Exploring the people, places & culture of greater LA
Today the Los Angeles Times published two interesting articles about Case Study House No. 8, more commonly known as the Eames house. Completed in 1949 by Charles and Ray Eames, the landmark Pacific Palisades house is an icon of modern design and a favorite building of mine in Los Angeles.
In the July/August 2011 issue of Metropolis Magazine, Los Angeles Times architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne examines how Central Los Angeles High School No. 9 actually functions for the students, teachers and support staff who use the building daily, two years after its grand opening. As Hawthorne explains in his introduction, the article is “…an experiment in crowd-sourced criticism… and an attempt to accomplish something all too rare in design journalism: to understand how a new and ambitious piece of architecture works in the real world.”
In 1962, the City of Los Angeles enacted its Cultural Heritage Ordinance, which enables the five-member Cultural Heritage Commission to designate buildings and sites within the city as local landmarks, called “Historic-Cultural Monuments.” Last month this important historic preservation program reached a significant milestone when the Golden State Mutual Life Insurance building, located at 1999 W. Adams Boulevard in the West Adams neighborhood, was designated Historic-Cultural Monument #1000.
If you ever spent time exploring the area around Old Pasadena, you undoubtedly noticed the beautiful Castle Green, built in 1898 as an annex to the Hotel Green resort. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places and the National Archives of Significant Interiors, this seven story historic landmark was built by Col. George G. Green of the Patent Medicine Business in the Moorish, Colonial, and Spanish styles and is graced by ornate furnishings and an elegant ballroom.
Today marks the start of the Los Angeles Design Festival (LADF), which celebrates the greater LA region’s status as a global design capital. The LADF’s events, featuring local and international design talent, are located all over Los Angeles in venues that range from the Los Angeles Convention Center to small design showrooms.
On Wednesday night I attended a screening of Captain Blood, the classic Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland film released in 1935 by Warner Bros. and directed by Michael Curtiz. This was the third of six motion pictures that make up the Los Angeles Conservancy’s annual program called Last Remaining Seats. Now in its 25th year, this unique event celebrates classic films and live entertainment in LA’s historic theaters.
The 2006 Southern California Environmental Report Card, published by the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, included a study titled Urban Parks, written by Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris. It analyzed “the provision and politics of open space in Los Angeles by focusing on three different but interrelated aspects of park politics:
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