Relief panels

A glorious ceramic explosion between the first and second floor windows. Byzantine revival, Assyrian boogie--I love all that 1890's exotica!

A relief is a carving, chasing, or embossing raised above a background plane.

Beneath the windows, over the skirtboard or stringcourse, the popular lozenge makes an appearance.

Relief panels are also called Bas-relief panels. Bas-relief is French for low relief, derived from the Italian basso rilievo: sculpture that is not free, standing, or in the round.
The flat panels beneath the second story windows look like painted plywood, dismal replacements for some doubtlessly exuberant ill-tended relief. Such indignities!

Liberty style foliage and a dental frieze at the cornice.

And between the windows, another panel, with some sort of open fretwork, rectangular form. I've seen that form before, it must have a name....oh damn, I feel another obsession--er pursuit--coming on

Stadia

I watched the Yankees final home game, and I cried. I don't live and die with sports any more. I used to, before I had a kid, and this career, and a house, and a community. I even think my past investment in sports was a bit silly, a waste of time, immature.

But how can Yankee Stadium be razed?! I once wrote about the late Ambassador Hotel, 'If the Ambassador can be torn down, anything can be torn down.' That's likely a bit of an exaggeration, Los Angeles boasts landmarks that may be forever safe: the Eastern Columbia building, Capital Records, Bullocks Wilshire, and others. Still, if New York's Yankee Stadium can fall victim to the wrecking ball.....

The first generation of modern ball parks that began with Barney Dreyfuss and Forbes Field in 1909, is nearly gone. In the last two decades, the White Sox dismantled Comiskey, the Indians left Municipal Stadium, and the Tigers abandoned Tiger Stadium. Only Wrigley Field in Chicago and Fenway Park in Boston remain from that defining era.

Dodger Stadium now shockingly ranks as the majors third-oldest active facility, and in the world of professional sports that isn't an endorsement.

Neo Craftsman

I've been a tad leery of new housing built in the Craftsman style. New-builds should say something about their time, I argued, not just ape the time honored. However a great many styles, Tudor, Italianate, Chateauesqe, are revival styles, and their periodic re-engagements, re-popularizations, or continuities are germane and revealing.

What do I expect?! Architectural paradigm shifts are uncommon, relying on the shared destination of technology, economics, and socio-politics, a hugely influential practitioner (like a Louis Sullivan or an H.H. Richardson), and an international cultural/political event (like the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago or World War II). (Attention true modernists, a perfect storm is centered in Dubai and Beijing.)

Maybe it's a good thing the Craftsman/Shingle/Prairie lexicon persists, and enjoys periodic spasms of popularity. Perhaps this archetype is destined for that timeless, perennial category which includes Spanish/Mediterranean, and Colonial. Maybe it also helps make the style less alien, more palatable to the uninitiated, those most likely to misguidedly alter and abuse fine period examples.

Reports of My Demise...

I've received more than a few calls, from clients, industry acquaintances, others, asking about the health of my practice, concerned souls conferring in funereal tones.

Actually I'm doing fine, still fortunate to inherit and convert great opportunities. By no means immune from the most macro of macro economic pressures, but still humming along. "If you don't want the job when times are difficult," I counseled another practitioner recently, "you don't want the job."

Fortunately people are still drawn to the home buying and selling arena, many in response to changing family situations: relocation, in nest/empty nest, un rinconcito for mom, etc.
Another percentage of prospective buyers are attracted by the shoe top interest rates, lower yet again after the Fannie/Freddie conservatorship. "The only real savings long term," one veteran buyer asserted, "is with rates."

Sometimes I wonder if home ownership has simply fallen out of fashion, no longer the thing to do, for squares; then, a smart new listing comes along, with hefty moldings, or colorful tile, a tall Camphor tree, and I get all excited.

Listing Update

We've postponed officially marketing 2158 W. 24th ST till January 2009. Despite strong interest--offers even--the seller has decided to wait a few more months, and hopes to better ready the house.

Football, Norte Americano

In the mornings I check my e-mail, then read the sports page, or the online equivalent. Professional team sports interest me. Currently, I'm following the divisional races in baseball. Did the Brewers win? What's happening with the Phils/Mets, Twins/ChiSox?

The pro football season, the nation's most popular sporting pursuit, is two weeks old. Yet I'm not an enthusiast. Pro football is unfriendly to realtors. Games are almost entirely played on Sundays, typically my most impacted work day.

For many the NFL serves as a Sunday backdrop, drifting in and out of halves, a companion with lunch and dinner. I'm not the type to leave a tv on unattended. As the Raymond Shaw character says in the Manchurian Candidate, "there are two kinds of people in this world: those that enter a room and turn the television set on, and those that enter a room and turn the television set off." I seem to be one of the latter.

I will leave a radio on though, maybe that makes me a baseball fan.

Enough Already

I'm cleaning out the garage, again. Really, I'm picking through the garage for stuff without much personal weightiness, to chuck. Scoping out the easy marks, because I don't want to get bogged down sifting through emotional souvenirs, considering their value and the likelihood of future contribution or use. The downsizing thing ain't easy.

