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Friday May 11, 2012 While on a trek around the County to find Russell Forester's larger-scale works, the staff at La Jolla Country Day School were delightfully proud of their Russel Forester inventory. While Forester's fountain has been disassembled (and awaiting reconfiguration on the grounds), 'Unfinished Man' has been simply relocated and attractively lit in the evening. Dave Hampton's Contemporary Art Wins a Beachead is still on view at the Oceanside Museum of Art (through July 8). Please check it out. Read more HERE. John Baldessari: A Print Retrospective comes down this Sunday. Check it out this weekend! Read more HERE. The Los Angeles Modern Auctions' 'Modern Art & Design Auction' results from Sunday (and remaining unsold items) are posted HERE. At the request of CityBeat editors, I penned a quick 'n' dirty self-guided tour of the area's mid-century curiosities. Check it out HERE.
Wednesday May 2, 2012 Vanity Fair writer Paul Goldberger has stated something about modernist architecture that should turn a few (political) heads. Not only does he hope that better heads prevail in the debate over Paul Rudolph’s Orange County Government Center, he rationalizes that destroying a modernist structure reflects on the sad state of contemporary politics! Here’s a taste: …If Orange County destroys an important building of the late 20th century to build that, it won’t just be demolishing a major work of Paul Rudolph’s. It will be rejecting the high ambitions and noble intentions Rudolph wanted his building to symbolize. But maybe that’s just the point. In the age of the Tea Party, who wants a government building that was designed to suggest dignity, creativity, innovation, and belief in the new? Government is supposed to be curtailing its ambitions, and doing as much as it can to disappear. This is not architecture for an invisible government. It’s a building that flaunts its idealism. And it demands a lot from you. If the Orange County Government Center is demolished, Orange County will have figured out a whole new way to carry out the agenda of the anti-government era: by not just getting rid of government programs, but getting rid of a work of architecture whose very essence symbolizes a time when government sought to be a creative force. Read the full article HERE.3 Lloyd Wright's Moore Residence in Palos Verdes Estates is no more. Following a 3-year study, and little support from the neighbors that seem to revel in their empty spanish, colonial, and italian facades and granite countertops, the owner who, seemed to dislike his own house which he refers to as 'art', bulldozed it. Enjoy the stomachache that THIS ARTICLE offers.
High in the La Jolla hills be prepared to be transported back to the era of mid-century elegance as you enter the John F. O’Laughlin Residence, designed by architect Loch Crane in 1962. Through the careful use of indoor-outdoor spaces, Loch Crane, a student of Frank LLoyd Wright, designed this unique home for a client seeking privacy and serenity while at the same time enveloping the home and garden with a panoramic 180 degree ocean view. Blue water views beckon from each room including the master bedroom. The house features large picture windows, and high, light wooden ceillings throughout, and a magnificent floor plan. This unique example of Crane’s work is in pristine condition and has not been structurally modified. Fixture and appliance upgrades harmonize with the home's mid-century design. The home’s second, and last, owner lovingly cared for it since 1968. Available for sale (for $1,800,000) or lease ($3,950/month). Come visit our next open house on Wednesday, May 2 between 9:30 a.m. - 12 p.m. at 5972 Avenida Chamnez 92037 Friday April 27, 2012 What are the odds that Baghdad Gymnasium designed by Le Corbusier in 1957 would survive decades of war? Grad student Caecilia Pieri discovered the forgotten structure in 2005 while working on her thesis on modern architecture in Baghdad. Reporting her findings to the authorities, the building is now engaging a wider public worldwide. Read more HERE. Sam Lubell, author of Julius Shulman Los Angeles, posted a nice self-guided tour of key Los Angeles landmarks made famous through the deceased architectural photographers’ lens. Follow his path HERE.
Tuesday April 10, 2012 The Mingei blog hit it out of the park this week as Martha E. stepped back from exhibitions to consider a myriad of connections one doesn't grasp on first view. Walk through LACMA's and Mingei's Pacific Standard Time contributions HERE. We hope you had a chance to view 'Mid-Century Modern in San Diego' on KPBS. If you missed the debut screening, repeats are scheduled on April 12 at 11:30pm, the 15th at 3:00am and 12:00pm, as well as April 29th at 11:30 pm (all on KPBS-TV). Set the DVR or you can view it online HERE.
