LA baby!

I have taken forever to update this blog but tonight is the night! ***Note my Macgyver skills with the GPS hanging.***

Probably one of the most exiting things about the LA trip is that I got a free upgrade to a convertible!!! It was really cool and it had a sweet sound system in the back. I feel that I truly experienced LA just because of that.
And of course Hollywood - which by the way I did not get to see the whole thing and I am going back - but so far it was kind of disappointing. I did not really find any stars with famous names on them and kind of had to run away as we were chased by this weird guy that wanted to make a portrait of me?!?!?!

In any case, it was generally dirty - even the star names! and so much pollution you could see it in the air. Sad :-(  On the bright side, my job took me to Corona Del Mar which is probably one of the nicest places I have been to: Cool houses, sunshine, marinas - the life!

That's right - solar panel facade. LA is one of the places where this can work...Chicago not so much... I really liked this building though.
So in search of architecture I went and even thought I didn't have much luck with the case study houses, I did find Eames, Frank Lloyd Wright and Schindler.

The Eames house was really tiny on a huge property and closed to the public except for one day a year which of course wasn't when I was there. It had a nice overview of a big beach.

This FLW home was for sale for $5 million! It was huge and definitely very cheap for one of his designs. I think I heard that it went even lower. Oh economy!! The cubical concrete block with perforated and not decorations was amazing and allowed for flexibility in design. I really liked the concept. Same with the one below that was actually inhabited.

And yes - this one above here is the Schindler house or whatever you can see of it. Apparently whatever society is preserving it decided to grow prairie grass around it - which I am convinced served the purpose of not letting me take pictures of the outside. Below is as close as I could get.

Above is the dining room with Schindler's furniture, the best idea for sink/shower design I have ever seen, and this stupid sign they had put outside the house. It looks like it should be able to rotate and spin - but no - it does not move at all. I tried.

On the modern side, I visited the Getty center up on a hill. The views were beautiful and the center was interesting. As always, I took the tour of the outside building and did not even get to the inside exhibit. I am an architecture student after all.

I am now realizing that I don't have a picture of the entire place but it was huge and probably impossible for my little canon. Last comment for this entry - the bottom picture is of what is called fossil limestone that covers pretty much the entire enormous Getty Center. According to the tour-guide, the stone came directly from Rome from the same quarry as the stones that built the Colosseum. I don't remember the exact amount of stone brought to the top of the hill for the center but it took them about 6 years to bring all of it. However, according to the guide and the big round sign on the entrance doors, the building has a silver LEED rating. Anyone see any conflicts here? Just wondering...