This video shows the beautiful outdoor seating area in the fountain and garden patio area of the Marin Civic Center. You can buy something inside at the Civic Center Cafe and then go outside to marvel at the exterior of Frank Llyod Wright’s last great commission. He died a year before the complex was completed.
When it reopens to the public, make sure to visit on a weekday. This is a working county facility and as such the bureaucrats and paper pushers lock it up on the weekend when most people have the time to see it. Walking through that building is like walking through the mind of a great designer. You see his vision realized everywhere.
“The fountain-garden patio area exemplifies Wright’s belief that work environments should be places of beauty. The design of the pond conveys the impression of blending into infinity. The pond uses re-circulated water and camouflages the heating and cooling systems. It is also home to a family of ducks that return here each spring.”
I thought the neighborhood in Billie Eilish’s “Bad Guy” video was in Palm Springs.
Had to be.
Turns out the location was Balboa Heights which is a part of the greater San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles.
The most featured home is an Eichler. That architect I do recognize as Joseph Eichler who in fact populated Palm Springs with many of its best mid-century modern home designs. Do I get a pass?
Eichler’s work was so significant to Palm Springs, and the lust for money so great now among home builders, that “new” Eichler homes are being built today.
I’m not sure how Eichler would feel about that. Or Billie’s video. I feel Eichler and the video are both great.
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Bad Guy by Billie Eilish
White shirt now red, my bloody nose
Sleepin’, you’re on your tippy toes
Creepin’ around like no one knows
Think you’re so criminal
Bruises on both my knees for you
Don’t say thank you or please
I do what I want when I’m wanting to
My soul? So cynical
So you’re a tough guy
Like it really rough guy
Just can’t get enough guy
Chest always so puffed guy
I’m that bad type
Make your mama sad type
Make your girlfriend mad tight
Might seduce your dad type
I’m the bad guy, duh
I’m the bad guy
I like it when you take control
Even if you know that you don’t
Own me, I’ll let you play the role
I’ll be your animal
My mommy likes to sing along with me
But she won’t sing this song
If she reads all the lyrics
She’ll pity the men I know
So you’re a tough guy
Like it really rough guy
Just can’t get enough guy
Chest always so puffed guy
I’m that bad type
Make your mama sad type
Make your girlfriend mad tight
Might seduce your dad type
I’m the bad guy, duh
I’m the bad guy, duh
I’m only good at being bad, bad
I like when you get mad
I guess I’m pretty glad that you’re alone
You said she’s scared of me?
I mean, I don’t see what she sees
But maybe it’s ’cause I’m wearing your cologne
I’m a bad guy
I’m, I’m a bad guy
Bad guy, bad guy
I’m a bad
This is video I am putting into the public domain at Wikimedia Commons. It shows the beautiful outdoor seating area in the fountain and garden patio area of the Marin Civic Center. You can buy something inside at the Civic Center Cafe and then go outside to marvel at the exterior of Frank Llyod Wright’s last great commission. He died a year before the complex was completed.
When it reopens to the public, make sure to visit on a weekday. This is a working county facility and as such the bureaucrats and paper pushers lock it up on the weekend when most people have the time to see it. Walking through that building is like walking through the mind of a great designer. You see his vision realized everywhere.
—
“The fountain-garden patio area exemplifies Wright’s belief that work environments should be places of beauty. The design of the pond conveys the impression of blending into infinity. The pond uses re-circulated water and camouflages the heating and cooling systems. It is also home to a family of ducks that return here each spring.”
A few posts ago I mentioned what I called the New Ornamentalism. (internal link) I worked around a skyscraper in the 80s that was in that style. I just got the 1983 title Ornamentalism by Jensen and Conway. Ten dollars will get you a copy at Abe.com. I don’t know what happened to this trend, although some of the more outrageous elements are fully on view here in Las Vegas. Oh, and if you look closely you will see my socked feet!
In my last post I looked at some watches ascribed to modern Bauhaus design. (internal link) Which got me to thinking. Are there any watches inspired by Art Deco? A few seem possible.
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This is another NOMOS, the same company producing a Bauhaus design that we saw in my last post. This didn’t seem like Deco to me at first but the more I look at it, the more it seems. This is the NOMOS Glashütte Lambda Weißgold. An enthusiastic reviewer says, “This is most probably my favourite watch of the minimalist series, albeit the most expensive. NOMOS are renowned and well recognised as a brand that does things a bit different, but still produce pieces that are well designed movement wise. The Lambda Weißgold takes inspiration from modern art-deco, and combines that with minimalist chic. CHF14,800
— https://manofmany.com/fashion/watches/best-minimalist-watches-men
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PAM00791
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Panerai. This lands solidly in the Deco camp. “The dial of a pendulum clock displayed on the first floor of Panerai’s Florentine shop on the Piazza San Giovanni is re-created in two distinct dial versions, both in 47-mm cases made of polished stainless steel – ivory (Ref. PAM00791) and black (PAM00790). Both retro-look dials are notable for their large, Art Deco hour numerals; peripheral railway minute track and additional interior ring; and lacquered, spear-shaped hour and minute hands, a style used for the first time on a Panerai wristwatch. Price for both models: $9,200.”
— https://www.watchtime.com/featured/deco-by-design-six-of-our-favorite-watches-inspired-by-art-deco/
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A Bradley. This hits the mark, employing a sculptural element that good Art Deco pieces had. Note the ball that marks the time. I think this is very well done. “Modern design meets timeless character in the Bradley Classic. We pair the iconic, minimalist face of the Bradley timepiece with a tried-and-true Italian leather band.” $285
— https://www.eone-time.com/products/bradley-classic
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I lost the name and information for this modern watch. The radiating sun has a nice deco-like feel.
