Author: Lyra
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The Wedge: Redesigning the Cabin
After his first camping trip to Yosemite, in 1921, architect Rudolf Schindler declared that he wanted to build a “permanent tent.” A couple years later, his newly built home in West Hollywood featured sleeping porches sheltered by canvas for outdoor slumber, and yards landscaped to function as outdoor living rooms, with fireplaces in case one…
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Designed for Impact: Saul Bass
Even if you haven’t heard of Saul Bass, you know his work. From the poster for Hitchcock’s Vertigo and the shower scene in Psycho to the logos for AT&T and Quaker Oats to the humble, cheerful Dixie cup, Bass’s designs have become emblems of midcentury style and a ubiquitous part of our visual culture. A new hefty, lushly illustrated book…
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Review: Everything Loose Will Land
“Tip the world over on its side, and everything loose will land in Los Angeles,” said Frank Lloyd Wright. He was referring to the city’s salmagundi of building styles, but a fascinating exhibition at the MAK Center for Art and Architecture at the Schindler House has repurposed the phrase. It looks at LA’s architecture and art from the…
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The Remarkable Nature Boys of Los Angeles
A photograph taken near Palm Springs, California, depicts a long-haired, bearded man sitting on a tree stump playing slide guitar. He’s barefoot and wears a loose wrap around his waist. Behind him is a simple hut he built himself, covered with palm fronds. The man is William Pester. He’s been living in the desert for…
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Good Design Is for Everyone: The Evolution of Low-Income Housing in L.A.
The phrases “public housing” or “low-income housing” do not generally conjure thoughts of architectural innovation. Instead, one may envision rows of faded pastel cubes surrounded by dead lawns and tall fences, or looming concrete towers gridded with small windows. Both schemes are typically weighted with a grim institutional air, appear to have been built as…
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Moshe Safdie: A Retrospective
We begin with Habitat, Moshe Safdie’s revolutionary prefab housing constructed for the 1967 Montreal World Expo. His first completed design of 85 projects and counting, it is an exhilarating opening for a retrospective, and a lucky one – how many young architects get their thesis project built, and featured at a global expo? Habitat’s fractal…
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Surreal Grandeur of San Francisco’s Little-Known Salt Fields
The southern end of the San Francisco Bay Area is known for expensive real estate, tech companies, and aerospace engineers. Less well known is its salt content. Yet the salt industry has been a vital part of the South Bay for more than a century. Fly into any of the region’s airports and evidence of this…
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Tomas Koolhaas’s Film about his Father, Rem
On the poshest stretch of Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, couture boutiques line up in a solid row of glass, concrete and metal, each towering doorway guarded by a sharply dressed greeter. Occupying the middle of the block is Prada’s Epicenter store, designed by Rem Koolhaas in 2004. While the facade has been altered significantly…
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Ball Nogues’ Yucca Crater in the Desert
Heading east out of the tiny town of 29 Palms, in southern California’s Mojave Desert, the two-lane road cuts through miles of flat land. After a 20-minute drive through this monotonous landscape, a dirt road turns off to the left. There, looming incongruously, is a large wooden cone with a skin of scaffolding rising out…
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Images from the Stasi Archives
Simon Menner’s new book Top Secret: Images from the Stasi Archives examines the vast collection of information and photos once gathered by the East German secret police. While coincidental, the timing couldn’t be better as news about the NSA surveillance program continues to dominate headlines. “I had come to realize that the public has very…
Lyra Kilston 