Architecture

Mark and Cindy Evans make the rounds of Southern California flea markets early, before most shoppers have gotten out of bed. Their favorite stops: The Groves Antique Market Held the first Sunday of the month from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. Irvine Valley College, 5500 Irvine Center Drive, Irvine. Admission and parking are free. Dogs allowed. (949) 786-5277. Pasadena City College Flea Market Also held on the first Sunday of every month, from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. (Due to a scheduling change, the market happens to be open this Sunday.

The Museum of Contemporary Art released a statement Friday saying it has moved back the opening date of its show about contemporary Los Angeles architecture, part of the Getty's "Pacific Standard Time Presents" initiative, by two weeks, to June 16. The guest curator, Christopher Mount, had raised concerns about the show earlier this month, saying it would not be ready to open on schedule and wondering if it might be canceled. It had been scheduled to open June 2. "MOCA will present its exhibition on   contemporary architecture from Southern California, 'A New Sculpturalism,' opening June 16, 2013 at The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA as part of Pacific Standard Time Presents: Modern Architecture in L.A.," the statement read.  TIMELINE: MOCA in flux "The museum is excited to bring the architecture community in Los Angeles together in recognition of the world-class architecture that has been and continues to be conceived in the city by some of the most renowned and emerging firms and practitioners working today.

The Museum of Contemporary Art released a statement Friday saying it has moved back the opening date of its show about contemporary Los Angeles architecture, part of the Getty's "Pacific Standard Time Presents" initiative, by two weeks, to June 16. The guest curator, Christopher Mount, had raised concerns about the show earlier this month, saying it would not be ready to open on schedule and wondering if it might be canceled. It had been scheduled to open June 2. "MOCA will present its exhibition on   contemporary architecture from Southern California, 'A New Sculpturalism,' opening June 16, 2013 at The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA as part of Pacific Standard Time Presents: Modern Architecture in L.A.," the statement read.  TIMELINE: MOCA in flux "The museum is excited to bring the architecture community in Los Angeles together in recognition of the world-class architecture that has been and continues to be conceived in the city by some of the most renowned and emerging firms and practitioners working today.

DALLAS - What do neo-classicism and neo-conservatism have in common? That's the question at the heart of the design by New York's Robert A.M. Stern Architects for the George W. Bush presidential library, set to open to the public May 1 on the campus of Southern Methodist University. The $250-million complex holds the president's archive as well as a museum, restaurant, auditorium, policy institute and foundation. Officially known as the George W. Bush Presidential Center, it is carefully and cannily contextual, like much of Stern's work.

From the veranda of his house, Bruce Gleason looks down, down, down onto a swath of the San Fernando Valley floor. Daylight is departing, and a rainy mist has furred the vista. A river of car headlamps on Van Nuys Boulevard glows more brilliantly by the moment. "The view. Each night when I come home, I'm re-charmed by it," he says. "Life is in session down there--150,000 people going about their life."

On the Art Deco trail At home or on the road, collector John Thomas is always on the lookout for the next Art Deco find. Some of his favorite treasure-hunting haunts are: The Vintage Collective, 2212 E. 4th St., Long Beach, (562) 433-8699; http://www.thevintagecollective.com Off the Wall Antiques, 7325 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles, (323) 930-1185, http://www.offthewallantiques.com Thanks for the Memories, 8319 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles, (323) 852-9407, http://www.

DALLAS - It's remarkable how slow - and disjointed - architecture can sometimes appear. For nearly a decade, younger architects have pushed for a new agenda in the profession. They've been loudly (and rightly) critical of the expensive, highly mannered and sometimes self-indulgent trophy buildings turned out by some of the world's most prominent architects. And they've helped bring different and more public-minded priorities to the fore. And yet the trophy buildings keep coming.

DALLAS - What do neo-classicism and neo-conservatism have in common? That's the question at the heart of the design by New York's Robert A.M. Stern Architects for the George W. Bush presidential library, set to open to the public May 1 on the campus of Southern Methodist University. The $250-million complex holds the president's archive as well as a museum, restaurant, auditorium, policy institute and foundation. Officially known as the George W. Bush Presidential Center, it is carefully and cannily contextual, like much of Stern's work.

DIANE KEATON and D.J. Waldie are uncertain where to begin. It's an awkward moment at the end of an easy hour-and-a-half conversation about architecture, romance and modernism. She's self-conscious, and he's busy trying to set her at ease. Scattered across a large conference table in an equally large conference room in Lakewood are copies of photographs from the book they have spent nearly two years working on. "I really don't want to do this," she says.

Paolo Soleri, an Italian-born architect who created a visionary prototype for a new kind of ecologically sensitive city in the remote Arizona desert four decades ago, only to watch the suburban sprawl he detested begin to creep near it in recent years, has died. He was 93. Soleri died of natural causes Tuesday at his home in Paradise Valley, Ariz., according to an official with the architect's foundation . PHOTOS: Paolo Soleri | 1919-2013 A onetime apprentice at Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin West compound on the edge of Scottsdale, Ariz., Soleri founded his own desert settlement, called Arcosanti, in 1970 at a site roughly 70 miles north of downtown Phoenix.