Saturday April 7, 2012 SET THE DVR: KPBS-TV series San Diego's Historic Places’ next episode is titled ‘Mid-Century Modern In San Diego’. Featuring a look at a few homes by Sim Bruce Richards, John Mock and Craig Ellwood, the survey of our little niche debuts on Monday, April 9 at 9pm. With Paul Rudolph's Orange County Government Center in Goshen, N.Y. in peril, The Times took the opportunity to outline why modernist structures are not long for this world HERE. I posted draft pages on Dean Vickery's work HERE and Eugene Ray's HERE. If you know more about their projects, let me know HERE. Rago is holding its next Discovery auction on Friday, April 20. Check out the catalog HERE. Wright is hosting their Living Contemporary auction on April 26. Check out the catalog HERE. Save the Date(s) - Sotheby's Important 20th Century Design auction will be on June 13 and LA Modern Auctions' online catalog goes live on April 20 HERE.
Wednesday April 4, 2012 “Contemporary Art Wins a Beachhead: The La Jolla School of Arts 1960-64,” now on view at Oceanside Museum of Art, is a tribute to the Art Center’s school, which only lasted four years, but paved the way for what is now MCASD-LJ. Curated by Dave Hampton, an expert in mid-20th-century California art and design, this is the kind of show you might have seen at the Art Center 50 years ago. Read more HERE. Thanks to Curbed LA and Paradise Leased, I learned of the Joseph C. Schumacher Residence (ca. 1956) by architect Philmer J. Ellerbroek. Not only is the house interesting, but how often is it that you learn of yet another architect you never heard of… Check out the Curbed article HERE and the Paradise Leased piece HERE.
Friday March 30, 2012 Close out San Diego’s Craft Revolution with an insider’s look at how it all came together on April 5. By focusing on members of the Allied Craftsman group, the Mingei International Museum exhibition explores San Diego craft from 1940s modernism to the funk and post-modernism of the 1970s. Learn how curator Dave Hampton’s ten years of research informed this show, and how it has created new interest in this often overlooked period of San Diego’s art history. RSVP HERE. Some argue that modernist Paul Rudolph's work has been particularly hard by ignorant developers, real estate agents and home owners alike. Read a great article on the hows and whys of destroying his legacy HERE. Hire Modern San Diego Real Estate to Buy or Sell a home HERE.
Friday March 23, 2012 An update on the March 24 'modern home tour' can be found HERE. On Sunday, March 25, Pasadena Heritage is offering "American Modern: USC Style and Beyond," a tour highlighting the work of graduates and teachers of USC's School of Architecture. Stops include the post-and-beam Thomson House by Buff, Straub & Hensman; the DeSteiguer House, designed by Harwell Hamilton Harris in 1936 and moved to its current location by Leland Evison in 1951; and a Park Planned home designed by Gregory Ain in 1947-48 in neighboring Altadena. Learn more HERE. The Society of Architectural Historians' Southern California Chapter is hosting a tour featuring the residential work of Ray Kappe between 1956-66. On May 26, the SAH-SCC will showcase the Phineas Kappe Residence (1956), the Dr. and Mrs. Robert Hayes Residence (1959), the Barsha Residence (1961), Handman Residence (1963) and Butnik Residence (1966). The price of entry includes an 8-page tour brochure. Learn more HERE. Currently under revision, Modernist Architecture in San Diego will soon be available for purchase. For information about sponsoring its publication, or to receive a .pdf version of the guide, please contact info@sdarcihtecture.org. Learn more HERE. The Getty is launching a new international program, the Conserving Modern Architecture Initiative, in hopes of giving preservation architects new and more sophisticated strategies to shore up 20th century buildings. Learn more about the Getty Conservation Institute HERE. Dwell has joined forces with Pacific Standard Time to challenge consumers to construct a model of an original home inspired by iconic California mid-century modern architecture. Your building material? LEGO bricks. Looking for inspiration – check out Stacy Sterling’s LEGO skills HERE. You have until March 29th to submit. Read more HERE. Edward Cella Art+Architecture is launching a new show, PLANEfurniture, the gallery’s first exhibition of contemporary furniture