Page 4 of 5
Pasadena, California
I'm drinking Hennessey with Morrissey on a beach out of reach somewhere very far away
The Gamble part of Procter and Gamble abandoned Cincinnati (at least in the winter) and built himself a house like no other. The Gamble House (in a surprisingly forested area of Pasadena overlooking the Rose Bowl) is the penultimate California bungalow house and the most famous building ever completed by Greene and Greene (or Greene or Greene for that matter). The perfect anecdote for anyone who didn't like the Morphosis slides from yesterday, the house (from way back in 1908) is open for tours, unbelievably dark on the inside (we were told the Gambles feared electric lights would destroy their precious capitalist eyes) and possibly built for super short people or children- the chairs were almost unbelievably small. Still the public rooms downstairs were amazing, although I felt things started to fall apart a little after you cleared that oh so well done stair.
While I was certainly impressed with the house and the tours (given by a series of location appropriate little old ladies), I will also admit to being impressed by some parts more than others. The craftsmanship was as beautiful as you would expect for a wealthy house from 1908, the design innovative at points and (at least) thorough at others, the details and custom furniture all individually beautiful, especially in the public spaces.
Photography was not allowed in the cave-like interior (presumably as so the flashes would not disturb any of the nocturnal creatures who must have found their way in by now), but luckily there was enough going on outside that no one with a camera really leaves all that disappointed in the end.
As always I enjoyed my time in Los Angeles, a place that I am familiar enough with by now that a fair amount of the other AIA people I encountered thought I was local. On my day off from the convention (represented by these slides) I took a chance to enjoy the improving weather and actually use my uninspiring rental car to get out of the city, if that's even possible in a city that extends as far as possible in every imaginable direction.
In between all those tours I did get a few other chances to enjoy some fun, with my personal favorite event being a special showing of the classic 1980 film Airplane! as part of the AFI 100 Years 100 Movie Quotes Series at the Arclight theatres, inarguably the greatest movie theatre ever built by man, beast or god. Before the show a woman from the American Film Institute came out and introduced the movie from a podium, previewed the quote ("I am serious... and don't call me Shirley") and thus gave the film all of the appropriate gravitas it so richly deserves.
Five (or so) minutes by car from the Eames house in Pacific Palisades or ten (or so) minutes by foot from the legendary architecture bookstore Hennessey and Ingalls (on Wilshire a block west of the pedestrian mall), Santa Monica is home to Frank Gehry, Morphosis and the US office of Behnisch and Behnisch, all living side by side with all of the tourists, freaks, locals, homeless people and refugees fleeing the AIA Convention that you could ever hope to possibly see.
And while (as always) I was tempted to live beside the ocean, leave the fire behind, swim out past the breakers and watch the world die (it is Santa Monica after all) I resisted once again. This is the view from the world famous Santa Monica Pier, at the foot of Santa Monica Boulevard, at the foot of the legendary Route 66, looking north past the PCH, past Pacific Palisades and on toward Malibu where the mountains (at least that day) started their long, steady fade into the horizon.