Pedro Ramirez Vazquez, an architect who changed the face of Mexico City by designing a number of landmark modernist structures, died on Tuesday, his 94th birthday. The cause was pneumonia, according to Mexico's National Council for Culture and the Arts. Ramirez Vazquez was known for stunningly original designs that blended a European modernist sensibility with pre-Columbia aesthetics. His most famous modernist buildings, all in Mexico City, include the Basilica of Guadalupe, one of the country's holiest shrines; the National Museum of Anthropology, distinguished by a vast, square concrete umbrella; and Azteca Stadium, open since the mid-1960s and home to Mexico's national soccer team.

Pleasanton, Calif., is - no surprise here - a pleasant small city east of San Francisco Bay that was off the beaten track for much of the 20th century and avoided the redevelopment that destroyed the cores of many older cities. Its downtown - filled with tree-lined streets, vintage architecture, restaurants and boutiques - evokes a small town in New England. My good friend Laura, who used to live there, was my guide on our trip. The tab: We spent about $450, including $220 for two nights at the Sheraton and $230 for food and drinks.

Amir Zaki makes stately, often elegant photographs that subtly undermine perceptions of coherence and stability in architecture. The Southern California beach lifeguard towers he photographed for his 2010 series “Relics” have the look of recently landed alien spacecraft with impossibly frail legs. His 2005 series “Spring through Winter” presented an oddly melancholic array of bricked-over fireplace mantels, as well as several Modernist houses that appeared to be launching themselves like hang gliders over the rim of a crumbling hillside.

Paolo Soleri, an Italian-born architect who created a visionary prototype for a new kind of ecologically sensitive city in the remote Arizona desert four decades ago, only to watch the suburban sprawl he detested begin to creep near it in recent years, has died. He was 93. Soleri died of natural causes Tuesday at his home in Paradise Valley, Ariz., according to an official with the architect's foundation . PHOTOS: Paolo Soleri | 1919-2013 A onetime apprentice at Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin West compound on the edge of Scottsdale, Ariz., Soleri founded his own desert settlement, called Arcosanti, in 1970 at a site roughly 70 miles north of downtown Phoenix.

Malibu Barbie never had it so good. A Paul Smith rug, curtains sewn from Missoni fabric, LED sconces strung with Swarovski crystals, even a Mies van der Rohe Barcelona daybed cluttered with Rodeo Drive shopping bags - all small enough to fit in your pocket. These are but a few of the over-the-top luxuries decorating 10 couture play pads created for the 2013 Designer Dollhouse Showcase. The Los Angeles firm Richard Manion Architecture has constructed scale-model dream houses - Italianate, brownstone, beach house contemporary and other styles - that will be auctioned April 17 to benefit the UCLA Children's Discovery and Innovation Institute , part of Mattel Children's Hospital UCLA.

It's difficult to imagine a more delicate curatorial task than the one Todd Gannon, Ewan Branda and Andrew Zago faced in putting together "A Confederacy of Heretics: The Architecture Gallery, Venice, 1979. " The exhibition, running through July 7 at the Southern California Institute of Architecture, is the first show to open as part of the Getty-funded series "Pacific Standard Time Presents: Modern Architecture in L.A. " The specific focus of "Heretics" is a series of exhibitions and lectures that young architects connected to SCI-Arc organized in fall 1979, when the school, now downtown, was based in Santa Monica.

Year-round, people come from all over the world to walk Charleston's old streets and admire the fastidiously preserved architecture. The oldest residences were built by planters in the 1700s and 1800s as their in-town homes and by the merchants and others who shared in the wealth of the colony's rice (and, later, cotton) trade. In size, design and decoration, each home announced its owner's wealth and status. They still do.

At a cemetery on Ramon Road, where the Crayola-green lawns of this desert community yield to sand and tumbleweeds, Frank Sinatra is buried. His plain, flat gravestone bears an epitaph taken from the title of an early '60s song he recorded: "The Best Is Yet to Come."

Two years ago, when the Getty Trust helped organize and fund more than five dozen exhibits on 20th century art in Los Angeles, a massive enterprise it labeled "Pacific Standard Time," it wasn't difficult to guess which era the museum would focus on. It was clearly going to be the postwar period, and the 1950s, '60s and '70s in particular. There wasn't much of an art scene in L.A. in first half of the century, after all, and World War II itself, in a range of ways, helped fuel a transformative boom in both industrial and cultural production here.

DALLAS - It's remarkable how slow - and disjointed - architecture can sometimes appear. For nearly a decade, younger architects have pushed for a new agenda in the profession. They've been loudly (and rightly) critical of the expensive, highly mannered and sometimes self-indulgent trophy buildings turned out by some of the world's most prominent architects. And they've helped bring different and more public-minded priorities to the fore. And yet the trophy buildings keep coming.