and the debut of designer and collector, Michael Boyd. The exhibition opens on Saturday, April 28 and extends through June 16, 2012. A conversation will take place with Michael Boyd and design critic Michael Webb on Saturday, May 12, 2012 at 4pm. Learn more HERE. The Palm Springs Art Museum plans to create an architecture and design exhibition and study space by restoring E. Stewart Williams’s 1960 Santa Fe Federal Savings and Loan. The renamed Palm Springs Art Museum’s Edwards Harris Center for Architecture and Design will open in fall 2013. Read more HERE. Arguably I am still upset about the callous demolition of Poway’s Christian Science church by its owners – who oddly favor a larger, more pedestrian complex of banal, and therefore not uplifting, rooms and parking lots. With Edward Durrell Stone’s new biography, penned by his son architect Hicks Stone, being recently released, it is tempting to mail an anonymous copy to the church leaders in hopes they would seek penance for their sins. Learn more about the new book HERE and the 2006 demolition of one of the single most important 20th structures in the entire County HERE. Imagine a house constructed in less than forty-eight hours, without using lumber or nails, that is more resistant to fire, earthquakes, and hurricanes than any traditionally built structure. This may sound like the latest development in prefab housing or green architecture, but the design dates back to 1941 when architect Wallace Neff (1895–1982) developed Airform construction as a solution to the global housing crisis. Best known for his elegant Spanish Colonial–revival estates in Southern California, Neff had a private passion for his dome-shaped "bubble houses" made of reinforced concrete cast in position over an inflatable balloon. No Nails, No Lumber shows the beauty and versatility of Neff's design in new and vintage photography, previously unpublished illustrations, and archival material and ephemera. Read more HERE and purchase the book HERE.
Saturday March 17, 2012 During Friday’s lecture ‘Spirit as an Expression of New Architecture’, Norm Applebaum outlined his influences as Frank Lloyd Wright, Bernard Maybeck, Harwell Hamilton Harris, RM Schindler, John Lautner, Cal Straub and Cliff May. Applebaum brought May, who’s Carefree California exhibit is on view through June 17, to San Diego to see some of his homes towards the end of his life. Read more about Norm HERE and May’s exhibit HERE. A. Quincy Jones’ Sunnylands Estate may be free and open to the public but you still need to buy a ticket in advance. Tickets for the month of March sold out quickly. Tickets just went on sale for tour dates between April 2-15 so grab ‘em HERE. East of Borneo Books just released Piecing Together Los Angeles: An Esther McCoy Reader. Edited by Susan Morgan, the anthology is the first collection of writings by Esther McCoy (1904-89), the groundbreaking architectural historian who articulated the concepts and vibrant character of West Coast modernism as it was being created. This essential volume includes out-of-print essays, articles, and short stories, as well as hitherto unpublished lectures, correspondence, and memoirs that together illuminate the breadth and complexity of McCoy’s groundbreaking work. The book coincides with recent exhibition (co-curated by Morgan) at the MAK Center for Art and Architecture. After completing a wartime stint as an engineering draftsman at Douglas Aircraft, McCoy went to work as an architectural draftsman for R. M. Schindler and, by 1945, her attentive writing had turned significantly to architecture and design. Throughout Arts & Architecture’s legendary Case Study House program, she chronicled midcentury modernism. Her essays also appeared regularly in the Los Angeles Times, Zodiac, Progressive Architecture, and Architectural Forum. Rejected by the Guggenheim Foundation when she sought research support for Five California Architects in 1953, McCoy finally published it in 1960 - her groundbreaking book that remains a seminal volume on California architecture. Over the next 50 years, McCoy worked variously as an author, editorial scout, lecturer, and exhibition curator. Her final essay, commissioned for the exhibition Blueprints for Modern Living: History and Legacy of the Case Study Houses (MOCA, Los Angeles), was published one month before her death in 1989. More on the book can be found HERE.
