Hollylock House, Los Angeles

Spent a couple of hours at Hollylock House. About 20 blocks away from the Renaissance hotel on Hollywood Drive. Frank Lloyd Wright’s first commission in Los Angeles (several were to follow). Commissionned by Aline Barsndall, the scion of one of the first oil fortunes in the US, and we are told a rather unconventional and independent-minded woman, who early on, had decided to support theatre and asked Wright to design and build her a theatre complex in Los Angeles. Project turned to build a house first – the theatre never saw the light of day until much later on, paid by someone else and designed by someone else.

The house was completed in 1921 and is very much in the style of Frank Lloyd Wright – the recurring thematic decorating feature throughout the house, inside and outside – in this case the stylized hollylock that looks like inspired from a Maya design (which apparently Wright strongly denied!) low archways leading to narrow doors; his own designed oak furniture; stained windows; patches of water here and there; opening up the interior to the exterior surroundings with rooms openings to gardens and views; etc... The place has been subjected to some renovations and lately restorations since its construction, but I think it looks pretty well the way it did back in the 20’s, including the furniture of the living room, which are in fact beautiful replicates. Lots of personal stories, the owner, the architect, the contractors, and their multitudes of disagreements and battles, etc. – the place ended up costing 3 times the initial $50,000 budgeted for it, and that after Barnsdall’s financial handlers forced her to rein in Wright and his contractors – the docent likes to regal us with (we are 2 people taking the tour! The whole house is open for visit) In the end, Barnsdall did not like the house very much and left a few years after its construction. She left it to the city of Los Angeles to look after it, as a place to be dedicated to the Arts...

The place is built on a vast expanse on top of a hill that offers a 360-degree-view on the surrounding LA landscape and the ocean (“by a clear day” we are told, which does not happen very often nowadays in LA, but then, it must have been a different story). I meandered around the place for a good half hour, taking in the various perspectives on the house and the property, under a nice end-of-afternoon and still warm sun.

On the park grounds that surround the house, a tai-kwan-do class in full practice...

(check http://www.hollyhockhouse.net/index.htm)

See my pictures at http://www.flickr.com/photos/bourlingue/sets/72157617226750522/

Two quotes from Wright that I enjoy:

About Hollylock House, in a letter to Aline Barnsdall:
"Well -- the building stands ...
It is yours for what it has cost you.
It is mine for what it has cost me.
And it is for all mankind ...
Whatever its birth pangs,
it will take its place as your contribution and mine
to the vexed life of our time."

About life: “Give me the luxuries of life and I will willingly do without the necessities”!

Annenberg Space for Photography

Annenberg Space for Photography
« Community space » just opened. Dedicated to photography. Located where the Shubert Theatre used to be, in Century City. Great facility.

Inaugural exhibit dedicated to photographers/photography of Los Angeles (“l8s ang3les”): contemporary houses; celebrities of Hollywood; LA youth; war abroad. 8 worldwide known photographers, plus 3 photo-journalists from the Los Angeles Times. Particularly struck by Julius Shulman and Tim-Street Porter’s photos of modern Southern California houses.

Decided to buy Laurence Shulman’s massive 3-volume, coffee-table size, photo retrospective Modernism Rediscovered, published by Taschen, for her graduation gift.http://www.annenbergspaceforphotography.org/index.asp

Last picture above: Los Angeles downtown skyline seen from Hollywood.

Las Vegas - Excess!

I don’t particularly like Las Vegas – sorry for its fans!

Here to learn the state of an industry much bigger – wireless – that is redefining ours (music), I take advantage of the few moments I can get away to (re) acquaint myself with the place. One word comes to mind: excess! And God knows, we are in a recession – if it is happening here, you wouldn’t know it!

Plenty of people walking the streets (people sticking to sidewalks and overpasses to be more exact – this is not exactly the most pedestrian-friendly city; you got to walk long until you find a street-crossing path!) Middle America, Middle Asia. Young America, Retired America. Trash America, Fat America. It’s all here, not necessarily nice to see...

Paris, New-York, Egypt – the Eiffel tower, the Statue of Liberty, the Great Pyramid, all replicated in near-scale models along the famous Strip – it’s a DisneyWorld that, I suppose, gives tourists the comforting impression that “they have been there” (“why bother to go to any of these places – I have been to Las Vegas”!) The Bellagio, with its vast water plan at the front and a stunning lobby, I must admit, for its huge light well as a center piece, covered with multi-color flower-shaped glass decorations; striking – as if Chehuly had inspired the whole thing.

I won’t talk about the casinos, these interminable, cavernous halls that define each hotel I had to go through to go anywhere, populated by the omnipresent noisy, clinking and light-flashing slot machines, and peopled by a human fauna that ranges from the naive, I’m-going-to-make-it, star-struck neophytes, to the jaded, drinking and smoking, button-pushing past-prime players.

The Monorail is a novelty – not around last I was there in the 70’s. Quite convenient to go around town – stops being defined by the hotels they service (the one thing though, once you enter the first hotel at any station exit, you are lost as to where to go to get to the other establishments announced in the Monorail for that stop – so you walk and walk until you get to the front entrance, and then look up for the other hotel signs!) While being shuffled from one place to the other, you learn a few things over the Monorail PA system: In 2005, there were 20,120 conventions held here, attracting 6.5M participants, to which, to have a total count of visitors, you have to add some 33M others who came here just for fun – a stunning 40M visitors in a year! We learn that there are 6000 people coming to settle and live in Las Vegas every week; the city’s population mushroomed from 200,000 people in 1970 to 1.8M now! And other tit-bits: the average visitor spends in a stay 13.4 hours gambling some $660 – but who’s counting as the voice over the P.A. adds ironically!)

The good thing, if you are a fan of the Cirque du Soleil, there are 5 permanent shows in Vegas – 5! Went to see “Love”, an homage to the Beatles done in true Cirque-signature fashion, with lots of color and flying Lucy-in-the-Sky type of woman figures. Stunning! Less impressive is “Zumanity” with its erotic, titillating show, of near-naked, athletic bodies, male and female, doing tricks in water and in the air, with the benign contribution and support of the crowd. Should have gone to see “Kà”...

Loads of restaurants nested away in hotels - each with their celebrity chef, competiting for patrons. Went to Il Mulino of New York with an American colleague at his suggestion; excellent of course, but again, too much all around!

Will be back only if necessary to keep on top of this wireless industry that is so recasting ours!