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For future discussion. This is the Capitol Bank of Commerce Center in downtown Sacramento, California. I used to work around the building. Back in the 1980s there was a movement called The New Ornamentalism of which this was part. It always struck me as deco influenced. I don’t know what happened to the New Ornamentalism but I will do some reading.
I don’t recall rust, copper, or terra-cotta as colors for buildings and ornamental pieces when I was growing up. Do you? Somehow, somewhere, it started happening in my part of California in the the 1980s. I think. It’s certainly a major force in building colors today, almost a neutral or default color acceptable to most people and settings.
The rusty steel look may have started when a material called weathering steel or COR-TEN steel was first used in the building trades. Perhaps the early to mid-1960s. Green Future says the first architectural use of corten steel (external link) was for the John Deere headquarters in Moline, Illinois in 1964.
“Cor-ten steel resists corrosion by incorporating less reactive metals such as copper and nickel into the steel during its formation. The new alloys in the steel form a connective matrix throughout. This ‘sticks’ the rust formed to the surface, creating a protective barrier similar to skin.”
“The outer layer of rust is stable, and greatly increases the physical integrity of the steel. Unlike typical steel, cor-ten does not need to be painted, reducing initial construction costs. Also, weathering steel is maintenance-free; once the rust barrier is formed it is stable. Paint used as a defensive barrier against the elements needs to be maintained since it is unstable and flakes off.”
Other copper or rusty steel colors may have come into favor after the rusty steel look proved popular. Just speculating.
Tom Wolfe once said that we all have to live with an architect’s mistakes. How true. My bad writing won’t assault your senses (and that of the public) every time you drive to work. That’s unlike the concrete tilt ups that litter every office park and too often the close-in urban landscape. Along with buildings that had a decent budget, could do design right, and instead belong in a river like the library below.
Idea Exchange, Old Post Office
RDHA, Cambridge, Ontario, Canada
Wallpaper* Magazine is out with another great article on design. Library architecture and design: a worldwide guide (external link) shows off some very pretty buildings that complement their subject and others that indulge in a fascination with fashion that can impact any art.
In Las Vegas, Nevada, a building facade called stacked stone has been popular for years. It is literally everywhere and will be around until people move back to stucco or stamped concrete or slate shingles for siding or whatever next becomes popular. And then all of these old buildings will start looking dated, be torn down eventually, and a new cycle begun. In Vegas every new major building, churches included, demand a curved front. No more square buildings, there has to be a front facing hemisphere for anything to get built.
Tecnológico de Monterrey New Main Library
Sasaki, Monterrey, Mexico
As I mentioned, the Wallpaper* article features some terrific looking buildings, many set like this one in Monterrey. I find HDR photography fascinating as it recalls postcard photography, where everything is pictured in, literally, its best light. Professional photographers are so good they can make a pig farm compelling, artfully playing with mud and filth.
Like architecture, writing is a compromise. Budget, orientation, acceptance. My book topic wasn’t my first choice, it was my publisher’s marketable choice. Similarly, few architects can design what they want with the budget they want. Compromises or outright lies follow.
When California wanted a new State Fairgrounds it went big. Literally. Instead of the small, tree and lawn studded old state fair ground, this new place would sprawl over whatever acreage was needed to satisfy the wish list of every exhibitor and concessionaire. Walking anywhere would become a death march in the unshaded August heat.
Relieving that somewhat would be the generous use of brick pavers. Alas, the State Fair project went over budget and acres of concrete were installed instead. And then the money ran out for that and blacktop substituted. To this day, walking the Midway is no different than walking in a 110 degree asphalt parking lot. Last year, the State Fair installed misting stations as attendance dropped due to the heat.
Adding to this misery was the miserly maintenance budget. Ordinary state employees with little gardening skills proved unable to coax the new, poorly planted trees to good growth. Hundreds of Canary Island Pines were installed for inexplicable reasons, those slow to grow and only thin shade providers. Scores of trees died outright and were never replanted. Forty years on, the grounds resemble a pygmy forest.
This present day happy graphic shows a green and blue oasis that the architects may have originally envisioned. That blue includes a splash fountain that has now been fenced off for play by sweltering children, perhaps to prevent slip and fall lawsuits. Look but don’t touch.
As Eliot said,
Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
Life is very long
Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
I first discovered Wallpaper* magazine in 1999. It was a thin volume then, all about design. “The Stuff That Surrounds You.” I think they now say, “The Stuff That Refines You.” It has grown into a massive tome, hundreds of pages each issue, with print subscriptions over $100.
It is totally globally focused, with stories from so many obscure locations that you’ll need Google at all times to find out where they are. The name dropping is outrageous as this example shows:
“Take Stella McCartney, who created a Beano-inspired comic to educate guests about her sustainable footprint at S/S 2019’s fashion week, complete with speech bubble sound bites from Minnie the Minx, Dennis the Menace and the designer herself.” I think that’s five obscure references in one sentence. Although I do recognize Dennis the Menace, although I have no idea how he fits into the world of fashion or belongs with the daughter of a Beatle.
The architecture pieces are particularly well done, although all interiors seem to be revisions of mid-century modern. There are many good, free articles online at their website and anyone interested in design should check them out there or at a magazine dealer. This is an excellent piece on Jony Ivy and Apple’s new headquarters:
I broke down for a subscription recently and am awaiting my first issue. I think the heft and scope of the magazine appeals, although in a lost hope sort of way. It’s like the massive IKEA catalogs: surely somewhere in all those photos and pages must be something useful Something inspiring. If all else fails, I can cut it up for collages. It is certainly a broadening magazine as it introduces a world-wide view in every category it covers. This is their list:
Architecture
Design
Art
Travel
Lifestyle
Fashion
Watches and Jewelry
