Quite a while ago, two architectural office back in my past, I worked on drawings for a house up in Brentwood. While working on the project, I found out that they could only build the new house once they had settled on what to do with the old house. Seems there was an old Neutra house sitting there on the site, and the owners wanted to build a new, much larger one in its place. While they were working on getting their new house designed, the Neutra house got listed on the Historical Register, making it impossible to demolish. This sort of threw a monkey wrench into their plans. There was a solution however, it could be moved! Only, doing so is not so simple. And so it sat.
Well, I only worked on the project briefly, and as it got held up in all kinds of local, county, and historic preservation shenanigans, I moved on to work on other things. Eventually, I left that office and went on to work in a couple of other offices. Totally forgot about that little Neutra.
Now today, upon browsing the LA Times website, I see that the Maxwell House (as the old Neutra house was originally called) is on the move! Seems the owners found a buyer for the house, and eventually (its been about six years) got everything worked out in order to relocate it. LA Times has a great article with a photo essay showing part of the move, and the house in its original condition. Not a classic example of Neutra, but a sweet little place anyway.
I wish I had been on top of it, as I would have loved to go document the move.. but alas, I am not really in touch with those folks anymore.
Moral of the story. Don’t try to tear down a Neutra. It’ll cost you six years off your life. Now if only the folks in Gettysburg would get the message.
While changing my user name I found three Jeremy Quinns on flickr.. these are a selection of photos from them. Click on them to be taken to their photostream.
One didn’t have any public photos so I used two from one of the other guys.
Hello to all y’all Jeremy Quinns out there!
You can now find me on flickr as JeremyJQuinn
I just got these samples back today from the fabricator, they are a portion of a privacy screen panel that I designed at PMA. The dot pattern is based on the overlapping, rotated halftone grids of Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black dots used in offset printing. The pattern is likely going to be integrated into a reception desk, but in aluminum rather than the white plastic we did the test in.
Looking at it now, it reminds me of a synthesis of lace and bullet holes.
I just posted the Circles Necklace I made last year for Michele to wear at our wedding. There are two versions of it, this is the solid one and she ended up wearing the other one which I still need to photograph. It’s laser cut from sheet silver.
I really like these improvised ink well/pen holders by Kelly Marklove shown at Dezeen. They look like they are just begging to be used and made all inky.
Seen at Overheard in the Office today (yes, I read it daily.)
“Office lady on phone to son: I don’t know, I think we have it on tape… on tape. Video tape. No, not DVD, video tape. It’s black and rectangular, and you put it in the VCR to watch movies. The VCR?… It’s… look, just wait till I get home, okay?”
Word to obsolete media!
A few animal thoughts for the week:
The Owlship in the upcoming Watchmen film kicks ass. (Also, the upcoming Watchmen film will kick ass)
Last weekend, at a swimming hole in Malibu Creek State Park, we saw an adult Western Skink. Its a tiny lizard with a bright blue tail.
I was mesmerized last night by a Nova special about Cuttlefish. Cuttlefish are my new heroes. They show their hypno light show around 3:19 in this National Geographic video.
Dena Schwartz and Cate Norian are photo-journalists traveling around the country between now and the election, taking photos and collecting stories from a wide slice of the population in order to gauge the mood of the country.
Their project is called 300 Million Faces of America. Check in on it as it develops, its likely to be one of the more interesting and pleasurable politically related things to read as the noise of the impending election gets louder and more ridiculous all around us.
Dena Schwartz and Cate Norian are photo-journalists traveling around the country between now and the election, taking photos and collecting stories from a wide slice of the population in order to gauge the mood of the country.
Their project is called 300 Million Faces of America. Check in on it as it develops, its likely to be one of the more interesting and pleasurable politically related things to read as the noise of the impending election gets louder and more ridiculous all around us.
For those who don’t get to experience earthquakes, here is how it works:
You are sitting at your desk at the office when it feels like your chair has slid back a little bit. A slightly drunken sensation begins, an oscillation of the floor much like being on a ship in waves large enough to rock it. This is when it dawns on you that an earthquake is occurring. Everything seems a little wrong, disturbing, yet not entirely unpleasant. The ground is rolling, but you know the ground is not supposed to do that, so your brain fights the sensation. You get a little dizzy, again like being slightly drunk. If it’s still going on at this point (just a few seconds into it) then you are amazed that it’s still happening. It’s actually hard to tell when it stops, as now your head is spinning a bit and confounding the sensation. You contact loved ones to make sure its not worse where they are and that they are fine. Immediately someone looks up the USGS (which many people out here have bookmarked) website to see how big and where it was. The one that just shook us up, leaving me still a bit dazed and wobbly, was a 5.8 out in Chino. So there you go.
If one happens right under your feet, or is bigger, or both – then the sensation is bound to be quite a bit more violent. I have yet to feel one of those, and am just fine skipping that particular experience altogether.
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