Frank Lloyd Wright comes to California

Some of Frank Lloyd Wright’s most engaging and innovative architecture was done in Southern California in the years following the end of World War I. From 1919 to 1923, the architect worked part-time in the newly-sprung Los Angeles metropolis, during the midst of a tremendous economic boom fueled in part by the explosion of the personal automobile and the petroleum industry maturing in California at that time. In a span of only 4 years he created new forms of American architecture that we can still look to for inspiration. (At the same time, he was engaged to build the monumental Imperial Hotel in Japan, arguably one of his greatest achievements.)

Above: the Alice Millard House, also known as La Miniatura, 1923, in Pasadena, a short walk from The Gamble House, Charles and Henry Greene's 1908 masterwork of American Arts & Crafts architecture.

Below: detail of the Samuel Freeman House, also circa 1923, just up the hill from Hollywood Boulevard.

After building the Hollyhock House in 1921, his first project in California, Wright set out to create 4 more homes in the Los Angeles area using his new “textile block” system of cast concrete blocks. In addition to the Millard House and Freeman House shown above, he built the Storer House at the west end of Hollywood Boulevard (bought and restored in the 1980s and still in private hands), and the Ennis House, in the Hollywood Hills below the Griffith Observatory.

Wright's patterned cast concrete looks great, especially as it is shadowed by the unique light of Southern California. This construction method embodies his ideal of “organic architecture:” sand in the concrete came from the construction sites. While the concrete was beautifully handled by the genius Wright, it has proven to be highly susceptible to aging and all the buildings have required tremendous work in recent decades just to keep them standing. Even with rebar tying the blocks together, this construction technique probably wasn't the best choice for a region beset by earthquakes and torrential rains.

Below: the Storer House, Hollywood, California (private):

Below: the Ennis House, Hollywood, California. Notice that the building is clad in construction scaffolding; this was during 2007's long-needed stabilization project to secure the home on its hillside perch.

Here are some photos of the concrete blocks disintegrating at the building's foundation, and a New York Times article from 2005 about the restoration of the Ennis House.

Technorati Tags: architecture, California, EnnisHouse, FrankLloydWright, FreemanHouse, LosAngeles, MillardHouse, StorerHouse

San Jose’s City Hall: California futurism

What we have here is the long-awaited “Future” as realized by architect Richard Meier in San Jose, California's new City Hall — finished in 2005, photographed here in 2008:

It's found at 200 East Santa Clara Street in San Jose, California (Google map) — the so-called “Capital of Silicon Valley.”

As always, start at Wikipedia for more info about San Jose City Hall.

Technorati Tags: architecture, California, RichardMeier, SanJose

The Bradbury Building, Los Angeles: an architectural treasure

The Bradbury Building [Wikipedia]  is a polished gem of historic architecture in downtown Los Angeles, built in 1893 and famous for its awe-inspiring light-filled central atrium with rich details. Best known for being used in the film Blade Runner, the building got run down over the years, until a major renovation in the early 1990s brought the edifice back to its former glory. The famous interior is a symphony of polished oak railings, doors and ceilings; ornate black cast iron balustrades and columns; yellow glazed and flat   bricks walls; creamily-colored floor tiles; and maroon and white marble stair steps. Check out these historic photos on the Library of Congress website.

Here are some photos I shot in June 2007 of this spectacular interior atrium.

Below: detail of the railing on the second floor's mezzanine.

 Below: looking across the central atrium.

Below: the floor in the central atrium.

Technorati Tags: architecture, BradburyBuilding, historic, LosAngeles

The beautiful cube: modern architecture in the slot, south of Market Street

San Francisco's South of Market neighborhood has been going through an interesting transformation in recent years. I suppose you could simply call it gentrification: flop houses and factories make way for architect's and realtor's and web designer's loft conversion offices. But that's a silly word for the process of urban evolution, especially here in this very young city (with barely 160 years under its belt).

The rapidly evolving San Francisco economy has made south of Market a place of amazing built diversity, where new construction sits side by side with decrepit century-old buildings. Meanwhile, up in the north-east corner of the area, the Financial District's glass skyscrapers have been marching confidently into SoMa as downtown, once confined to north of Market, grows southward. Riding my bike and walking through the neighborhood, I'm often pleasantly surprised to find a new-ish and interesting building filling a slot in the urban grid.

Here's one I shot at Tehama and Gallagher, by Jim Jennings Architecture.

Bored? Looking to kill time? See my earlier posts about SoMa modernism:

• A perfect copper box: South of Market modernism
• Young San Francisco

And modern architecture elsewhere in San Francisco:

• The Copper Building ~ killer modernism
• Potrero Hill, Volkswagen, and Modernist Housing
• Modern Architecture around Buena Vista Park
• Valencia Gardens cultivated: modernism in public housing
• The only good Victorian is a gutted and modernized Victorian

And my Flickr photo set:

• san francisco // living city

Technorati Tags: architecture, modern, ModernArchitecture, modernism, SanFrancisco, soma, SouthOfMarket

2005-2007 18th Street: mega modern new architecture on Potrero Hill

This new work of architecture at 18th and Rhode Island Streets in San Francisco's Potrero Hill neighborhood will surely be showing up soon in better design Web sites and magazines. It's still under construction but is finally ready enough for its glamour shot. Potrero Hill has been sprouting a number of modern home designs over the past few years, but this one goes the extra mile, not only in its bold design but also its spanning of two city lots. Still, its residents will have to contend with the Muni #19 bus line, who's diesel groans up that hill at all hours.