Tuesday March 13, 2012 The Les & Lilli Hill Residence by Henry Hester (and Fred Livingstone) is a 2-bed, 2-bath 2,300 sq ft home on .4 acres. Abutting a huge City-owned canyon, the home’s backyard feels like it is on a 4-acre lot! Inside the home are original images (ca. 1970) by Julius Shulman as well as the original renderings (ca. 1969). Published (ca. 1975) in Los Angeles Times’ Home Magazine, the home features much of the original art (by Lilli Hill and other San Diegans) and furniture.Check out Modern San Diego Real Estate for updates on this very special property HERE. The Summit, designed by architect Tibor Fecskes (and completed in 1965) was briefly the tallest building in San Francisco. Joseph Eichler, best known for his development of midcentury homes, is rarely associated with high-end high-rises. The Summit attests to Eichler’s contribution to San Francisco’s skyline. Read more HERE. If you’re planning on visiting Charlotte any time soon, check out the Bechtler Museum of Modern Art’s new show "Mid-Century Modernism: 1957 and the Bechtler Collection". The exhibition is comprised of 41 works by 28 artists (including Max Ernst, Alfred Manessier, Barbara Hepworth, Robert Muller, Alberto Giacometti and Hans Hartung), acquired primarily in 1957, from the museum's permanent collection. Read more HERE. Frank Lloyd Wright indulged a young Jim Berger’s request for a dog house in 1956 and sent him designs for the structure. The structure, located in the backyard of the Berger Residence (ca. 1950) in San Anselmo for many years, until it was thrown out (by the then-dogless elder owner) has made the news. Read more HERE. Jack Rutberg Fine Arts is currently hosting “Claire Falkenstein: An Expansive Universe”, an exhibition to celebrate the first major publication on her work - Claire Falkenstein. The book includes essays by art historians Susan M. Anderson and Maren Henderson, art writer and curator Michael Duncan, and an introduction by Philip Linhares, President of the Falkenstein Foundation and former Chief Curator of Art at the Oakland Museum of California. Beyond the gallery’s business hours, on March 24 at 6:30 pm they will host a conversation and book signing with the authors. Read more HERE. The Oakland Museum of California is currently offering a retrospective on the work of pioneer jeweler Margaret De Patta. A seminal figure in the American Modernist Jewelry movement, De Patta ia distinguished as one of the few American jewelers whose work and ideas were allied to the evolving ideas presented in the modern art movement, De Patta’s work was heavily influenced by the Constructivists and features architectural forms with simple lines, structure, and often movable parts. Space-Light-Structure: The Jewelry of Margaret De Patta features more than 60 jewelry pieces as well as ceramics, flatware, photographs, pictograms, and newly released archival material. Learn more HERE.
Saturday March 10, 2012 Distinguished architect Norm Applebaum will survey his 40 year catalog of residential designs in Spirit as an Expression of New Architecture. Join Norm in the San Diego Museum of Art's Copley Auditorium on March 16 @ 10 a.m. for this exciting event. Read more HERE. Wright has posted their March 29th Modern Design auction catalog HERE. Check out Modern San Diego Real Estate (!) HERE. The 2012 San Diego Modern Home Tour, set for March 24, is posted HERE.
Saturday March 3, 2012 The La Jolla School of Arts played a significant role in the acceptance of new modes of painting and sculpture in San Diego, winning a beachhead for contemporary art in the 1960s amongst a largely conservative community. As part of the Art Center in La Jolla, now known as the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, the school brought together a highly regarded group of artist-instructors during a pivotal time in the Art Center's development. A new Oceanside Museum of Art exhibition, Contemporary Art Wins a Beachhead, The La Jolla School of Arts 1960-1964, focuses on the work of six key members of the School’s faculty, with paintings by Don Dudley, Fred Holle, Sheldon Kirby and Guy Williams, ceramics by Rhoda Lopez, and ceramics and paintings by Malcolm McClain. The show, which is guest curated by Dave Hampton, runs through July 8. Read more HERE. Following World War II, western New York became a bit of a hub for innovative craft that inspired artists elsewhere. Now their creations have returned home for a new exhibit “Crafting Modernism: Midcentury American Art and Design” at the Memorial Art Gallery. Several of the featured artists studied at Rochester Institute of Technology’s School for American Crafts, the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University or Syracuse University. Some belonged to Shop One (1953-1977), a pioneering Rochester gallery where craftspeople could sell their work directly to customers. Read more HERE. According to Alexandra Lange's new book Writing About Architecture we need more architecture critics! Read more HERE. Next time you have some free time, check out the Getty's online collection of Julius Shulman photos HERE. MidCenturyHome just posted a nice piece on the Eames-Saarinen designed Case Study House 9 HERE.
