Brise Soleils (continued)

Brise soleils are common in American architecture of the 1950's and 60's, as architects grappled with the challenge of linking geometric structure to organic forms.

Much of architecture, from the Shingle style onward, is rooted in similar concerns, the synthesis between the rational-geometric and the organic-rustic-mystical.



In mid-century architecture, the intense interest between inner and outer space, promoted by earlier movements, continued. Aided by cheap, mass produced products like the blocks seen left.

Jury Duty

As the market shook off its holiday torpor, likely fueled by lower prices and bargain basement rates, civic duty intervened. My breaks were stuffed with phone call catch-up and an obsession with the 6th floor view.

The courthouse, spare and unrelenting, might be described as Brutalist architecture, a modernist/minimalist sub-set. The term originates from the French breton brut, or raw concrete, and quixotic architect Le Corbusier.

My view was made more interesting by brise soleils, or sun breakers, a lone and lively piece of architectural adornment, that subtracted weightiness by adding delicacy.

Brise soleils or cobogos, reticulated screen block surfaces (of terra cotta or concrete) are common in California, utilized as a means to deal with harsh Southerly exposures or to balance intimacy and exteriority.

Less common are meshrebeeyahs (or "privacy windows"), a feature in some Islamic architecture: elaborately carved or turned wood screens or latticework.

Think Damascus or Alhambra, or...the Hill Street Courthouse?!

Window Replacement Part 2

Q: What's the difference between window replacement and pornography?

A: One is a multi-billion dollar industry that exploits human weakness with the promise of increased performance and potency. The other sells sex.

Depressingly, conformity is generally hand-cuffed to mass production and "affordability". Manufacturing prowess marketed as progress, deus ex machina, all that jive talk.

Perhaps the Utopians hail the abduction of detail and variation as a democraticizing measure, the present ever-insufficient, hampered by the bogus romantic.

Still if it were about plain utility, the waxy, band aid muntins would take a hike, 'cause divided lights read "stylish".

But what a turn on! Dear neighbor, we've the same vinyl windows, hollow core doors, and granite counters. We've each infused our lawns with turf builder, bordered by identical plantings. Our carpet and wall color choices are similar and agreeably neutral. Were we any more similar, I might agree to carpool.

A funeral anyone, for art?

2241 and 1/2 W. 24th ST.

I'm hosting a broker's open (though come one, come all) today, Tuesday, January 15th; and, next Tuesday (January 22nd) from 11 - 2:30.

Please see my most recent Upcoming West Adams Listing (1/9/08) entry for additional photos.
Dig the Roman bath.

Elsewhere, I am attempting to update the site, add topics and property specific links. Currently some of the links are not installed, but I hope to continue the re-engineering next week. As part of the mass labeling effort I've republished my second-ever entry (which had fallen out of the archive) and original Palm tree rant below, The World's Most Overrated Tree


There are some--midwesterners to a fault--from verdant, leafy suburbs--troubled by the treeless, sensory-deprivation grey-wash that is much of the Los Angeles metro landscape. I ain't from the Midwest, but count me among 'em.

Should the crooked finger point at our city fathers? Rampaging developers? The climate?

Ok, let's all share the blame and consider for a sec the fascination/obsession with the Palm tree. What if overnight, the city's palms were replaced by strident oak trees? Or powerful Sycamores? Or,....?

Sure, the palms look good at a distance, like towering sentinels; and, there's some kooky glamour association thing. Forget about it, they're a terrible street tree. Like having a telephone pole in your parkway: messy date and seed droppings that are staggeringly tenacious, razor sharp fronds dropping at a high wind's calling. Another thing: zero shade, little green mass, and as my son determined--you can't climb 'em!

Identificazione di il bagno

Tuesday night, the American Cinemateque screened Michelangelo Antonioni's seldom exhibited jewel, Identification of a Woman. I'd seen the film only once before, during the LACMA retrospective in 2005, after which I ranked it amongst the director's most erotic, mysterious best.
Aside from another eerie fog-scape, and it's science fiction epilogue, I remembered absolutely the bathroom in the protagonist's Roman flat.
Clawfoot tub with tankless toilet and bidet. Magnificent marble wainscotting. Despite shower riser, and interesting wall mount configuration, no apparent shower curtain. The sink, visible in another scene, is of the incredible four-legged serpentine variety.

Antonioni's last full fledged feature was paired with Valerio Zurlini's Black Jesus, a thinly disguised homage to Congo rebel leader Patrice Lalumba. That feature, unsurprisingly, didn't showcase any beautiful plumbing. Here's another still from Identificazione, and a sadly faded print.

Gotham

Driving through through Koreatown, along 6th St. in particular, one nearly expects hard hat checkpoints. The bulky new, blots out the never before considered quaint, old. Steel frames emerging, Transformer-like, from parking lots, mere cracks in the pavement.

