One of LA’s treasures is the MAK Center for Art and Architecture, housed in the seminal Schindler House by Austrian emigre Rudolf Schindler. But the upkeep of the 1922 concrete house is costly, as is the stewardship and programming of the MAK-owned  Mackey Apartments (1939) and the Fitzpatrick-Leland House (1936), also designed by R.M. Schindler.

So the MAK Center has dreamed up an enlightening auction. This Friday evening they will host their first “Day of the Dead Auction”, entitled, Light My Way, Stranger, a sale of lights designed by influential LA architects and artists, including B+U – Herwig Baumgartner (light shown left), Florencia Pita (light shown right), and many other talents.

To be held in the Hollywood Hills, and MC’d by auctioneer Peter Loughrey, the evening will also “feature sounds by LA Fog, an experimental chamber music collective; and flavors by artist Sarah Beadle and Notch, an ensemble collective that produces ephemeral culinary and service interventions.”

 

The City of Los Angeles, with Caltrans, has been looking for a team to design its replacement 6th Street Viaduct. Now they have picked the winner.

DnA has followed this competition since its inception, seeing in it the potential for LA to make not only an architecturally significant piece of infrastructure (who doesn’t gasp at a really amazing bridge!), but also a piece of urban design that will help — if the full design dream can be realized — turn industrial wastelands and an underutilized river edge in Boyle Heights and downtown Los Angeles into parks and public space. Alex Ward, Chair of Friends of the LA River, which had campaigned hard for years to raise the level of ambition for the bridge, wrote this reflection on the announcement and the winning design:

On Friday morning, a phalanx of city officials, consultants and community members gathered 100 feet in the air above the Los Angeles River, on the center span of the soon-to-bedemolished 6th Street Bridge, to unveil the design for its replacement.

Mayor Villaraigosa, squinting into the morning sun, announced that the unanimous choice of the City’s Bureau of Engineering, Caltrans and a volunteer design advisory committee was the proposal put forth by the team of architect and engineering giant HNTB, local architects Michael Maltzan Architecture, AC Martin, and landscape architect Hargreaves Associates.

Then, with a dramatic flourish, the Mayor, joined by local councilman Jose Huizar and the City’s chief engineer Gary Lee Moore, pulled back a black cloth to unveil a large model of the winning proposal. What was revealed was a rhythmic progression of 10 paired arches leaping, more-or-less gracefully, across the 3500 foot span from Boyle Heights to downtown, including the relatively short hop over the River itself. For fans mourning the demise of the existing, iconic 1932 doublearched bridge, the multiplication of arches in the replacement scheme may prove some solace, though the design is emphatically contemporary rather than nostalgic.

All three competition entries (AECOM and Parsons Brinckerhoff were the other contestants) are relatively cautious structurally and aesthetically compared with audacious new bridges being built world-wide (see the recent design for a trampoline bridge over the Seine in Paris!; image: ATELIER ZÜNDEL CRISTEA), partly due to the tight budget and physical constraints imposed by the original competition invitation.

But perhaps most significantly, all three designs explore the intriguing potential of the space below the current structure, neglected land between warehouses and over railroad tracks as well as the concrete-lined channel of the River. Each design proposes a chain of outdoor public spaces linking Boyle Heights to downtown and tieing the roadway to the river below via suspended pedestrian and bicycle paths and platforms.

What makes the HNTB design the stand-out is its decision to take advantage of the full length of the bridge and roadway, 3500 feet in all, rather than focusing attention primarily on the short span over the river itself, as the other schemes do. Its series of leaping, outward-leaning, double arches creates a long, dramatic profile, interacting nicely with the outline of the other, historic river bridges on either side as well as the skyline of downtown LA and the mountains in the background. The illuminated night view should be a knock-out, and a new landmark for the city.

Bridge users will also get a powerful spatial – and almost cinematic – experience as they pass between the ten pairs of arches, framing changing snapshots of the surrounding landscape from high in the air. And on the ground, the long, leaping structure overhead, if one can believe the team’s images, will be soaring and daring, rather than heavy and oppressive. The proportions and details need to be studied carefully to make sure this is the final outcome.