The home looks like it'll actually be multi-family: it has 2 addresses on the north elevation, 2005 and 2007 18th Street (Google map), and another address on the Rhode Island side. A look at the Live Local satellite view shows that two homes were razed to make way for the new building:

Directly to the north of the lot, across 18th Street and in the foreground of the bottom picture, is a still-empty lot, which is the location of the occasional Potrero Walk-in Movies.

Check out more Potero Hill modernism here on Le Blog Exuberance:

• Modernist apartment building
• High Modernism at Carolina & 22nd Street
• 2130 24th Street: woody modernism looking good
• Cactus moderne: 618 Carolina Street
• 705 Utah Street: the street address that has no street
• The machine in the garden // the garden in the machine

Technorati Tags: architecture, homes, modern, ModernArchitecture, moderndesign, modernism, PotreroHill, residential, SanFrancisco

Boca Paila fishing resort: Mexican modern architecture

While recently vacationing in Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, we stumbled upon the  Boca Paila fishing  lodge. I was surprised to see that the resort's guest bungalows were built in a cool modernismo (or should I say moderno?) architectural style. They're set on the edge of the beach, looking out to the spectacular aqua-green Carribean Sea and surrounded by the lush tropical foliage that makes up this area of Mexico known as the Sian Ka'an Biosphere Reserve. 

These modernist bungalows were most notable for their slatted-wood porch enclosures that wrapped around the front corner of an austere concrete box. Extending over  the porch is a  cantilever, partially mirrored on the ground by the front step.

Below: the resort's entrance is found along a dirt road, marked by this sign:

Technorati Tags: Boca-Paila, FishingResort, Mexico, QuintanaRoo, Tulum, YucatanPeninsula

One Rincon Hill

One Rincon Hill, soon to be San Francisco's
tallest residential skyscraper,
as seen from Interstate 80's
Oakland Bay Bridge freeway ramp.

» Also see One Rincon Hill: high-rise rising in San Francisco [Le Blog]

Bullocks Wilshire building: an Art Deco classic in Los Angeles

A store like no other, the architectural gem is considered a national treasure, part of the fabric of Los Angeles, indelibly etched into the city's cultural soul. Historian David Gebhard calls the building “one of the key monuments of the art deco style in America and the most beautifully and consistently carried out.” Noted Los Angeles architect, Albert C. Martin says, “Bullock's was a magnificent architectural expression, a high quality design using outstanding materials. It created a new spirit in retailing.” Historian Kevin Starr wrote that Bullock's Wilshire “celebrated and climaxed the expansion of a decade… reflecting the confidence and optimism of Los Angeles.” (from Balcony Press)

In 1988-1989, I dated a woman who worked as a buyer for Bullocks Wilshire. In the morning, she'd drop me off at my job at McManus & Morgan (see my blog post) on 7th Street, a few blocks away. After I got off work at 5:30pm (a 9 hour day, a job I worked for eight years) I'd walk over to this amazing building and wait for her in the building's famous porte-cochere, through which wealthy Angelenos drove their pricey cars.

Technorati Tags: architecture, ArtDeco, BullocksWilshire, LosAngeles, WilshireBoulevard

The only good Victorian is a gutted and modernized Victorian

I'm no fan of the Victorian housing stock that covers large parts of San Francisco. While it's preferable to the offensively bland homes built between the Victorian era and our current embrace of modernism, the catacombs of most Victorian homes in San Francisco make for weird and unpleasant living spaces.

In comes architect John Maniscalco, who has taken an 1910 Victorian in San Francisco's Western Addition neighborhood, and dropped in a two-story tall glass-walled lightshaft:

This solves one of the worst problems of homes built on San Francisco's tight urban grid: no windows on the sides of the home, making for dark interior rooms. While some Victorians have side lightwells, Maniscalco's solution goes much further.

The architect has removed the sidewells, flattening out those indents in the walls, and instead carved out a floor-penetrating lightwell in the center. From the photo above, you can see that there are doors on at least two sides of the glass cube, allowing residents to open that cube for fresh air. Brilliant!

Here's what the architect told the San Francisco Chronicle:

“A number of light wells at the perimeter were more constricting than opening in many ways. The idea of giving light and air a spatial center extended the space. While we took space from the center, we added a greater sense of space.”

See the whole story New life in the West: Cubism within a Victorian brings uncommon comfort and light by San Francisco Chronicle reporter Zahid Sardar.

* * *

A look around the architect's Web site reveals that he is also responsible for the “mixed-use residential building” being built on 22nd Street in the Mission, next to the building where Boogaloo's is. Here's a rendering from his site:

However, the last time I looked at the construction site, it appeared that work was pretty much on hold. I wonder what the story is — do any of you readers know what's going on with this project?

22nd Street, by the way — best damn street in the Mission!

Technorati Tags: 22ndStreet, mission, MissionDistrict, JohnManiscalco, SanFrancisco, Victorian, WesternAddition

Cactus moderne: 618 Carolina Street, Potrero Hill

Here's a recent remodel on San Francisco's Potrero Hill:

618, 620 and 622 Carolina Street is about as fine a modern city home (for three families) that I've seen built in years. Generous balconies allow for the outdoor living so often possible in this sunny side of town. The monumental cactii Euphorbias add a Palm Springs Moderne flair to the streetscape, and the garage door follows our currently developing tradition of using wood in modern façades. There's also a nice use of industrial materials in the black metal railings and especially in that trellis at top, which will probably be covered in hanging purple wisteria in a few years. All in all, a fine addition to our neighborhood.

Technorati Tags: modern, modernarchitecture, moderndesign, modernism, PotreroHill, SanFrancisco