Results tagged “franklloydwright”

In Los Angeles, we knock things down. We build them the way we like them. We believe in creating a world the way we think it should be. It's this ethic that has destroyed some of our more famous landmarks, Pickfair was dismantled by Pia Zadora, the original Brown Derby may, at the time of this writing, be a dry cleaner. In a place where people come to reinvent themselves no one has much time for old stuff.

Hollyhock House is a wonder wrought by Frank Lloyd Wright for our fair city. Though old Frank was a dick in person, he was unquestionably one of the more prominent architects of the twentieth century. Usually associated with his midwestern "Prairie Houses" (very influential in the arts and crafts movement, they were extended, low buildings with sloping roofs and deep terraces and overhangs. These, incidentally, were also an early example of "open plan" homes, the obsession that has driven many a Los Angeleno to alter fine old homes for the worse), or his later usonic homes which made middle class housing out of geometric shapes, he also believed in organic homes, that were in harmony with the land and other natural features that surrounded them.

Ken Kesey told us that “Some things are true, even if they never really happen.” What if a woman was never killed in a house that looks like it might gobble you up if you’re not careful? What if that crime felt true? Then where are you? Well, the answer is, of course, Los Angeles.

Since the 1994 Northridge Earthquake, architect Frank Lloyd Wright's Hollyhock House at Barnsdall Art Park in Hollywood has been damaged closed and has been awaiting repairs and retrofitting over the last 14 years (however, it is still open for tours). Some of the work has been done, thanks to Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) funds that went towards the first phase of seismic retrofitting, repairs, and restoration, but the usual wild card for getting anything done these days (one word: funding) hindered the other phases to be completed.

It's Friday the 13th. To make matters worse it’s the Friday the 13th two weeks before Halloween. This means every enterprising event promoter, gallery owner, theater manager and wanna-be goth has come up with a half-assed entertainment venture with some thuddingly obvious Halloween tie-in. Here are a few things you can do tonight that'll probably suck less than sucking on the business end of Satan's pitchfork.

THURSDAY

Both despite and because of many intense past, current and future battles to retain it, Angelenos are increasingly aware of our city’s architectural heritage. This category ranges from the missions to faux Norman castles to austere minimalist spaces. We’re presently living a renaissance era for modernism – a critical mass is more than ever enthralled with the work of largely émigré architects for whom Los Angeles was an ideal environment in which to experiment with built forms and new materials, blissfully free of historic precedent.

Anyone who’s logged onto google today (i.e. just about everyone who uses the internets) knows a little something about Frank Lloyd Wright. Whether or not you esteem him to be the Greatest American Architect of All Time, the prolific master, who died at the age of 92 and would’ve turned 138 today, designed a gorgeously innovative -- if often structurally flawed -- building or two or few hundred.

Ably processing Los Angeles’s extraordinary built environment requires thinkers who can look it through a dynamic lens that takes into consideration way more than what’s typically thought of as “good” architecture. Understanding LA means peeking into the cracks of the city and embracing what some might dismiss as sheer vulgarity. Moreover, creatively adding to the physical fabric of our city and meeting its needs beyond the strip mall paradigm necessitates a deeply complex appreciation for Los Angeles and its environs, a keen historical perspective, and design know-how.

Frank Lloyd Wright-designed residences in Los Angeles are few yet unforgettable. His genius doesn't come without a price in the long term, though. While Wright is widely considered to be the most influential architect to emerge from late nineteenth and twentieth century America, his realized projects for Los Angeles were at times impractical indeed. This stubborn brilliance and his miscalculations means that his local repertoire -- including the Hollyhock House, Freeman House, and the Ennis-Brown House -- pose serious challenges concerning maintenance, rehabilitation, and preservation.

LAist is proud to publish the LAist Interview featuring a local and international legend who needs no introduction: Vaginal Davis.