Modern Architecture

There's sure to be much to pore over in "Overdrive: L.A. Constructs the Future, 1940-1990," the ambitious anchor show of the Getty's Pacific Standard Time series on modern architecture in and around Los Angeles. But it's on the periphery of this giant undertaking, which is funding nine major exhibitions and will sprawl across the calendar from early spring to midsummer, where the real surprises are most likely to be found. That's especially true of the shows aiming to look beyond well-known midcentury landmarks and reassess the work of the L.A. architects who emerged in the 1960s and '70s and challenged orthodox modernism in a range of ways.

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.

Honored last weekend at Cal Poly Pomona's School of Environmental Design was architect Raphael Soriano, who practiced in Los Angeles with distinction in the 1930s through the '50s. Now 83 and living in Claremont, Soriano, is best remembered for his pioneering use of steel framing for housing and office buildings and his disciplined designs in the severe, smooth international Modernist style.

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.

Donald Albrecht, an architect by profession with an obvious affection for the movies, has combined his two loves to bring us a meticulous examination of the period between 1920 and 1939, in which the glamour industry brought modern architecture to the attention of the world. His scholarly exposition of modern architecture's influence on film design is a book for students of both architecture and film, and for anyone who wonders about the forces that shaped those magical celluloid fantasies.

In the Verdugo Woodlands is a sylvan structure that rises from the earth like a giant stone-and-wood mushroom. It seems a proper haunt for wood nymphs, faerie queens and mischievous, pipe-blowing satyrs. Its frosty green facade harmonizes with plants, trees and arroyo rock nearby. But the unusual residence--called "the Rodriguez House" after its first owner, pianist Jose Rodriguez--was not created by Pan, Titania or any other mythical sprite.

Last time around the focus was Southern California's art history; now homegrown architecture is getting its time in the sun. Getty Trust leaders are announcing Monday the final roster of exhibition and event partners in its Pacific Standard Time spinoff, Pacific Standard Time Presents: Modern Architecture in Southern California, slated to run April through July. They will also be releasing the specific grant amounts given to various museums and institutions: roughly $3.6 million in all. Eight exhibition partners received grants from $260,000 to $445,000 to help mount shows and publish catalogs; eight event partners received grants ranging from $20,000 to $246,000 to organize panels, tours and other programs.

Much of the time Los Angeles can feel like a huge, messy jigsaw puzzle, with pieces left out - a city that evolved by accident. Parts of it don't work, parts of it seem newly broken, parts are truly luminous - but hidden - and they all seem to have nothing to do with each other. But Christopher Alexander sees things differently. "There was this desire, this strategy, this intent to have Los Angeles evolve in a manner that was unlike any other city," says one of the curators behind the Getty's new Pacific Standard Time architecture initiative.

Peter Blake is one of the truth-tellers of modern architecture. As the titles of his last books indicate--"God's Own Junkyard," and "Form Follows Fiasco"--he has never attempted to disguise his distress at the deterioration of the American landscape. Now, in a personal memoir, Blake revisits the early idealistic days of his profession and recalls the colleagues who shaped the modern movement.

Balthazar Korab, an architect-turned-photographer with a wide-ranging eye whose moody, polished images captured the spirit of midcentury modern architecture and celebrated its masters, including Eero Saarinen and Mies van der Rohe, died Jan. 15 in Royal Oak, Mich. He was 86. Korab, who lived in Troy, Mich., died after a long period of decline caused by Parkinson's disease and a stroke, said his son, Christian Korab. A refugee from Communist-controlled Hungary, Korab came to the United States in 1955 and found work as a designer in Saarinen's Bloomfield, Mich., office.

When it comes to family homes, modern architecture can be a tough sell. Often minimal and impossibly clutter-free, modern design also generates another common complaint: It's too cold, too austere. But designer and builder Noah Walker recently conceived a Manhattan Beach home for Tiffany and Andy Chen and their two boys that is smartly streamlined but still meets their practical needs and retains a warm beauty. Among the family-friendly features: a second-floor mezzanine that serves as a rumpus room for the kids, a kitchen sink that the designer calls the “command and control” center, with sightlines to kids playing in the family room as well as in the backyard, and a synthetic lawn the busy family prefers to real grass.

Much of the time Los Angeles can feel like a huge, messy jigsaw puzzle, with pieces left out - a city that evolved by accident. Parts of it don't work, parts of it seem newly broken, parts are truly luminous - but hidden - and they all seem to have nothing to do with each other. But Christopher Alexander sees things differently. "There was this desire, this strategy, this intent to have Los Angeles evolve in a manner that was unlike any other city," says one of the curators behind the Getty's new Pacific Standard Time architecture initiative.