As one of my readers noted (under Those Dangerous White Suburbs comments), the United States has long held an anti-urban bias, freely associating the city (as opposed to the rural or suburb) with moral and social ruin (the impact of ever more intensive urbanization and immigrant tensions). This association may finally be kaput, steamrolled by the interest of builders, a full, mature generation of suburban expats, and an era of remarkable urban safety.

The 1950's status image of cookouts, huge, glistening slabs of meat, cocktails and a backyard putting green has been replaced by another developer led mirage: burghal immediacy, cosmopolita, laptops, a universe of sexy singles (albeit in office inappropriate clothing), and faux fro-yo, or what I call "cutsie commerce".

On cue, Los Angeles transformers herself from a collection of villages, from a pioneering city of neighborhoods, arguably the 20th century model, into the next overstuffed Gotham.

Money is the answer. The question being why promote new housing, so much new housing, as a social necessity? There's plenty of housing after all--cheap housing, in Detroit, St. Louis, and Baltimore (to name very few). While the employment market in those places may be less stout, and perhaps that's the role government should play (better incentivized federal enterprise zones, like the sort in the Gulf), in some places there aren't the jobs because there aren't the people.

This isn't Nimby-esqe gatekeeping, rather a question of asset management. Is Los Angeles losing herself, her essence, to subsidize the growth machine? Hoarding the financial frankfurter while Flint, Gary, and Buffalo starve?

The unimpinged, free flowing Los Angeles of Woody Allen's Annie Hall has been replaced, perhaps to the Manhattan mahatma's chagrin, by the new strata. Super-sized buildings and developments, schools, malls, single family dwellings, swell to fill available land and air space. Citizenry and the political elite brainwashedly champion the cause, and the steady accretion of downtown continues as convergent boundaries overwhelm. Neighborhood groups meet, fret, and hand-wring, hoping to install developer resistant measures, fingers in dykes.

Who Needs to Shovel Snow?

The L.A. equivalent, frequently bemoaned--at least here. The sweeping of the palm berries, the none too easy disposal of the palm fronds, following a high wind, rain.

Many rush to defend the gawky palm, miscast glamour icon and non-native. Palm defenders don't actually live on palm-lined streets, and they don't have to deal with the berries, tending to every nook and cranny, down chimneys and thru mail slots. A dirtier tree there isn't.

Still I don't call the tree removal service because they're part of the historical landscape, evident in most early photos of the neighborhood.

Under my yet to fructify category, Lifeways, some neighbors spray the apt to germinate palm berries from their lawns following heavy rains, an unfortunate water consuming practice or "give back", negating the conservation benefit of the odd rain. Weeding is not an activity in which they're willing.

Come to mention it, I'm not sure anyone weeds anymore. Gardeners sure don't seem to.

Upcoming West Adams Listing

Lilliput Among the Gullivers

Kinney Heights Hideaway

2241 1/2 W. 24th ST. (90018)

Pueblo Revival cottage nestled between mansions, far from the madding crowd, set to the rear of a panhandle-shaped lot. This wondrous turnkey casita offers unrivaled privacy and repose. A gardener's peaceful delight, with far-reaching system upgrades, over-sized kitchen, and core elements restored. Completely remodeled bathroom with floor to ceiling one-inch Venetian glass tile, deco tub and light fixtures. Attached garage offers creative work space potential. A familiar real estate exhortation: buy the smallest, cheapest house in the best, most expensive neighborhood--here's your chance!

$539,00

*Total re-pipe including supply line & drains
*2 year old roof
*Built in 1929
*Re-wired
*Refinished oak and fir floors
*Tankless hot water heater
*New heating & cooling
*West Adams Terrace HPOZ
*New appliances

I intend to hold my first two opens Tuesday, January 15th and Tuesday, January 22nd from 11 am - 2:30 p.m. I am also in the process of scheduling a twilight, and weekend open. As always, I am able and willing to show by appointment.

Plum Part 2

There are several pathologies in the “how we live now” or "contemporary lifestyle" argument for teardowns and mansonification. The first is the typical American reflex to resist and resent any compromise or mitigations. Cons want a 6,000 square foot house, in a single family idyll, with ironclad property values, and total freedom of use and expression regardless of context.

Some are willing "to build green", as if that exonerates their resource intensive pursuit. A 6,000 square foot home can be made energy efficient in relation to other 6,000 square foot homes, but never in relation to 3,000 square foot homes, no matter the low perm housewraps, wabi sabi landscapes (in what little yard remains), and re-circulating systems. Still, it's a canard. Energy efficiency isn't the pursuit--except as gravitas--status and the stuff shuffle are.

The stuff shuffle.

