Last night I watched a Curiosity Stream video about Julius Shulman, 1910-2009, described as "the best architecture photographer in history." Which would certainly make him the GOAT in that particular niche, for that era, a designation with which I would not argue. His black and white work in particular is wonderful; has an “Ansel Adams in the city” feel to it. Shulman is particularly known for immortalizing the architectural modernism that sprang to life in the deserts around Palm Springs, California in the mid-1900s, sort of 1950ish. I found myself rather conflicted watching the video (Curiosity Stream: Visual Acoustics). Being a great fan of Ansel Adams, and having taught photography back in the Paleolithic when “rolling your own” meant loading 35mm film into its canister in a totally blacked out darkroom, and later developing prints in chemicals you mixed yourself, etc., etc., I found myself quite taken with the “old school” compositional elegance and the visual purity of Shulman’s work. The problem is I don’t like the houses he often chooses to photograph.
The issue is that much of Southern California Modernism champions reinforced concrete slabs with occasional nods to wood in kitchens and baths, all of which are overwhelmed by floor-to-ceiling-wrap-around windows that make the walls disappear, turning the inside of the house into the outside that surrounds it. I delight in nature, and have always considered Thoreau’s assertion that “in wildness is the preservation of the world,” words to live by - but perhaps not so much worlds to live in.
There are a couple of significant drawbacks to SoCalMod living. You have seen these houses, or at least one - the Bosch house from the tv series of the same name. Remember? Hangs there off the hillside over looking L.A.? Lots of night shots? Gorgeous view.
But back to the drawbacks. First is, that unless you are a one-percenter with the scratch to buy up significant chunks of the surrounding landscape, you cannot control what the neighbors do. The video points out what happens to the wonderful views from a Palm Springs Modernism home when a big box store moves in next door. Gorgeous walls? Not so much.
Second, if your walls are mostly vast sheets of glass, where are you going to hang the art you have created, or collected and love? The glass preempts, or perhaps more accurately, prevents your displaying the art you need to make your home really yours.
Third, and less well-known, was the tendency of some SoCalMod type architects - Frank Lloyd Wright in particular - to demand that he designed and placed all the interior furnishings. Hence your home isn’t really your home, - rather it become yet another Frank Lloyd Wright house.
It is my discomfort with these drawbacks that encourages me to propose what I am calling Jewel Box Architecture, maybe JBA. That name may change - this is after all a work in progress.
But here is the basic idea. SoCaMo Architecture uses glass to make the walls invisible, inviting the outside - and, yes, perhaps the neighbors - in. Jewel Box Architecture stands that notion on its head by replacing the expanse formerly devoted to floor-to-ceiling windows with more traditional walls allowing the art displayed thereon to become the primary focus of the living space. Hence, the architectural challenge for JBA would be to create beautiful structures to contain beautiful art. Think, perhaps, of a Tiffany Egg. Your initial interaction with the egg itself is pleasing. You can admire the skill, vision, and craftsmanship reflected in the artistic construction. Some of the finest may even take your breath away. But then you open the egg, and the beauty within stops your heart.
OK, perhaps I exaggerate, I said it was a work in progress, and those are always a little rough around the edges that may need a little fine tuning. For example, my wife likes to tease me with this slightly twisted aphorism: “Anything really worth doing is worth overdoing.” Encouraging architects to consider a Tiffany Egg as the model for a home could well result in structures that might imply that Frank Gehry just isn’t trying hard enough. Bring on the gargoyles! Make Hearst’s castle at San Simeon an also-ran!