There's sure to be much to pore over in "Overdrive: L.A. Constructs the Future, 1940-1990," the ambitious anchor show of the Getty's Pacific Standard Time series on modern architecture in and around Los Angeles. But it's on the periphery of this giant undertaking, which is funding nine major exhibitions and will sprawl across the calendar from early spring to midsummer, where the real surprises are most likely to be found. That's especially true of the shows aiming to look beyond well-known midcentury landmarks and reassess the work of the L.A. architects who emerged in the 1960s and '70s and challenged orthodox modernism in a range of ways.

Drawing from Japanese and Midcentury Modern architecture, this house was designed to showcase an extensive art collection. A mix of natural materials, including redwood, limestone, oak and Bouquet Canyon stone, gives the house a dramatic appearance from the street. Location: 818 N. Roxbury Drive, Beverly Hills 90210 Asking price: $12.5 million Year built: 1999 Architects: Leonardo Umansky, Ramiro Diaz-Granados House size: Four bedrooms, six bathrooms, 9,302 square feet Lot size: 19,132 Features: Retractable walls, glass doors, high ceilings, fireplaces in the living and family rooms, sculptured dining room ceiling, breakfast room, office, gym, art storage room, swimming pool, lawn About the area: Last year, 316 single-family homes sold in the 90210 ZIP Code at a median price of $2.83 million, according to DataQuick.

The Palm Springs Modernism Show may not begin until Feb. 14, but tickets are selling fast for many of the architecture tours during the related 11-day celebration of desert design. Already bought your tour tickets to Sunnylands and the William Cody glass house? Consider yourself lucky. Those events have sold out. But tickets are still available for selected tours as well as lectures and films , and the modern living, vintage car and vintage trailer expos . Limited tickets were released Friday for tours of the Frey House II, above, architect Albert Frey's home built high in the San Jacinto Mountains overlooking Palm Springs.

Balthazar Korab, an architect-turned-photographer with a wide-ranging eye whose moody, polished images captured the spirit of midcentury modern architecture and celebrated its masters, including Eero Saarinen and Mies van der Rohe, died Jan. 15 in Royal Oak, Mich. He was 86. Korab, who lived in Troy, Mich., died after a long period of decline caused by Parkinson's disease and a stroke, said his son, Christian Korab. A refugee from Communist-controlled Hungary, Korab came to the United States in 1955 and found work as a designer in Saarinen's Bloomfield, Mich., office.

Hollywood has long been a little suspicious of modern architecture. Its most dystopian visions of the future, from "2001" to "Gattaca" to "I, Robot," have always been as sleek and ornament-free as any building by Mies van der Rohe. And although movie heroes usually return home to the kind of domestic stability symbolized by picket fences and gabled roofs, the characters living in steel-and-glass boxes have tended to be evil, deviant or seriously repressed.

When it comes to family homes, modern architecture can be a tough sell. Often minimal and impossibly clutter-free, modern design also generates another common complaint: It's too cold, too austere. But designer and builder Noah Walker recently conceived a Manhattan Beach home for Tiffany and Andy Chen and their two boys that is smartly streamlined but still meets their practical needs and retains a warm beauty. Among the family-friendly features: a second-floor mezzanine that serves as a rumpus room for the kids, a kitchen sink that the designer calls the “command and control” center, with sightlines to kids playing in the family room as well as in the backyard, and a synthetic lawn the busy family prefers to real grass.

Last time around the focus was Southern California's art history; now homegrown architecture is getting its time in the sun. Getty Trust leaders are announcing Monday the final roster of exhibition and event partners in its Pacific Standard Time spinoff, Pacific Standard Time Presents: Modern Architecture in Southern California, slated to run April through July. They will also be releasing the specific grant amounts given to various museums and institutions: roughly $3.6 million in all. Eight exhibition partners received grants from $260,000 to $445,000 to help mount shows and publish catalogs; eight event partners received grants ranging from $20,000 to $246,000 to organize panels, tours and other programs.

To the extent that modernism in architecture was about clearing the historical decks -- about dramatically and even gleefully breaking with the past -- Cliff May was never cut out to be a modernist. Not an orthodox one, anyway. A sixth-generation Californian born in 1903, May grew up spending summer vacations with an aunt on his father's side who held a lifetime lease on one of the original Mexican ranchos in northern San Diego County. His mother's family traced its lineage to Jose Antonio Estudillo, one of San Diego's most prominent founders.