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From the category archives:
Architecture
A Frank Lloyd Wright design for Ayn Rand
The LA Times reports on an interesting footnote in architectural and literary history:
In 1937 a little-known author named Ayn Rand wrote to revered modernist Frank Lloyd Wright.
“Dear Mr. Wright,” her letter of Dec. 12 began, “I am writing a novel about the career of an architect. . . . I should like to have the privilege of meeting you and discussing it with you.”
The book, “The Fountainhead,” was published six years later. Although Wright did not make himself available in 1937 or for years to come, Rand’s pitch was the start of a two-decade correspondence that evolved into a robust exchange of ideas as well as this: a preliminary rendering of a “cottage studio,” in colored pencil on paper, that the legendary architect crafted for Rand. It is featured in “Drawings and Objects by Architects,” on exhibit through Oct. 10 at the Edward Cella Art + Architecture gallery in the mid-Wilshire area of L.A.
More information here.
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This is a short film exploring the Phillips Exeter Academy Library, a masterwork of the modernist architect Louis Kahn. It’s a lovely piece of filmmaking. What I can’t quite get my head around is that this video is entirely computer generated imagery. It is a segment in Alex Roman’s ongoing project to explore architecture through CG animation: The Third & The Seventh.
Despite the jaw-dropping beauty, this particular segment also contains an element of horror for bibliophiles… this rendering of the library contains no books!*
[Hat tip: Hilobrow]
*There are indeed some digitally-besotted visigoths already dispensing with school library books as “an outdated technology.”
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Julius Shulman's Vision
Photographer Julius Shulman has died. He will be remembered as the man who captured the bright, clean style of California’s mid-century modern architecture. The Los Angeles Times obituary is excellent, as is this appreciation by architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne, but Shulman is best remembered through his photographs–some of which will seem familiar to people who have never heard of him. This slideshow of Shulman photos is a great place to start.
Novelist Ayn Rand and husband photographed by Shulman in their Richard Neutra-designed house
For a broader sense of where Julius Shulman fits in American social and cultural history, I recommend this 2006 Atlantic piece by Virginia Postrel. In an interview, Shulman told Postrel to write that he “portrayed what it’s like to live in the modern house.” But Postrel found that Shulman’s photographs did much more:
In fact, he has portrayed something more powerful: an ideal of what it’s like to live in a modern house. Shulman’s photographs are not simply beautiful objects in themselves or re-creations of striking buildings; they are psychologically compelling images that invite viewers to project themselves into the scene. An architectural photograph can conjure three possible desires: “I want that photograph,” “I want that building,” or “I want that life.” Shulman’s best work evokes all three.
I recommend reading the rest of this insightful essay on Julius Shulman by Virginia Postrel. She has also posted some new reflections on Shulman at Deep Glamour.
Still more Shulman:
A nice write-up with more photos at the Architect’s Newspaper.
Los Angeles cultural writer Scott Timberg.
Owen Edwards at Design Observer.
Obituary from the New York Times.
A trailer from a documentary on Shulman, “Visual Acoustics: The Modernism of Julius Shulman.”
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Looks like a great place to watch dolphin death matches!
The National Trust for Historic Preservation has released its annual list of endangered historic sites. It’s great to see more modernist buildings getting attention. The Miami Marine Stadium [pictured left] looks particularly sad and beautiful.
My sympathies are always on the side of history and architectural preservation, but I have some concerns about the National Trust’s approach to this list. Are there other sides we’re not hearing about? The press routinely covers this annual list by following a well-established formula of “greedy developers vs. history and beauty.” But there are real costs to the “preservation above all” approach. We can’t always have both preservation and progress or private property rights and public control of architectural detail.
And some of the places on the list don’t scream out as desperately important (versus other potential priorities). We need to mine uranium to improve our energy independence. Is it more important that a “sacred” New Mexico mountain remains pristine? Is a strong memory of our infrastructural history worth the cost of maintaining an 85-year-old mechanical lift bridge in New England? What about the fixing the sorry state of our non-museum-worthy infrastructure? These are questions even zealous preservationists need to consider.
Finally, I think it’s a pathetic, but unsurprising sign of the times when the National Trust invokes “combating climate change” as a primary argument for preserving old buildings. As anyone who has done home improvement work knows, a simple renovation is a very “carbon-intensive” process. Now imagine the resources, money, time, and energy consumed in a large-scale restoration to historic standards and a creative adaptation to some new “reuse.” I’m not convinced that preservation ends up using fewer resources than demolition and new construction. Anyway, I don’t think that the cause of historic preservation is going to get far by hitching a ride on the “green” bandwagon. There are other, better, stronger arguments for preservation… aesthetic, civic, educational, historical, and so on.
Anyway, the History Channel put together this short PSA-ish video that shows a bit more about each of the endangered historic sites. It’s good to “see” these interesting places for yourself:
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How bad is this?
David McCullough, the de facto historian laureate of the United States, is appalled by a planned development that may loom over the Brooklyn Bridge. It’s hard to tell from the renderings available online, but McCullough’s video op-ed in the New York Times is pretty emphatic that a Brooklyn condo tower will overshadow the greatest surviving landmark of lower Manhattan.
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