Through June and the start of July, I undertook some travel made possible by the Byera Hadley Traveling Scholarship awarded by the NSW Architects Registration Board. We travelled through parts of the USA, Europe and Egypt looking at monolithic landscape and architecture. The following series of posts will summarise the trip in some fashion.
We leave Los Angeles by road.
Previously we drove to San Diego to visit the Salk. On our first full day in California, a negotiation with the freeway south is a sound introduction to the state’s primary infrastructure. We are told by the (admittedly incompetent) hire car rep, that we have set out at the right time, and that we should make our appointment in San Diego in time and surprisingly, the roads run smoothly. Returning to Los Angeles that evening, a friday before the Memorial Day long weekend, we witness the full force of LA’s legendary traffic facing us, in the other direction, a city loosening its trousers, relieving itself onto the coastline.
In between, we visit the Salk Institute. It is as expected, incredibly tight. Not a wasted move. It grows more compact and dense with memory, the weight of its laboratories intensified by the famously photogenic courtyard between. Anti wishes we bought our roller blades. I wish we owned roller blades. The courtyard pulls the Pacific Ocean (which is in fact some distance away) into the building while a hang-glider drifts across the horizon. The tour of the institute taken by local architect (and fantastically named) Scott Magic, includes a walk through the service spaces between the laboratories. A space that we are told has bought mechanical engineers to epiphanic tears. Although I wonder if, given the same space in every building, mechanical engineering as a profession would lose its one endearing challenge — the science and art of packing more and more into less and less.
Thank god for GPS. It renders Los Angeles accessible, and aids the outsider in amongst other things tracking down the local comic book stores. The search for a comic book store yields results. Looking for a comic book shop to satisfy the serialists urge, I read about Secret Headquarters, a funnybook store in a building that once served as a meeting point for undercover agents or somesuch. If you are that way inclined, I can recommend Secret Headquarters highly, if only for the revelation that a comic book shop does not need to pretend to be a toy store. There are no toys on the wall, no A Nightmare Before Christmas branded Monopoly boardgames stacked in a corner. Just comic books, all the standards and a good collection of local independent publications, on timber shelves. A good amount of time was spent trawling through their stock and I found a few trades of Stray Bullets that I had been looking for (I know that these things may be found easily on ebay and most likely amazon, but the game is partly in the hunt, and the online shortcut holds no thrill) so I left happy.
Happily, in the immediate surrounds of Secret Headquarters sat a collection of shops and restaurants where we were treated to amazing gelato at Pazzo and a brilliant fresh buffet style dinner at Forage and perused a bunch of great stores selling locally designed and manufactured clothing and goods. Later we are told, via Twitter, that we were in Silverlake, west of West Hollywood.
With this evidence we form a theory that comic book stores form governing points for interesting districts globally. It is a theory that is soon disproven elsewhere on the trip, with evidence quickly mounting that the comic book store is generally located in the slightly depressed areas of a city’s downtown. So much for that.
We leave Los Angeles a few days later making our way to Texas through Arizona and New Mexico. Again, we are leaving at the right time, the masses returning from Las Vegas after their long weekend.
We make three quick stops on this leg. Two worthwhile, one horrifying.
Stop one - Diamond Bay High School by Morphosis. This project has long been a favourite of mine and while it is difficult to know its success as a school being as it is a public holiday and empty save for a few maintenance staff, it does make a complex and intriguing enclosed public space. The classrooms are arranged off a central open courtyard spine which is bounded by a folding corrugated iron form. Cuts in the folding form focus out onto the expansive landscape below and beyond and give access into the classrooms. It seems a relatively inexpensive job given its formal complexity, but the detailing is straightforward and with the bulk of the budget appears to have been been directed at the courtyard space with the classrooms and administrative spaces left fairly low key.
Four stars.
Stop Two - In’n’Out Burger. My goodness, this is perfect fast food. For a start it is not that fast—meals are made to order—but then it also not that slow. A simple menu condenses the fast food experience to its essence; chips, burgers and soda. And cooks them well. The internet has invented some kind of east coast west coast battle between In’n’out Burger (California only) and Shake Shack (New York). I could care less, and won’t take sides, but will say that both are very good.
4.5 Stars
Stop Three - Some Discount Warehouse on the Side of the Highway. Wiped from memory.
0 Stars
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