Subterfuge

(Please see Quattrefoil 1/10/09; Blind Windows 1/20/09; and Noir or Au Revoir 1/27/09.)

Could I shake the quatre-square? I moved around plenty, doing the unfamiliar, paying for things in cash, and wearing a hat.

Occasionally I'd catch glimpse of the devilish foil, but typically and consolingly in a more disciplined, intrinsic setting.

Was it the beginning of detente, or merely a ruse?
I consulted Sun Tzu, "Warfare is the way of deception."
Best to stay on guard.

Journal entry #665

6:22 a.m. North Berkeley

Waking thoughts free of concern with superfluous decoration. Focus instead on deep dish pizza, other forms of gothic tracery, their appropriation by local, influential architect Bernard Maybeck, and an afternoon program of unfinished Orson Welles' movies at the Pacific Film Archive.

To Do List: Climb Indian Rock
Call 22 clients
Lunch at Plearn
Go to P.F.A.

Little did I suspect the ambush that lay ahead (image below).

Noir or Au Revoir?

I lit out of town, fleeing the ubiquitous quatrefoil (see Quattrefoil 1/10/2009 and Blind Windows 1/20/2009), bedizenment du jour, past churches, filling stations, cantilevers, walls of glass, stray dogs, lawns, barbed wire, grown-ups in suits, beauty supply stores, and a housing development which rose along a hillside in a continuous row, each roof rising above the next like gymnasium bleachers.

I needed to put distance between me and the rampant deployment of this irrelevant ornament. Was I in search of pure form like some post jugendstil dodo, playing real estate hooky, or just plain desperate for blog material?

Either way, I pulled off Interstate 5 well after dark, to Harris Ranch Inn & Restaurant in Coalinga. A glowing fountain, like some Celtic effigy, a four leaf clover turned poison ivy, barred my entry. "Curse you quatrefoil," I blared.

Carne Asada would have to wait, sustenance would come in a different form, in a shingled form.

Attaway to Coattail, Herb!

Christmas came late to my house, with the arrival of a calendar from Herb J. Wesson, Jr., councilmember of my home district, number 10. The calendar is titled, President Barack Obama Councilmember Herb J. Wesson, Jr.. Despite a distinct height differential, the two make a snuggly-pair as evidenced in the cover image (left). Councilmember Wesson is angling for re-election, and the message couldn't be clearer: if you like Barack (and with a 68% approval rating, there's a gambler's chance you do), you'll like me--we're BFF.

Mr. Wesson's a pretty good concilperson really, and his staff's hard-working with deep ties to the district. He's a heckuva a lot better than his short-lived predecessor, disgraced labor shill, Martin Ludlow.

But back to the calendar, which fully exploits now-president Obama's sole visit to the district nearly two years ago. President Obama is pictured with councilmember Wesson, cops, councilmember Wesson and city council colleagues, in a crowd, with councilmember Wesson's wife, in a crowd with councilmember Wesson, and with councilmember Wesson.

My favorite captions read: 'Councilmember Wesson and Senator Obama discuss the need to bring more federal resources to the City of Los Angeles', and 'The Senator took time to autograph several of his books for our constituents. Did you notice that, like Councilmember Wesson, our new President is a "southpaw?'

Rumors are, councilmember Ed Reyes is preparing a dayplanner wherein his image is married to those of Felipe Calderon. Nah!

William Stout Books

Fittingly, William Stout Architectural Books is located in an 1850's office building in San Francisco's first official Historic District, that rare downtown collection of 1906 earthquake and fire survivors Jackson Square, a excessively charming enclave, filled mostly with antiquities dealers, shadowed by the leviathans of the Financial District. An enormous selection of titles devoted to architecture, design, the decorative arts, fine arts, and urban planning. Tomes technical and artistic, new and used, with architect monographs and some offerings published in-house.

I pocketed several local interest titles before seeking lunchtime pasta in nearby North Beach.