Perhaps the greatest significance of this project is its implications for the rebirth of this part of downtown Los Angeles and the ongoing revitalization of the Los Angeles River. The project’s total price tag of $400 million, its size, and its six year time frame (predicted completion date 2018) will inevitably catalyze other activity in a part of the city already seeing an influx of new housing, restaurants and creative businesses into an area still solidly manufacturing-oriented.

The good news is that the winning design’s emphasis on open space, recreation and connection with the River will guarantee urban amenities in this part of evolving Los Angeles that are still woefully lacking in much of the city. As Yuval Bar-Zemer, a local landowner in the adjacent Arts District and a member of the design advisory panel, commented at the unveiling, “we are ready to start planting trees right now.”

Hear more from Alex Ward and other guests about the 6th Street Bridge and the competition process on these past shows, here and here.

Two and half years ago a young Los Angeles girl named Julia Cukier Siegler lost her life in a traffic accident on her way to school. One of Julia’s many passions was working with clay; at age 13 she was already skilled in the difficult craft of throwing pots on a wheel.

Now, in her memory, her parents have joined forces with AMOCA, the American Museum of Ceramic Art, located in Pomona, which both collects, and teaches, the art of ceramics. On Sunday afternoon, October 14, AMOCA will host Teens at the Wheel: A Day in Clay in Memory of Julia with Weil Ware Raffle and “Collecting California” Mixer. The event will give teens, for the cost of a raffle ticket, the chance to experiment on a potter’s wheel.

The day will also mark the start of AMOCA’s “Collecting California,” a show of production ceramics that flourished in mid-century Southern California (at its peak, the state boasted over 600 ceramic factories); it will feature a display of Weil Ware, maker of mass-produced, decorative dinnerware, that has been donated to the museum by Jody and Scott Siegler in memory of their beloved daughter.

One of the reasons ceramics is so appealing is because it bears the hand of the maker, and this has particular meaning for the Sieglers. Says Jody Siegler about the creations her daughter left behind,  ”I cup my hands around the bowls she once cupped with hers, each embedded with fingerprints of love and creativity, which remain forever fixed in the clay and the people she touched.”

One of the many wonderful things about Los Angeles is that politics is not everything. So if you want to shake that debate right out of your hair and be reminded of the optimism of great creativity, take note of the following:

Opening tonight with a party at Moura Starr International is DIEM(Design Intersects Everything Made), a one-day design symposium taking place Friday, October 5 , 2012, at various locations within the Avenues of Art and Design District in West Hollywood. Panels will include a discussion about Eero Saarinen — at Jules Seltzer & Associates –  and, at Minotti, a chat with Yours Truly and art writer Shana Nys Dambrot about LA art, popular culture and museums.

And speaking of. . . Eero Saarinen, opening Friday night is A+D Museum’s new show, Eero Saarinen: A Reputation for Innovation, on view through January 3rd, 2013. Curated by Mina Marefat, and presented by ASSA ABLOY and Matt Construction, the show will highlight the Finnish-born Saarinen’s (1910 – 1961)  “short but brilliant career bookended with two iconic buildings: the unbuilt Smithsonian Gallery of Art. . . and Dulles International Airport, the nation’s first jet airport. . . The exhibition will present his contribution to California and mid-century, as well as (and this is fascinating, Saarinen as Double O. . .) ”shed light on the little known chapter of Eero Saarinen’s secret professional life during the WWII when he served in the OSS, the precursor of the CIA.” According to the museum, “his wartime experience influenced and helped Eero Saarinen establish himself as one of the most creative designers with products that broke technological and aesthetic boundaries including the Tulip chair and the Womb chair, both still in production by Knoll.”

The opening reception is Friday, October 5th from 6 – 9pm (opening reception admission $20 General, $10 Students, A+D Members Free). A+D Museum is located at 6032 Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90036.

And speaking of midcentury design. . . one of the people responsible for reviving global interest in California’s formidable contribution to this epoch, is Peter Loughrey, the always charming and entertaining founder of LA Modern Auctions. Since getting into the midcentury market with then relatively affordable Eames chairs and other post-war Socal classics, 20 years later, LAMA has branched into design and artefacts from the pre-war and post-Modern decades as well as carving a new niche in art.

The auction house is holding its 20^th anniversary sale this Sunday, October 7, and will feature, says Peter, “over 500 lots of rare and important fine art and design, including a strong selection of works by Richard Pettibone, Blue Surround from 1982 by Richard Diebenkorn, nine works by Andy Warhol, a hand-decorated motorcycle gas tank by Keith Haring, a collage by Yayoi Kusama, a painting by Roland Peterson, and a drawing by David Hockney.”