Tuesday February 28, 2012 The now-famous lecture by the enfant terrible of modern architecture, Raphael Soriano, at the Fine Arts Gallery, was heard in late November by an audience which is still trying to recover from the shock. Advertised by the gallery as a talk on modern architecture, furniture and art, the speech broke like a storm over every phase of contemporary American life. People who had neglected to put firm foundations under their art opinions found them collapsed or blown away. Read more HERE. Ilse Hamann Ruocco was born in Spandau, Germany, but spent the majority of her life in San Diego. She studied art at UCLA and Columbia University, and joined the San Diego State faculty in 1934, teaching painting, ceramic arts, and industrial arts. Ruocco was considered an expert in interior design and textile design, and taught at SDSU for a total of 33 years, becoming a Professor Emeritus of Art. She was also the wife of Lloyd Ruocco, the celebrated architect known for designing buildings such as the Design Center on 5th Street, the Geophysics Building at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and the San Diego Civic Theatre. Ilse Ruocco died in 1982. Hear her interviewed HERE. Meyer Fine Art in Little Italy secured many works and archival material from Clay Walker’s widow following the artist’s death in 2008. Meyer says he's found documentation that Walker once showed alongside artists like Pablo Picasso and Andy Warhol in venues like the Museum of Modern Art and the Toledo Museum of Art. Read more about West Coast Walker: Catalyst to Modernism HERE. Eugene “Gene” Weston III was the prototypical modernist, an architect’s architect who cut his teeth in Los Angeles before bringing post ’n’ beam construction to San Diego. Wide expanses of wood and glass allowed for real indoor-outdoor living and open floor plans—both things absent from most homes and commercial buildings just prior to World War II. Read more HERE.
Sunday February 26, 2012 Last week we met with a couple of owners of Henry Hester's American Housing Guild homes north of Mesa College in Linda Vista. With the original owner recently moving out, we will be listing one of these fantastic flat-roof models (pictured above) for sale this week. Please make sure you sign up for our newsletter HERE as open house information will be mailed out this week. Ceramic artist Kenneth Price died on Friday. See more HERE. Following our visit, on Friday, to homes by Arthur Decker (in Mt Helix) and Robert Fowble (in Lemon Grove), I realized I had to post more information on both of these architects. I updated Decker's page HERE and launched the first draft of Fowble's bio HERE.
Tuesday February 21, 2012 Las Vegas’ Mid-Century Modern Alliance is hosting a ‘Mid-Century Modern Event’ covering topics such as ‘Preserve Nevada’, ‘The Neon Boneyard’ as well as designer Eva Zeisel on Sunday, February 26th, 2012. Organizer Joyce Corbett has extended an invited to Modern San Diego visitors to join them for this free event (if you’re in Vegas) at the Palace Station Hotel, 2411 West Sahara Ave. Drop Joyce a line HERE.
Saturday February 18, 2012 LUXE Magazine regularly offers insights into local ‘hip and happening’ places, people and things. Just recently, Brett Miller, owner of Tower23, waxed poetic about Homer Delawie’s work and modernsandiego.com. Thanks Brett! Can you imagine John Baldessari saying,"You can take the boy out of National City, but you can’t take National City out of the boy?" Certainly you can ponder the merits of our local boy having left for Los Angeles to change the world of art while seeing the new MCASD show focused on him. Read more HERE. Recently retiring at age 92, Paolo Soleri has handed over the reins of Arcosanti to Jeff Stein a former dean of the Boston Architectural College. So what’s next - a retirement home; a canopy for the outdoor amphitheater; a renovated commercial bakery; a storage unit for Mr. Soleri’s collection of fantastical architectural models and/or a half-dozen new apartments? Your guess is as good as mine but read more HERE. On March 7th, Sotheby’s 20th Century Design auction in New York will host some of the most iconic forms of organic stoneware designed by the Danish ceramicist Axel Salto, to extremely rare assemblage of vessels thrown by Lea Halpern. The furniture, porion of the auction will include works by George Nakashima, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Charlotte Perriand. More HERE.
Thursday February 16, 2012 El Cajon architect Arthur D. Decker (1917-2012) has died. In his memory I just launched a brief outline of his work HERE. Pacific View Elementary in Encinitas is being repurposed. Anyone know who the architect was? Read more HERE. Modern Home Tours LLC, is producing a tour of San Diego contemporary and mid-century homes on March 24. Learn more HERE.
