light and radiating darkness in the middle of the afternoon
on a cloudless day.
which, fantastically, makes no sense at all.
i like buildings that don’t make a lot of sense.
or that purport to make sense but then end up being absurd when you look a little closer.
like a fantastic spooky magic castle in the shadow of palm trees.

-moby

mobylosangelesarchitecture | 

spread throughout l.a are countless little craftsmen (or arts & crafts) houses.
the operative word being: little.


most of the craftsmen houses i’ve seen are cute little 2 bedroom houses, sort of like adorable little hybrids between houses and bungalows.

and then there’s the granddaddy (or grandmommy) of the craftsmen houses in l.a, the gamble house.

it’s so renowned it even has it’s own website.

here: http://www.gamblehouse.org

i discovered the gamble house due to it’s being right next to (and/or a part of) a unitarian church in pasadena. i was at the unitarian church to see a screening of miss representation but i arrived early and wandered aimlessly for 15 minutes.
and in those 15 minutes i stumbled upon:

  • a zen meditation group
  • a tibetan buddhist meditation group
  • a choir singing plainsong
  • this gigantic craftsmen house
  • pine trees

it was this remarkably and perfectly idyllic evening, the sun setting behind the pine trees while well intentioned meditators did their well intended meditating
and the choir singing plainsong (which sounds really nice in the pine trees) and this house sat there like a gigantic wooden arts & crafts spaceship.

it’s a REALLY big house, by the way. and it sits kind of majestically and imposingly on a big green lawn, like a gigantic wooden arts & crafts spaceship(i’m plagiarizing myself cos it’s late).

oh, and miss representation is a very important movie, too, and i highly urge you to see it.

and pasadena is really nice and it stoked fantasies i’ve had of becoming an academic and having friends who work at the jet propulsion laboratory.
or, as my imaginary friends who work there call it, ‘the jpl’.

‘what did you do today?’

‘oh, not much, just figured out how to send humans to mars.’

‘oh, nice. would you like a brownie?’

that’s how the conversations go in pasadena, i’m guessing.

i’m rambling, too.

so, goodnight.

-moby

mobylosangelesarchitecture

mobylosangelesarchitecture |

The other day i was driving on a side street in hollywood and i found my new favorite building in l.a. i mean, i’m sure tomorrow i’ll find another new favorite building, but for today this is my new favorite building. it’s an apartment building (with vacancies, at least according to the sign), and intentionally or unintentionally it’s been almost completely subsumed into/by the surrounding trees and vines and plants. i know that some smart, fancy, modern architects talk about livingbreathing buildings, and people are designing buildings that incorporate plant life into the fabric of the building. and all that is great. but i can’t help but guess that this (or angkor wat) was the prototype for the living breathing building trend —moby

mobylosangelesarchitecture |  ok, here’s a random one, architecturally speaking. a bungalow in silverlake. and why, you might ask, include a slightly run-down bungalow in silverlake in a weird blog about los angeles architecture? because of urban brain drain. los angeles is still, for the most part, a pretty cheap place to live. a friend of mine just bought a small 2 bedroom condo for $250,000 in a pretty nice part of l.a. in new york a 2 bedroom condo would cost, at least, $1,000,000. in london a 2 bedroom condo would cost, at least, $2,000,000. in san francisco a 2 bedroom condo would cost, at least $750,000. so, as new york and london and san francisco and other cities become prohibitively expensive lots and lots of artists just move to l.a. see, i know nothing about the house in this picture except that: a-it’s kind of beat up. b-it has spectacular views of griffith park and huge swathes of l.a. c-it probably costs 1/10th as much as it would cost in any other big, western city. new york and london and san francisco used to be run down cities where artists and musicians and writers could go for cheap rent and amazing creative communities. now new york and london and san francisco are losing artists and musicians and writers (thus: brain drain) because the artists, writers, musicians, architects, gallerists, publishers, designers, etc can’t afford the rent. and, lucky for l.a, lots of the artists and writers and musicians and designers and architects who’ve been priced out of other cities come to los angeles because it’s cheap, it’s weird, there are tons of other artists here, and it’s 75 degrees in february. that’s why i’m including this house in my weird architectural blog. because it represents one of the things that makes l.a amazing in 2012: odd residential architecture that pretty much any working artist or writer or musician can afford. new york, london, san francisco, and lots of other cities still have amazing creative communities and are still wonderful, dynamic places. but they’re also incredibly expensive places to try and live. and most of the artists in other cities are, simply, being priced out. and lots of them are coming to l.a. which is great. plus we have a ton of coyotes who sound like lunatic banshees at 3 a.m when they start howling at each other. -moby

mobylosangelesarchitecture | 

ok, here’s a random one, architecturally speaking. a bungalow in silverlake. and why, you might ask, include a slightly run-down bungalow in silverlake in a weird blog about los angeles architecture? because of urban brain drain.

los angeles is still, for the most part, a pretty cheap place to live.

a friend of mine just bought a small 2 bedroom condo for $250,000 in a pretty nice part of l.a.
in new york a 2 bedroom condo would cost, at least, $1,000,000.
in london a 2 bedroom condo would cost, at least, $2,000,000.
in san francisco a 2 bedroom condo would cost, at least $750,000.

so, as new york and london and san francisco and other cities become prohibitively expensive lots and lots of artists just move to l.a. see, i know nothing about the house in this picture except that:

a-it’s kind of beat up.
b-it has spectacular views of griffith park and huge swathes of l.a.
c-it probably costs 1/10th as much as it would cost in any other big, western city.

new york and london and san francisco used to be run down cities where artists and musicians and writers could go for cheap rent and amazing creative communities. now new york and london and san francisco are losing artists and musicians and writers (thus: brain drain) because the artists, writers, musicians, architects, gallerists, publishers, designers, etc can’t afford the rent. and, lucky for l.a, lots of the artists and writers and musicians and designers and architects who’ve been priced out of other cities come to los angeles because it’s cheap, it’s weird, there are tons of other artists here, and it’s 75 degrees in february.

that’s why i’m including this house in my weird architectural blog. because it represents one of the things that makes l.a amazing in 2012: odd residential architecture that pretty much any working artist or writer or musician can afford.

new york, london, san francisco, and lots of other cities still have amazing creative communities and are still wonderful, dynamic places. but they’re also incredibly expensive places to try and live. and most of the artists in other cities are, simply, being priced out. and lots of them are coming to l.a. which is great.

plus we have a ton of coyotes who sound like lunatic banshees at 3 a.m when they start howling at each other.

-moby

unhappyhipsters: “He was his generation’s most accomplished techno instrumentalist. The Times was profiling his new Hollywood Hills estate. Still he knew, without a full head of hair, she would never really love him.” (Photo: Trevor Tondro for The New York Times) Submitted by Patrick Tucker

unhappyhipsters:

“He was his generation’s most accomplished techno instrumentalist. The Times was profiling his new Hollywood Hills estate. Still he knew, without a full head of hair, she would never really love him.”

(Photo: Trevor Tondro for The New York Times)

Submitted by Patrick Tucker

Noted elsewhere

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