My first target, magazine back issues, crates full, Fine Homebuilding, Old House Journal, International Photographer.

Hours later, I'm cross legged, reading articles on slate countertops, clear finish products, and an interview with John Alton. Damn, the downsizing thing ain't easy. I came across an article on a movie titled, An Ambush of Ghosts, shot in "the interior of an old Victorian house located near USC." I put a July 1992 issue of American Cinematographer aside, with a feature story on Batman Returns. My son likes Batman, and wouldn't you know there's a production still wherein a Bull's Eye window (see nearly every post for the last month) dominates the composition.

Once observed, noted, becomes ubiquitous.

Even More Revelation...

Defining L'eoil de boeuf led to the terms oculus, and roundels: small circular panels. No stranger to these, I went a snappin'.

In great numbers, adorning a paint deprived bargeboard.

Along the cornice beneath a Jerkinhead roof line (also known as a clipped gable, hipped gable, or Shreadhead).


(More Jerkinhead jamba in the upcoming Separated at Built post.)



At the bargeboard's end.

MTM

I'm still leafing through Larry Millet's guide to Twin Cities Architecture (see June archives and My Absence Parts 1 & 2). Recently I came across this entry:

S.E. Davis ("Mary Tyler Moore") House 1894

A Queen Anne house that became a local icon by virtue of its association with the popular Mary Tyler Moore Show. An exterior shot of the house identified it as the location of Moore's apartment.

Of course that show aired in the 1970's, as Victoriana experienced reappreciation. Gingerbread made for suitably hip digs. Now days the beautiful young are cast in gleaming cubes, stark fields of white*, and the Queen Anne is relegated by the tastemakers to cameos in Horror movies like Pacific Heights or supernatural fare such as Charmed.

On the other hand, maybe the Victorian styles (along with the preceding Gothic Revival) have always served as a backdrop for fright night. My 6-year old associate turned up some architectural typecasting in a silver age Fantastic Four.

In the story that introduces Agatha Harkness, Franklin Richards governess, and a witch, a most exuberant structure is rendered by penciller Jack Kirby.
















There's several captivating interior drawings as well, the setting a bit fussy of course, and overdecorated.

*Actually by the 1890's, a few interiors were being painted all white, though masses of color still prevailed.

Come to mention it, doesn't the Thing look a bit Richardsonian?

Tour de Ghetto (Part 2)

While excitement builds in anticipation of the Expo Line and the expansion of intra-urban passenger train service in L.A., the bike militia are similarly stirred by Expo Line "extras." Billed as a transit parkway, the Exposition Boulevard right-of-way will also feature bike and pedestrian paths, not unlike the Orange Line, or Valley busway.

Class 1 bikeways, exempt from motor vehicles, enjoy heavy use in Los Angeles County, particularly the 6 mile Ballona Creek path and the 22 mile beach lane from Will Rodgers to Rancho Seaside.
Most feel safer on these auto emancipated facilities; and yet, some research suggests that accident rates are the same or even greater (than on accompanying full purpose roads). Still, because these routes eliminate many traffic interruptions, they allow cyclists to cover longer distances more quickly, a key inducement.

While the green benefits of cycling are typically hailed, a competing opinion, argues that diverting street space for cyclists (via bike lanes or exclusive parkways), could cause more traffic for the auto majority, more idling, and more pollution.

In the continuing transit options debate (and Westside subway proposals), I would link always bikeways with light rail and existing rights of way. While a Wilshire Boulevard extension might achieve the highest ridership, I would instead exploit broad medians (San Vicente, Burton Way, Hyde Park, Century Blvd., etc), remnants of the Pacific Electric Red Car and Los Angeles Railway Yellow Car systems. The MTA owns over 250 miles of former railroad rights of way, and their estimated light rail construction costs are 80% less than subways. I'm betting ridership projections (not to mention the "network effects") of five lines, would dwarf those of one, the Wilshire/Purple Line extension.

Plus, we'd get more bike paths!

New Market Touchstones (Part 3)

While buyers have largely become choosier (see Parts 1 & 2), a few features have declined in importance.

The wood burning fireplace

As wood burning restrictions near*, buyers are increasingly willing to accept the fireplace as mere visual centerpiece or gas conversion candidate. Hand wringing about the usability, structural thews, or limitations of capped, missing, or unreinforced masonry chimneys has generally relaxed.

*The City of Denver has essentially banned the use of wood burning fireplaces. Air regulators in the San Joaquin Valley and Sacramento have implemented "check before you burn" restrictions. Bay area cities continue to debate and approve ever more restrictive guidelines.

The garage

Buyers still favor a garage, but chiefly as auxiliary space, storage, or home office possibility. Angelenos don't put their cars in the garage. At least not on my corner. None of us own cars that are worth a lick (unless you count the new Fortwos). None of us want to. Many are satisfied with a storage shed, and a partial driveway (if street parking is an issue).

Swimming Pools

For a growing number, pools are as much a burden as a delight, a safety concern and an eco downer. Even those interested, prefer shallow lap pools to yard consuming giants and diving pools. The hot tub has similarly lost much of its appeal, considered by some goatish and passe.

To be continued...