i'm stalking Julius Shulman now

On Thursday, Julius Shulman made an appearance at the Los Feliz Library. Of course I went, even though months ago I purchased a ticket to see his lecture in Pasadena in two weeks (little did I know that I'd have so many opportunities!). He sort of reminds me of the grandfather I never had (of course I had grandfathers, but I never met them since they died long before I was conceived). He tells interesting stories. You don't know what you're going to get, but hidden in seemingly random strains of information, he reveals an illuminating nugget of why it is so fucking cool to have witnessed so much (domestic) architecture so intimately. He talked about how the Bradbury Building in downtown LA is one of his favorite buildings (see an upcoming blog about my walking tour yesterday that included it...I just need to download the photos) and how one particular house by Raphael Soriano that is now threatened with demolition was the inspiration for Frank Gehry to pursue architecture at USC.

But then he also talked about big breasts. I am not kidding. Out of nowhere he tells us that Taschen sent him some books recently, including one about enormous breasts. "Why would he publish a book about this? I know..." He proceeded to talk about how men love breasts, and he could actually envision them picking up the book and burrowing their heads into the pages. Oh my god how the crowd laughed. I couldn't believe it, and then I thought, "Was he staring at my breasts?"

i heart modern architecture

I think it's pretty clear that I'm obsessed with architecture. I relish any chance to drive around and look at buildings, so when I saw that USC was sponsoring several tours of architecture to celebrate the school's legacy on the L.A. landscape, you bet your ass I jumped at the chance. When I saw the opportunity to roam the Hollywood Hills and see Case Study House #22 and the Julius Shulman residence, I nearly did a cartwheel. The third house on the tour was the Carl Maston Hillside Residence (I had admittedly not heard of the house or the architect before).

This was hands down the coolest architecture experience I've had. To get to see upclose Case Study #22 alone was like a domestic-architecture, Modern-lovin' girl's dream. Mrs. Stahl (the original owner with her husband) and her daughter were present. I asked Mrs. Stahl if after all these years there's anything she'd change about the design; she came up with nothing.



Conceived as part of the Case Study House Program to develop low-cost, reproducible home models and to promote Modern architecture in the immediate post-war period, the house was completed in 1960 from Pierre Koenig's design.



Oh yeah, and it comes with awesome views.



Next we tour architecture photographer Julius Shulman's home. His daughter gave us a tour. They moved into the house in 1950. It was designed by Raphael Soriano, who also participated in the Case Study House Program. In the epilogue to the $200 Taschen book on the Case Study Houses, Shulman wrote a critique of the program, which included his displeasure of John Entenza's (the program's conceiver and director) attempt to include this house in the program even though it had been designed completely separate from it. The house hasn't changed in 50+ years.





And Julius Shulman was there.



I also had my photo taken with him, after he gave us a lecture on how you shouldn't be so set on being an architect because it's hard and so few people really become known for "great buildings." He encouraged us to learn about architectural history and to write (of course I was probably the only one in the crowd that wasn't an architecture student and actually was someone who studies the history and writes about it). When he brought up Gregory Ain (as a previous example where architecture students hadn't heard of him), I think I was the only one who said that I knew who he was (and I was just in one of his buildings last week! The Avenel Cooperative in Silver Lake). Although a pioneer in low-cost housing design, Ain was excluded from the Case Study House Program. But he was a USC alum and was also an instructor in the architecture school.

It's days like this when I love that I live in L.A.

all right already

It's been far too long since I've written anything in here. I've got to do something about that.