4 days ago
New Documentary Series Reunites Los Angeles' Architecture Rebels
Seven young architects with emerging careers gather on Venice Beach in 1980. Their distinctive designs left a significant mark on the Los Angeles landscape. L TO R: Frederick Fisher, Robert Mangurian, Eric Owen Moss, Coy Howard, Craig Hodgetts, Thom Mayne, Frank Gehry. Ave Pildas / Courtesy of FORT: LA
A Los Angeles-based architectural advocacy group has created a 12-episode documentary series that reunites standout architects who, starting in the 1970s, shaped the city's mix of building styles. 'Rebel Architects: From Venice to the World Stage' is produced by the nonprofit Friends of Residential Treasures (FORT). The first episode was released July 1, and explored how seven visionary architects got their start and launched initial creative projects.
The second episode, 'Art and Rebellion in Venice in the '70s and '80s,' was released August 8 at Barnsdall Art Park in Los Feliz, north of downtown Los Angeles. Barnsdall is home to Frank Lloyd Wright's first Los Angeles commission, Hollyhock House, with its commanding monolithic forms, geometric ornamentation, and modern take on Mayan Revival architecture. It was built between 1918 and 1921.
Four of the architects originally photographed on Venice Beach in 1980 reunite at the same spot. Standing L to R: Frederick Fisher, Thom Mayne, Craig Hodgetts. Kneeling: Eric Owen Moss. Ave Pildas / Courtesy FORT: LA
The series' concept was conceived around a 1980 photograph shot on Venice Beach. In the photo, seven young architects gather in a semi-circle, their informal looks belying the gravitas of careers that, in coming decades, would significantly impact the look and feel of Los Angeles.
Four of the men look at the camera, one gazes at the distant beach, another scratches his head, and the last, the uber-famous Frank Gehry, studies the sand at his feet. Forty-five years after the photo was taken by Ave Pildas, the documentary series reunites four of the group members: Thom Mayne, Eric Owen Moss, Craig Hodgetts, and Frederick Fisher. Besides Gehry, the other two men in the 1980 photograph were Robert Mangurian and Coy Howard.
But why reassemble at least part of the group now, other than to reminisce about old times? The 1970s and '80s were a transitional period in Los Angeles' cultural history. The stark and lean look of mid-century minimalism had largely been banished. In its place: playful symbolism, color and novel forms.
Frank Gehry emerged as a revolutionary force during the era, his Santa Monica home, a small 1920s pink bungalow, renovated with such inexpensive materials as plywood, corrugated sheet metal and chain-link fencing. About 25 years later, Gehry's mathematically complex design for Walt Disney Concert Hall in downtown Los Angeles was realized (among numerous other landmark projects). Clad in stainless steel, the hall's sweeping concave and convex forms are at once a frothy and elegant statement on Grand Avenue.
A still from the documentary series, 'Rebel Architects: From Venice to the World Stage." L to R: host Frances Anderton, Frederick Fisher, Craig Hodgetts, Thom Mayne, Eric Owen Moss. Courtesy of FORT: LA.
The historical series, each episode less than 15 minutes long, is also meant to capture the 'camaraderie, creativity and passion of this iconic group," says Russell Brown, who directed and produced the series; Brown is FORT's founder and board chair. Journalist Frances Anderton hosts the series.
'We were all outcasts so far as the reality of our situation was,' says architect Frederick Fisher in the series' second episode. 'This vacuum was something that gave ... not just architects but filmmakers, everybody, a sense of no risk because there was no reward. And since there was no reward, you just, damn the torpedoes, just went ahead.'
Fisher's firm, Frederick Fisher and Partners, has mastered such projects as the renovation of Princeton's Firestone Library, the Sunnylands Visitor Center in Rancho Mirage, and a recent addition to the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. Witch Houses and Architectural Adventures
FORT also creates self-guided maps that detail Los Angeles architecture, 'each one a narrative adventure through the city's built landscape,' according to press materials.
LOS ANGELES - APRIL 1991: A view of the storybook style Spadena House aka the Witch's House in April 1991 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by) Getty Images
The mapped trail, 'Witch Houses,' guides walkers to various 1920s, '30s and '40s storybook homes (among other decades and styles) with wicked looks and other spook-related details. Are the owners actually witches? No, but given the distinctive architecture and backstories, that's easy to conclude. The trail became so popular that FORT has released five versions of it. Novelist and actor Amber Benson, who played the witch Tara Maclay on the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer , conceived and assembled the witch map series.
The rest of Los Angeles' architecture is not as eerie, but it's certainly intriguing. The varied styles include: Arts & Crafts, Streamline Moderne, Brutalist, Art Deco, Victorian, Googie, along with ranch style homes, elegant steel and glass residences, and dingbat apartment complexes, to name a few.
FORT has released 65 free architecture maps; a few are available via donation. Fifteen more trail maps are in development. Existing maps cover such subjects as: postwar Japanese American architects, small Neutra houses, homes built by Wallace Neff, South Los Angeles garden apartments, residences and housing projects built by Gregory Ain, buildings connected to the Civil Rights Movement, and Schindler multi-family homes.
FORT also sponsors artist-led collaborations that 'translate the experience of residential architecture into new forms—short films, playlists, cocktails, poems, and more,' according to its website. FORT's fellowship grants support original research that uncovers obscure stories and figures connected to Los Angeles residential design.
