Frank Lloyd’s blog

If you live in the forest, you make your house out of wood.  If you live by the river, you make your house out of stones.  It’s an old idea: use the available material.

So what if you live in California?  The history of California architecture is full of strong examples of structures that use simple materials, and marry those materials to a natural setting.  I’ve been around craftsman homes since I was 8, when I moved to a neighborhood full of modest bungalows in South Pasadena. I often visited the work of Greene and Greene, and I still do.  The Gamble House is just across the Arroyo Seco from my present home.  I still walk along the streets nearby, where the Greene brothers’ designs abound.  On the banks of the Arroyo, there are plenty of homes built of sticks and stones.  Rounded river rocks and long shaped beams, in combination with generous overhangs, are typical.  The walls surrounding the houses are built with masses of granite and brick.

Recently, I re-read some of the essays in an architectural classic, Five California Architects, by Esther McCoy.  Included, of course, are the formative architects Bernard Maybeck, Irving Gill, and R. M. Schindler—in addition to the Greene brothers.  Active at that time were many others.  One who designed major projects was Julia Morgan. I recently took a road trip through central California, and decided to stay overnight at Asilomar, a conference grounds and resort (though hardly luxurious) near Monterey.

Asilomar, now a state park, was designed by Julia Morgan as a conference and meeting place for women in the early 20^th century. Based on lodge designs, and built from the forest and the stream, the buildings are set in an ideal location: Pacific Grove, near the famed 17 mile drive in Monterey. The name “Asilomar” translates to “refuge by the sea.” Here, Morgan worked within the fragile ecosystem and serene landscape. Blending into the pines and sand dunes, leading to the sea…with buildings made of wood and stone.

Every day we pass through all kinds of doors. If I focus my attention on how many doors I use in my daily life, it’s mind-boggling. One day I tried to count, but lost track after this sequence: out my front door, into and out of the car door, in the elevator doors to my gym (and out again), in the locker room, out again, back to the car doors.

I figured I would do a little research. I looked for a definition, but words like “moveable barrier” didn’t help. I found a tattered copy of Architectural Graphic Standards, Student Edition.  But dimensions and specifications were hardly the answer. Architects and builders speak in materials and physical dimensions —but I wanted poetry, imagery. So, I decided to take a tour of some exceptional examples in nearby Pasadena.

Early architectural influences are with me for a lifetime, and as I’ve noted before, I was lucky to grow up in South Pasadena, where the heritage is strong. It’s easy to find examples of great Craftsman doors—even the garage doors that Greene and Greene designed are superb. I revisited these double garage doors, framed with a massive masonry walls on a clear winter afternoon.

Inspired, I walked over to see another street-side monument to architectural design.  La Miniatura, Frank Lloyd Wright’s 1923 Millard House, was the first time the architect used hollow, pre-cast concrete blocks. On the north side of this perfectly sited house are the powerful wood doors, amazingly compatible with the Mayan monumentality of the building.

I recalled many other times I had become conscious of the passages we make in daily life, and how artists have addressed the idea. Some of the artists that I know have designed and sculpted the best solutions. I considered the inspired example of Georges Jeanlcos‘ doors to the Cathedral in Lille, France. I remembered my trip to see those doors with his son, Marc.

I once built an entire show around a pair of doors by John Mason. I rescued the massive doors that were made for a house in Laguna Beach. The 1963 commission, for the actor Sterling Holloway, was the entrance to his art collection. For our exhibit, I designed a simple post and lintel framework to hold the powerful portals.

There is a reason for my focus. For the past seven days, since I walked up to the plaza level of the cathedral last Wednesday, I keep seeing the image of the pallbearers surrounding the casket of Robert Graham. A group of men formed a rectangle around the casket. The body was moving through a portal, through a symbolic passage. There was such a profound presence to the sight of the procession entering the very doors that he designed and sculpted.

It’s time for Top Ten lists. Critics and commentators in every form of media have been coming up with their year-end lists, from sports to movies to art. But today’s list of the Top Ten houses in Los Angeles really caught my attention. Like music to my ears, this is another confirmation of the legacy of residential architecture in Southern California. Not surprisingly, the number one consensus choice of the panel of experts was Schindler’s Kings Road house. The extended on-line photo essay is a delightful architectural tour.

One of my favorite gifts this season came from my neighbor Craig Krull, who shares my dual passions for architecture and the history of Los Angeles art. Krull presented me with a copy of Julius Shulman’s photo essay on the building of the photographer’s own house in the Hollywood Hills. This spiral bound gem is a limited edition of Shulman’s original prints, detailing the construction of his Raphael Soriano home. Each print is reproduced with the photographer’s stamp. It reminds me of the times I went to new home construction sites as a kid, with my father pointing out the footings and framing.

Mulholland drive at night is one of L.A.’s most awesome sights. The view into the Valley is quintessentially L.A.  An expansive grid of lights on the diagonal, leading into the dark mountains, it’s best on a clear, cold night following a storm.  I love the drive, and last night I was thinking about the way it shows in the photographs of Julius Shulman, the landscapes of Peter Alexander, and in the world of film.

I drove along the curving, elevated highway last night, headed east of Laurel Canyon.  As I passed Torreyson Drive, I stopped at the Universal City lookout and turned around. There, high on the hill, I could see the supporting steel structure of Chemosphere, John Lautner’s iconic residential masterpiece.

David Gebhard and Robert Winter have a brief entry about Chemosphere in Los Angeles, An Architectural Guide: ”At first it seems to be a flying saucer, but then you see it is on a pedestal, firmly riveted to the hill.”