The Modern Visions of Julius Shulman

The great architectural photographer Julius Shulman died this past week, at the age of 98. His photographs helped define the look and perception of modern architecture for most of the 20th century.



This photograph of Case Study House #22 by Pierre Koenig in 1960 helped to convince many Americans that Los Angeles was the city to plant their roots in. It remains Shulman's most iconic image.


The Kaufmann House by Richard Neutra in Palm Springs circa 1947. One of the most iconic houses of the 20th century with quite a storied history including once being owned by Barry Manilow who remodeled it to fit his decidedly unmodern tastes. As of May 2009, it was for sale for $13 million.

images via The Wirtz Gallery

Skate Date

For Valentine's, we decided to take Alex ice skating for the first time. He was very excited to go. We went to Anaheim Ice (formerly Disney Ice, which built the facility back when they owned the Mighty Ducks hockey team) as there aren't that many ice skating rinks left in Orange County. Besides, we like the architecture by Frank Gehry. Aside from being a great architect, Gehry is Canadian and thus a hockey fan. When Disney commissioned him to design an ice rink/training facility, he came up with a Quonset hut-inspired building, that former Disney CEO Michael Eisner said in the film Sketches of Frank Gehry resembled part of the female anatomy. Maybe that's why I like the building. Judge for yourself:


via hockeynut10 at Flickr

Enough with the building. We got our skates on and Alex felt very nervous trying to walk on them. We finally got on the ice and Alex was clutching on to us as he was trying to figure out why his feet kept sliding. Well, we were on the ice for a minute and then they announced that everyone had to get off because the Zamboni needed to groom the rink. That allowed Armilyn to grab a snack and gain some energy.

After the 15 minute break (where my feet were already starting to hurt), we got back on the ice. It had been 10 years since Armilyn and I skated, so we weren't that stable either. We all stuck to hugging the wall, with one of us taking turns holding Alex's left hand while he held the wall with his right. He loved the experience, even falling down, because the ground-up ice looked like snow.

We skated for a little over an hour until the session ended. By that time, I could barely hold myself up in the skates.


Alex and me taking a break halfway around the rink.




Panorama of the other rink where a girls figure skating competition was going on.

Earlier that morning, Alex helped make Valentine pancakes for breakfast


Back on Thursday, Alex decorated our Valentine Twig Tree with heart ornaments.

post by David

Visual Acoustics

For our 100th post, we present Visual Acoustics, a documentary film about Julius Shulman, famed photographer of modern architecture. Many of the famous images of modern architecture in Los Angeles and across the world were photographed by him. Here is the trailer:


post by David

Architecture School

I downloaded a free episode of the new series "Architecture School" from the Sundance Channel. It follows a class of architecture students at Tulane University as they design and build a home in a recovering area of New Orleans. It was a very interesting episode. I'll have to ask Mom to record the rest of the series since we don't get the Sundance Channel.

Architecture School

Beijing Olympics

I am not a sports guy, but the few times I do get into it is during the Olympics. 2 weeks every 4 years is enough of a sports fix for me. I recently came across some beautiful photos taken from the opening ceremonies that were posted here.

I think this is my favorite, as I love the architecture of both buildings.


Though this one, while I think it's staged, is a close second:



post by David

Seattle Public Library

Back in 2005, we visited Seattle. One of the things I wanted to see was the brand new Seattle Public Library.

picture from AIA



Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas and his Office of Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) designed the library. As you can see, the library is very modern, and while the design team later reluctantly admitted to having a "style," Joshua Prince Ramus (former head of OMA’s US office) explains the rationale in this video.

We visited the library on our first day and were lucky enough to get a free public architecture tour.


The librarian desk and Reading Room


Reading in the Reading Room (really)


Overhead view of the Reading Room


Red stairs leading to meeting room level


The Red meeting room level





That chair is made from the same spongy stuff as a Nerf ball


Upper level Mixing Chamber

Unfortunately I couldn’t get accurate pictures of the main part the library, which is the Book Spiral. Essentially following the same principal as a parking garage, the Spiral allows the library to store their collection on one "level" so they don’t have to break up the Dewey Decimal system. In other libraries, because of space, collections usually need to be split. In the Spiral that never will happen.

We loved the openess of the building and the natural light that the glass exterior lets drift in. It was a risky move for the city to go forward with such a modern, almost brutal design, but once you are inside, you forget about that and just enjoy the atmosphere.

More about Seattle soon.

post by David