Twenty years ago I worked as a furniture mover, for a small mom and pop operation in Oakland. My boss had clients he'd relocated five and six times, houses he'd visited over and over again. In the early 1980's he claimed the average property contained twice the volume (of possessions) as in 1950. A mere anecdote, yet the storage industry--unheard of thirty years ago, and once the provenance of moving companies--is now a $20 billion a year enterprise. Americans hoard so much crappola that it's consumed their attics, basements, garages, and now has to be stored off-site as well. For many, the solution is to build a bigger home, a much bigger home.

A bit of the added booty might be understood: telecommuting, cheaper garments that are easier to launder, more record keeping, the extra appliance. Still, the average new build in America is twice the size of its European equivalent and growing, despite declines in the average number of persons per household (now 2.5).

End Part 2

New Condominium Listing

525 S. Ardmore Avenue #237

Trim, neat studio unit in prime Koreatown. Internal unit in 1970's building with substantial "green moat" courtyard. Unit features recent upgrades in flooring, fixtures, appliances, and cabinetry. Handsome maple wall unit with commodious Murphy bed, included in price. One of Los Angeles' least expensive ownership options, within easy walking distance of endless and ever-diversifying Koreatown amenities and Metro Red Line. Low H.O.A. dues of $295 a month include off-street parking, water, and sanitation. Shown cheerfully by appointment.

$178,500

Is it Safe? As if I Have to Ask

On the eve of the biggest storm to hit the Southland since 2005....rather, the only storm to hit the Southland since 2005, I opted for a lil' late night West Adams constitutional.

Am I recycling columns? Feels it, another year another considerable drop in the murder tally, fewer than 400 murders in the City of Angels 2007. A 17.6% drop from last year's already revolutionary reduction.

What's left for me to go on about? The big decrease in the South bureau, the uneventful details of my latest late night foray, peregrinating about Sugar Hill, Jefferson Park, Halldale and Adams-Normandie.

Is it safe? Is it safe in northernmost South Los Angeles? It appeared to be Friday night. The streets were bare (see images), save a handful of folks at major intersections thumb-twiddling till transit.

Still I stump, to fracture that association so prevalent, between the center and danger, the suburb and safety. Despite the revival of so many American cities, the re-popularization of New York City as lifestyle icon, and the European experience wherein affluence characterizes the old centers, Americans--Angelenos continue to bespatter their neighborhoods East and South. Bedroom communities most. The city's first suburbs in fact, simple subdivisions on relatively roomy lots, largely unencroached by industry or high use business districts, positively low density in places.

Certainly the population here (my beat) is multi-ethnic, with a pocket or two of physical squalor, and an absence of "hip joints". Those things matter to many, detract for some. But confuse the issues not, the statistics overwhelmingly suggest a relatively safe U.S. city, safer than most of us have ever known--and getting safer. Probably never safe enough for some. For those there's always Carstairs, Alberta, Culdesac, Idaho, or Catalina island.

PLUM/Mansonification Part 1

I spent a hunk of a week ago Tuesday at City Hall, at the Planning & Land Use Management (PLUM) committee hearing. Amongst the agenda items was a proposal regarding Mansonification.

The turnout was impressive, the speakers impassioned. Both sides were represented, the negative effect on property values was proclaimed by all. Groups favoring lot coverage restrictions, touted the improved property value performance of HPOZ's and other neighborhoods with strict design guidelines (like Palos Verdes Estates). Opponents argued instead that property values are patently linked to unbridled redevelopment possibilities.

Cowardly, a study was requested concerning economic impacts. But how can such a thing be quantified? How do you calculate the value added by a massive re-do, and the corresponding value loss for the encumbered adjoining property?

Asked to report for the West Adams Heritage Asssociation Newsletter, I submitted the following:

The proposed ordinance meant to amend several provisions of the L.A. municipal code and reduce existing Floor Area Ratios (FAR), was shuttlecocked by council, after lengthy and divided--though largely favorable--public comment. An economic impact study was retiringly requested, as if subjunctive conditionals might be tabulated by abacus and forefinger, without regard for that ol' yellowing concern: quality of life. Regardless, the proposed code amendments were lamentably limited to R-1 lots (not otherwise located in Hillside Areas or the Coastal Zone), bupkis for the orphaned majority of West Adams. That's yiddish for beans, people.

Egads, try telling joe public they can't live in 4700 square feet, and they'll have to make do with a mere 2650. Not families of 10 mind you, but couples coveting a sub kitchen big enough to park a Winnebago in. Of course we wouldn't want to change "how we live now", particularly when we can afford a cleaning lady, gardener, pool boy, 12 burner Wolf range, 62 inch something or other, and relatively cheap energy.

The issue of space--or the supposed lack thereof--is a frequent justification by the teardown/McMansion adherents, and like most justifications, it is usually specious.
Sensitively scaled additions can be considered, a detached office or outbuilding constructed, basements can be expanded and sometimes attics, particularly in pre WWI buildings can be finished.

END PART 1