The Eames House

Case Study House No. 8 was designed and built by Charles and Ray Eames as part of the Case Study House Program in the 1940’s. The aim of these 36 Case Study prototype homes was to come up with plans for post-war homes that were easy and cheap to build. Located in the Pacific Palisades area of Los Angeles, the Eames house is a simple structure using the limited materials available at the time. A home designed for work and family life; it has plenty of light, a modern feel, modular furnishings that can be moved around (even the plants are on a platform with wheels) so the whole room can be reconfigured at any time. Objects collected by the Eames over the years are displayed and incorporated throughout. Just below center in this photograph of the Eames living room is a pile of three pillows which inspired my #2293 floor pillows.

Charles and Ray Eames in their living room, as photographed by Julius Shulman in 1958. Photo: J. Paul Getty Trust.

How to build a city.

I love this work by at swim-two-birds. Collage made from paper trash, then embroidered. Beautiful.

Retna wall.

One of the things I kept from a magazine was this photo of a wall in a parking lot. I thought it was quite beautiful and found out more about it here. This work is by Retna as part of ‘Wallworks’ – a project inviting a select group of graffiti artists to create a series of murals in the parking lot of the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas in December 2010.

Tokyo Project 21

Tokyo Project 11

Shinkansen

Shinkansen.ver2 is a beautiful film by Daihei Shibata, of a journey taken by Shinkansen.

The Tower Tomamu, Hokkaido.

Images taken from ‘-FUL, Klein Dytham architecture’

Getting distracted today, I’ve been browsing through ‘-FUL, Klein Dytham architecture’ book (published in Japan). One project that I haven’t seen before particularly caught my eye: The Tower Tomamu, a hotel in Shimukappa-mura, Hokkaido. Remodeled by Klein Dytham in 2008, what could be a pair of really bland tower blocks in the middle of the mountains, has been transformed into part of the landscape. The segmented colours (much like lego blocks or coloured pixels) that cover the towers from head to toe, create a beautiful camouflage at a distance. You can see how the building could blend into a snow covered winter landscape or a lush spring green landscape. A nice solution to what could be a terrible eyesore!

KDa have designed a lot of great projects – playful yet sophisticated. It’s always fun to see what they come up with next. There is a lovely looking bath house (Moku Moku Yu) on their site which I’d love to visit! Without sounding too sentimental, and probably without their knowing it, KDa had quite a significant impact on some aspects of my life in Tokyo. They held lots of great parties and Pecha-Kucha Night (of which we witnessed the birth!) was a highlight of the month at superdeluxe in Roppongi, and is now enjoyed worldwide.

Parking lots

Ed Ruscha

Thirtyfour Parking Lots in Los Angeles 1967

Ed Ruscha’s Dodger Stadium, 1000 Elysian Park Ave. (detail) from Thirty-Four Parking Lots (1967)

Dodger Stadium today, Google Maps 2009

Thanks to a comment left by my friend Dan in response to this previous post, I discovered Ed Ruscha’s Thirtyfour Parking Lots in Los Angeles 1967. Ed Ruscha hired a helicopter to fly over L.A. early one Sunday morning in 1967 and shot a whole series of vacant parking lots. Beautiful patterns. Brilliant.

The beauty of Google Maps is that I can fly over all the parking lots, in any city, in any part of the world, and I don’t have to hire a helicopter! Not quite the same I know but … it’s great (if you try to ignore the whole Big Brother thing)!

More images from Ed Ruscha’s set can be seen here.

Birds eye patterns

While cruising over Downtown (virtually speaking) I got very excited by these patterns. Wow. Lots of inspiration from flying!

Salaryman 6

Salaryman 6 is one of my favourite short films. Brilliantly shot and directed by Jake Knight, this is a story about a Japanese Salaryman who looses track of his life through it’s mundanity and predictability.

Unfortunately I can’t find a decent quality version of it online and you need to see it in high quality for best impact. You can view it here, but make sure you have a magnifying glass at hand!

Eames house

One of my favorite places in L.A. without a doubt is the Eames ‘Case Study House #8’.

The design of the house began in 1945 to fit in with the surrounding meadow and eucalyptus trees, building with only post-war off-the-shelf materials. The Eames moved in in 1949 and lived and worked there for the rest of their lives. The house has been kept pretty much as they left it.

You’re not allowed inside the house, just allowed to peer in as much as you can through the windows … and photos of the interior are forbidden. It was built as half house and half work studio, with a small courtyard in between. It’s very simple in design but incorporates a beautiful movable system inside that enables the interior to be rearranged, allowing for the optimum display of certain objects. Of course it contains plenty of furniture and objects designed by Charles and Ray Eames, which inevitably makes us hungry for a bit of shopping!

I always come away from this house feeling inspired. It is such a peaceful place and the details are so simple yet fantastic. It really makes me want to build my own home. Now.

Discovering Susan Sontag

Stills taken from Susan Sontag & Phillip Johnson

I was just doing some slightly haphazard searching online, inspired by listening to a bit of the DnA (Design & Architecture) program on NPR in the car the other day. Through various links I came across a BBC clip of Susan Sontag reporting on the then new Seagram Building in NY. “The elevator swished up like a gigolo’s hand on a silk stocking….” What an amazing description!