Sunday February 12, 2012 Modernist architect Eugene Weston III was in his early 30s when he declared that "the house is the last of the handcrafted objects" in an industrial age. The year was 1956, and he argued in the LA Times that even a modest house could be "more beautiful and meaningful" if it was built with post-and-beam construction that opens up interiors and invites the outdoors in through walls of glass. A third-generation Los Angeles architect, Weston built a string of midcentury homes here before spending three decades with a San Diego firm known for such large-scale commissions as the Old Globe Theatre, San Diego Wild Animal Park and several major buildings at UC San Diego. Weston died on January 31st in Santa Barbara. He was 87. Read the LA Times obituary HERE. Architect William G. Moises passed away on February 8th. Born in Oklahoma City on October 21, 1928, to Gust and Pearl Moises, William moved to San Diego in 1958. Following service in the US Army in Korea, Moises worked with Frank Hope and Associates, and later partnered with Ron Davis (ca. 1960-65) and Tom Eads. As he neared retirement Moises ran his own firm in La Jolla.
Saturday February 11, 2012 The Society of Architectural Historians' Southern California Chapter has announced Carefree California a 'Cliff May Exhibit and Home Tour' on March 10. Following a special behind-the-scenes tour of the exhibit, "Carefree Living: Cliff May and the Romance of the Ranch" at the UC Santa Barbara Art Museum, the group will visit the May architectural archive. Leaving campus, the group will then visit the Cliff May designed Power Residence (1964) in Camarillo. More information is HERE. Final accounting is in - Modern San Diego's Eames: The Architect and The Painter event back in December resulted in $1,500 donated to both Mingei International Museum and the Museum of Photographic Arts. Thank you all for being part of it - not only memorable but it helped two great institutions! Rago is hosting their early 20th Century and 20th Century Pottery auctions on February 25. See more HERE. Wright's calendar of upcoming auctions is posted HERE. LA Modern Auctions' next event will be on May 6. Check out more HERE. Modernica's blog is always a fun read. Check it out HERE. John Lautner's Elrod House (1968) and Hotel Lautner (1947) will be open for Palm Springs Modernism Week. Read more HERE. During the recent Stockholm Furniture Fair, Danish brand Gubi showcased its reissuing of Greta Grossman designs. In addition to their recent Grasshopper floor- and Cobra (floor and table) lamps, they have started manufacturing both a dresser and a desk by Grossman as part of the 62-Collection. Read more HERE.
Sunday Feburary 5, 2012 After meeting the owner of Henry Hester's Edwards Residence in Southwest Escondido, we would like to promote the use of this fine modernist mansion as a venue for your next wedding, party, or business retreat.Please drop us a line to learn more about the (above pictured) house HERE. With the recent discovery of a Harry Lawrence Eggers designed home in Chula Vista, I have started a profile of him HERE. Frank Lloyd Wright’s Millard House (ca. 1923) in Pasadena is up for sale for $4,995,000. Learn more HERE Case Study House architect Rodney Walker's own residence (ca. 1959) in Ojai is up for sale for $3,995,000. Learn more HERE. Philip Johnson's Booth Residence (ca. 1946) in Bedford, New York is up for sale for $1,600,000. Learn more HERE. One of very few residential designs by Louis Kahn, the Esherick House (ca. 1961) in Philadelphia is up for sale. Learn more HERE. John Lautner's Schaffer Residence (ca. 1949) (as seen in the Colin Firth film 'A Single Man') is up for sale for $1,395,000. Learn more about the Glendale house HERE. Hope Springs Resort (ca. 1963) in Desert Hot Springs is for sale. Run your own B&B for $950,000! Learn more HERE. Craig Ellwood's Broughton Residence (ca. 1949) is for sale. $799,000 gets you a precursor to his Case Study House designs. Learn more HERE.