William Stout Architecture Books
804 Montgomery Street
S.F., CA 94133
415-391-6757
M-Sat 10 - 5:30
TH 10 - 9
www.stoutbooks.com

Wednesday's Image(s)

I looked up from my buildings and what did I see?
A cloud or two.
Had I seen these clouds before, in a painting by Salvador Dali?

Blind Windows

Usually employed to enliven an otherwise featureless elevation, Blind Windows appear with great unpredictability and without regard to style.


Remarkably ornate treatment on a highly visible corner property. Symmetry or balance is served.



A comic pairing of ersatz ornament: spare, blank frames and Gothic detail turned chintz (the accursed combined-with-square quatrefoil).



Another corner Italianate with dual treatment and icky opportunistic signboard.

Wednesday's Image (a day late)

I haven't a clue.

Bonus super ellipse for the Big O.

An ellipse within the diamond.

The NFL Playoffs

After watching the fifth and final season of The Wire, television's best urban drama, I cannot resist rooting for Baltimore's Ravens. Plus they've a good player at my favorite position, tight end (Todd Heap). The tight end has to live in two worlds, knocking heads on the line, catching balls downfield. A real estate agent has dual oeuvres as well, manning a desk, thumbing a keyboard and building files; in addition to, the field work, checking out the inventory, the opens, casing a joint.

In the NFC final, Arizona hosts Philadelphia. The Cardinals are a feel good story, long suffering franchise sparked by left-for-dead signal caller Kurt Warner. Philadelphia's a repository of great architecture and tasty hoagies; and, they've a good defensive backfield. Go Eagles!

Quattrefoil

An aesthete like myself complaining about ornament, sounding a bit like cranky Adolph Loos or some early modernist tea totaller? It's true. Another quattrefoil-esqe tracery employed as arbitrary "architectural enhancement," and I'm likely to duff up some fool.

Sure I love the four-lobed pattern divided by cusps, possibly originated in the ceramic revetments of Spanish and oriental mosques. Particularly when utilized in the Venetian Gothic, and the bizarro Mission Revival (see variation with multi-light window top). But just fashioned of foam and adhered to any old flat wall? Well, every man's got his limits.

"No, no, no," I screamed, at one apparent homeowner, post stucco applique, "it's a colonial revival cottage, not a flippin' would be Mediterranean."
I feel you law man, it's hard to keep order out here.

I don't know what's more offensive, 'Fried Chicken, Chinese Food & Donuts,' or that turd of an ornament, which is also a bit cartouche-like, an oval panel with crested or scrolled borders.

Clearly, this requires continuation......

Super E?

Not to be confused with the diamond, or lozenge form, the super ellipse (or lame curve) was another, less common, geometric motif.

Check out the four square and its super ellipse house bling (top), anchoring a fabulous second story projection. I could do without the stucco, Romeo.


A pair of double hungs. What I wouldn't do for curvy muntins (they're probably steam bent). In love yet?



Bargeboard cut-outs, like a twinkling star.

Is it Safe? 2008 Final

"Is it safe?"

Despite a souring economy, fewer homicides were committed in Los Angeles in 2008, continuing the city's persistent and encouraging trend. The Daily News reported 380 homicides as of December 30th, fewer even than last year's nether numbers (396). The fewest, in fact, since 1969, when some guy named Manson inspired mayhem. Worth noting, the population of Los Angeles in 1969 was 2,292,400. The population today is an estimated 3,844,829.

Murder is but a single marker, admittedly--though it is the crime most feared. Many of the older neighborhoods North and West of downtown have changed dramatically since the violent apogee of the early 1990's. Those neighborhoods have become more diverse, both ethnically and socio-economically; historic districts have been christened; passenger rail criss-crosses the Arroyo, accompanies Wilshire and Vermont boulevards and will soon do so along Exposition; the residential population downtown has quadrupled linked with a dramatic service transformation; and, new school construction has re-purposed over a thousand acres.

Things change always, and some of those districts once over-looked and dismissed, sullied by throw away lines, accusations of lawlessness and iniquity, deserve re-appraisal.

Is it safe? Increasingly, the answer in 2008 was, 'yes'.