That is not what Jewel Box Architecture means to encourage. Indeed, some of the earlier Tiffany Eggs featured rather unprepossessing exteriors. For example, the exterior of the very first Tiffany Egg, circa 1885, The Hen Egg, looks just like that, a white egg with a narrow gold band around the center. But Wikipedia describes the “promised surprise inside” thus: “The two halves of the outer shell fit together in a bayonet-style fitting which opens when twisted to reveal the egg's "surprise", a round "yolk" of gold with a matte finish. This yolk itself opens to reveal a varicolored gold hen set with ruby eyes. The hen is hinged on the tail feathers which allows it to also open up to reveal still two further surprises, a gold and diamond replica of the imperial crown and a tiny ruby pendant that was suspended within it on a chain, both of which are now lost.”
So to ape the glittering exterior of some of the later eggs, like the intricate Caucasus Egg from 1894, would lead us astray. Balance is perhaps a better way to think of Jewel Box Architecture. You approach a JBA structure and find a plain, simple, yet appealing exterior - much like the exterior of the First Hen Egg. But upon entering the structure you are surprised, and delighted, to find yourself submerged in the world of paintings, sculpture and other furnishings that the owners have decided they wish to live among.
This not an entirely new idea. Step inside any of the Hapsburg castles scattered around Europe and you will find yourself immediately immersed in floor-to-ceiling art. Any wall space left between paintings is often fronted by sculpture, harpsichords, and tapestries. But upon stepping outside one quickly realizes that the one-percenters of the 16 and 17 hundreds were not advocates of JBA. No way can Versailles or Belvedere be said to present "plain but pleasing and comfortable exteriors."
So what might a JBA home look like today? I really don’t know. I feel most “at home” looking at “neighborhood houses” that were probably built in the early 1940s - pre-WWII, pre-baby boom, that were later turned into 2 or 3 apartments for young couples or college students - which is when I encountered them. And my affection for the style probably stems more from the optimistic “make love, not war” zeitgeist of the era than from the architectural style. Think, the Harry Chapin song, Over College Avenue.
Truth is I have neither the appropriate “architectural imagination” or tools to sketch what a JBA home would look like. Perhaps you do. Our 92-year old housemate is given to asking “What would you choose to do if you could live your life over again?” I did toy with architecture as a potential career in my youth, but at the time the preponderance of slide rulers and other math-like tools drove my theater major self away. I do, however, now have two stock responses for the “do it all over” question. Both visually oriented, but come at that world from different directions.
First, and no doubt related to the by-the-pixel nature of my own image making, is the idea of art restoration and possibly authentication. If you are curious about the field, check out the TV series Fake or Fortune? Naturally, I found it on Curiosity Stream, but it is available elsewhere. The basic premise of the series is that an art restorer and an investigative reporter focus on an image - usually brought to them by a client who found it in an attic or a flea market or something like that - and our intrepid team bring in all kinds of experts and technology in an attempt to ascertain if the image is, wait for it, Fake or Fortune! Cool series. Also, Christine and I came across an art restoration project in progress in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence a few years ago - you could peek behind the screen. Artists in lab coats and headlights. Almost like CSI, also very cool.
A rather distant second, and second primarily because I doubt my ability to meet the professional prerequisites, would be to become a dermatologist. But a dermatologist with a very specifically focused practice, maybe called, Lose It, or On Second Thought, or Sorry Kids. And I would specialize in only one procedure - tattoo removal. I do understand that in some societies, tattoos carry great cultural and historic significance. But I doubt that that was what motivated the bagger at Whole Foods. I mean really. Some of that ink art looks great on young taut skin, but age is inevitable and unforgiving.
I now realize that it is true that very cool advances in computerized digital imagery have actually pulled architecture back into consideration for my fantasy choices of an un-lived future. I’ll have to think about that.
But, as is my wont, I have again wandered sadly off task. The central question in this proposed Southern California Modernism versus Jewel Box Architecture debate is how best to construct the space in which we choose to live. I hope that today’s architects will realize that this should not be an “either-or” proposition. Surely one can design domestic space that can provide sufficient gallery-like space to display the art we have created, or collected, or simply love without denying us access to the calm, and we are learning, vital respite provided by the wide open green and blue spaces of wildness.
I anxiously await their results.