Thursday Feburary 2, 2012 Eugene ‘Gene’ Weston III has died. Following a recent stroke, Gene died peacefully at Santa Barbara's Cottage Hospital. At 87, the retired architect continued to influence a generation of designers and inspire historians. He was published in Arts & Architecture; was a partner in one of the best post-war firms in San Diego; and served as an ambassador to ‘good design’ for decades. Mr. Weston is survived by Wanda, his wife of 65 years, 4 daughters, 6 grandchildren and 8 great-grandchildren. Speaking of the firm Liebhardt & Weston, someone recently discovered (and scanned) a Douglas Fir Plywood Association brochure highlighting a line of prefab cabins ‘Second Homes for Leisure Living’ in the 1960s. The brochure is a collection of 16 cabin plans by various architects including Frederick Liebhardt, George Matsumoto, David George and Henrik Bull. Illustrations are by Bob Wandesforde. According to his family, Liebhardt is likely to have designed the ‘three stage beach cabin’ as it mimics his original canvas-roofed backyard architectural studio (ca. 1949-50). Enjoy the images HERE. Mies Van Der Rohe's Villa Tugendhat in Brno recently enjoyed a $9 million renovation, following its UNESCO designation as a world heritage site, and will open to the public for tours starting in March. Read more about the home's rich history HERE and then buy your plane tickets! Join me tonight for 'Lost Modern' - a 20-slide, 6.5-minute Pecha Kucha presentation at the Mingei. More info is HERE.
Saturday January 28, 2012 Swing by our OPEN HOUSE for the Sim Bruce Richards home in Alpine TODAY between 11am - 2pm. More information is HERE. Keith will be presenting 20 slides on '...something or other, I don't know...' at Pecha Kucha Night #14 on February 2 at Mingei. More info is HERE. Henry Hester's Jonathan Edwards Residence is available for lease and events. I am visiting the property on February 4th so I will have more information to share soon. For now you can glance at some info HERE. Today is the last day to view ‘In Words and Wood: Sam Maloof, Bob Stocksdale and Ed Moulthrop,’ at the Sam and Alfreda Maloof Foundation. The Huntington’s show ‘The House That Sam Built: Sam Maloof and Art in the Pomona Valley, 1945-1985’ closes on Monday. Read more about these two shows HERE.
Sunday January 22, 2012 Many thanks to the dozens of folks able to attend yesterday's Robert Mosher event. It was a smashing success. Robert Mosher, 91, one of San Diego surviving mid-century modernist architects, was just profiled by writer Roger Showley HERE. In 1966 A. Quincy Jones designed "Sunnylands," a 650-acre estate and 32,000 square foot home of Walter and Leonore Annenberg in Rancho Mirage. Jones’ signature is evident at Sunnylands, where he used simple overhangs to shield the interiors from the direct sun, as its walls of glass allowed the regional climate's brightness to fill the rooms. The house's architectural structure is exposed rather than hidden – as trellises, steel beams, and coffered ceilings are all evident. Sunnylands’ interiors were designed by William ‘Billy’ Haines and Ted Graber, known for their Hollywood Regency style. Sunnylands will open to the public beginning March 1, 2012! Tickets for tours go on sale February 15 - and reservations are available online only. Learn more HERE. An A. Quincy Jones design in Fort Worth, TX is doomed. The Andrew Fuller Residence (ca. 1950) is profiled HERE. I am building a page on artists Jane and Walter Chapman HERE. Please let me know if you have any information on this dynamic duo!
Friday January 20, 2012 UrbDeZine is promoting our interview with Robert Mosher tomorrow morning HERE. Additionally, Roger Showley is talkin' it up HERE. The San Diego Architectural Foundation’s PechaKucha Night #14 will be held at the Mingei International Museum adjacent to the exhibit "San Diego's Craft Revolution; From Post-War Modern to California Design". Beer and wine will flow as will food via MIHO Gastrotruck. Learn more HERE. The Times spent time with artist Ellsworth Kelly recently. At 88, he is still on fire. Check it out HERE.