Among other gems: a Jean Prouve table from 1954 that was commissioned for a hotel in Cameroon, an selection of Greta Grossman designs and. . . chairs by Eero Saarinen.

(Note: I ran into Peter last weekend at Art Platform 2012, shown in this picture by this Gio Ponti sideboard. And he made the most intriguing observation having nothing to do with his auction this weekend. Based on his experience driving around he thinks that people waiting the left turning lane now text or check messagse until you honk; ie. they expect the driver, behind them, ie, You, to alert them when the lights change. He theorizes that rather than being annoyed when you honk, they expect you to act as their alarm so they can check texts at leisure. Love it. New Rules for driving in the digital age.)

Auction date: Sunday, October 7, 2012; 12 p.m; 16145 Hart St. Van Nuys, CA 91406 | 323-904-1950 | www.lamodern.com

And speaking of. . . Eames chairs, I have to stop and give a shout-out here to Joel Chen, AKA JF Chen, dealer and design impressario extraordinaire, whose amazing shows at his Highland Avenue showroom included an exhibit of his 400+ Eames Chairs, and who last night was given a richly deserved  2012 Design Leadership Award by LACMA’s Decorative Arts and Design Council. They are purchasing this Nocturne radio (1934, Walter Dorwin, Teague, for the Sparton Corporation) in Joel’s honor with the funds raised from the Opening Night Party for the LA Antiques, Art, and Design show taking place next Wednesday.

Joel was given his award at LACMA’s Directors Lounge, greeted by admirers who had managed to tear themselves away from that debate, and he stunned them not only by actually speaking out (he usually keeps a low profile) but also with his sartorial dudeness, showing (left, in photo above) young Socal men how they should dress (if they could afford it), in his laceless lace-up shoes from Prada, spiffy drainpipe pants from Margiela, and jacket from Thom Browne.

And, speaking of. . . Greta Magnussen Grossman (shown, her rare three panel folding screen in walnut and metal, 1952, designed for Glenn of California, Los Angeles, 1952), the Pasadena Museum of California Art (PMCA) will host a show of her work, Greta Magnusson Grossman: A Car and Some Shorts. Opening Saturday, October 27, 2012, this first-ever retrospective showcases the work of pioneering Swedish-American architect and designer Greta Magnusson Grossman (1906-1999), whose functionalist work underwent a meteoric rise upon settling in Los Angeles.

To Grossman, says PMCA, modern design was “not a superimposed style, but an answer to present conditions… developed out of our preferences for living in a modern way.”. .  In the 1940s and 1950s, Grossman designed two of her most iconic products, the Grasshopper floor lamp and the Cobra floor and table lamps.

She also designed homes, fifteen of which are in California. Frequently built on “problem lots” on the sides of a hill or canyon with the aid of stilts, she employed curtain walls of glass and free-flowing floor plans to take advantage of their hilltop locations. Her houses were often the first to bring modernism to their neighborhoods.

Organized by the Swedish Museum of Architecture and R 20th Century Gallery, New York City, the exhibition is curated by Evan Snyderman of R 20th Century Gallery and Karin Åberg Waern, curator, Arkitekturmuseet. Greta Magnusson Grossman: A Car and Some Shorts exhibition opened at the Swedish Museum of Architecture on February 9, 2010.

OPENING RECEPTION 

Saturday, October 27, 2012

7:00 – 9:00 pm

$5 admission

You’d have to have been living under the proverbial (not LACMA’s) rock to not know that there has been a rumpus in the LA art world recently surrounding the provocative new directions at MOCA.

Along the way it has thrown up all sorts of fascinating questions about art and museums. Who defines them and who are they for? Can art museums be elitist and populist? What about museums as social space?

I’ll discuss all of this and more with the witty art writer Shana Nys Dambrot, (in photo, left), on a panel this Friday afternoon, September 5, at DIEM, an all-day conference in West Hollywood co-sponsored by KCRW. And for KCRW’s take this summer on the MOCA debate, listen to this Which Way LA.

DIEM takes place, by the way, the same as A+D Museum opens its show about Finnish-born designer Eero Saarinen. His work will be discussed in one of several other great panels at DIEM.