Monday January 16, 2012 BorregoModern.Com’s Bill Lawrence is presenting ‘Borrego Modern: The Architecture of de Anza Country Club’ this Saturday (January 21). Join Bill for period photographs as well as the contemporary work of photographer Judy Parker. The night starts at 530pm with ‘no host cocktails’ followed by a buffet dinner at 6. Bill goes on stage at 7. RSVP to 760-767-5105 x 111 by Thursday (January 19). More information is leaking out about the US debut of the travelling exhibition Greta Magnusson Grossman: A Car and Some Shorts. Launching on January 20, the show will be in Tulsa through the winter/spring. Read more HERE. Cindy McArdle has launched a website to market her focus on 'Modern San Diego' in North County HERE. . Saturday January 14, 2012 Anne Tyng, a pioneering female architect whose ideas about geometry influenced Louis Kahn's modernist buildings and who later had a child with him, has died. She was 91. Tyng was among the first group of women to graduate from Harvard University's architecture school in 1944. She struggled her entire career to be taken seriously….During a 15-year relationship that was professional and romantic, she helped him produce his path-breaking early buildings…read more HERE. Responding to the demolition of such local icons as John Lautner's Shusett House, and a recent aborted plan to raze Richard Neutra's Kronish House the city of Beverly Hills has adopted a historic preservation ordinance that seeks to protect noteworthy structures. First for the first time in its history, the City has created rules for tearing down or altering structures older than 45 years and designed by important architects. It also recently established a Cultural Heritage Commission. Read more HERE. NEXT SATURDAY, I will host a talk with Robert Mosher entitled “Modernism Defined by Someone Who Committed It”. Please join us at the NewSchool of Architecture & Design beginning at 9:30 a.m. More information is available HERE.
Tuesday January 10, 2012 Gigi’s Island Restaurant, formerly a Chart House renamed as Bananaz, in Rancho Mirage burned down today. The Ken Kellogg designed structure (ca. 1977) burned as 50+ firefighters battled the blaze. Damage is estimated at $2.5 million. Read more HERE. Ricardo Legorreta, the architect who introduced Mexican modernism to a global audience and who brought his crisp, brightly colored aesthetic to downtown Los Angeles with a controversial 1993 redesign of Pershing Square, has died. He was 80. Read more HERE.
Friday January 6, 2012 Andrew Geller, an architect known for his series of inexpensive beach houses in whimsical shapes, many of them in the Hamptons, died last week in New York. He was 87. During his 35-year tenure at Raymond Loewy & Associates, Geller designed the “typical American house’’ shown at the American National Exhibition in Moscow in 1959 – the same house where the ‘Kitchen Debate’ between Vice President Richard M. Nixon and Nikita S. Khrushchev took place. On January 21, I will host a talk with Robert Mosher entitled “Modernism Defined by Someone Who Committed It”. Please join us at the NewSchool of Architecture & Design beginning at 9:30 a.m. More information is available HERE.
Sunday January 1, 2012 Today, we welcomed 2012 by sharing new year's wishes to owners of architect-designed homes. We left our Ellwood home, to visit friends at their annual New Years Open House (at their La Mesa Ruocco designed home). On the way we stopped by to meet the owners of a John Mock home for the first time. Following meeting our new friends, and joining old friends for a bit to eat, we capped off New Year's Day in a Dick Lareau designed home! It's is going to be a great year indeed. I have been thinking a great deal about Gordon Drake lately. Creating a small, but magnificent, body of work in a short 7-year career, his early death cut short something very special. Among the unique aspects of his work were the utilization of brick floors and unpainted wood, often plywood. Flying in the face of dogmantic modernists of the late '40s and early '50s in Los Angeles, such ideas (proffered by his mentor Harwell Hamilton Harris) remind me of Ted Paulson's work here in San Diego. Until today, I had not thought why I have been so taken aback by Paulson's homea. It is both the uniqueness of Paulson's ideas, and how he stood apart from his fellow San Diego architects of the era, that make me think of Drake's spirit somehow being connected to his homes. Ceramist Eva Zeisel, known for her eccentric dinnerware in the 1940s and ’50s that helped to revolutionize the way Americans set their tables, died on Friday in New City. She was 105. Read more HERE. I presume enough visitors to ModernSanDiego venture off to Santa Barbara on occasion. Next time you are planning a trip up north, click on THIS ARTICLE to read about original Ackerman (and other) mosaics on view, in situ, around town. I have been consumed these days by thinking about Greta Magnusson Grossman's life and work, and her last years spent here in San Diego. Following Grossman's death, her home and estate was sold by Teresa Laggner, 'conservator of the estate of Greta M. Grossman.' For days I have wondered how Laggner was connected to Grossman -- until I found THIS ARTICLE. At first I presumed Ms. Laggner was a relative of the late Grossman. But now I simply hope that she did not rip off the estate! We ended the year with nearly 19,000 unique visitors! Thanks to one and all. |
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