Larry Totah died few years ago. All his close friends, including me, have seen him wither away, but he managed to keep an encompassing fog around his demise as if his architecture was going to survive in it, and it did.
Only then but not now. It remained there not frozen but still, not void nor empty and not sad.
It was three or four years ago when Larry passed away and I don't remember exactly when and it is not important anymore because now the years will just keep adding. As far as I am concerned, there is a moment his last project will remain unchanged, contained and always still, except the blur which will be moving slowly. I will keep wishing the house would remain always empty, dirt not covered and maybe someday walls are further tangled like Larry's words did at the final days in a Hollywood hospital. Death, like the House, cold on the surface and not inside.
I was the first one to see him transformed and transported elsewhere in the dark intensive care room and spent the next fifteen minutes alone empty and not frozen, like the House.
Avocados grew around the Malibu Hills where the pictures were taken, a winding road around the brown soil and there it was, a catacomb worthy of my friend circled in perpetual and final expression and not thin.
The House continuously frames and de-frames itself in three or four sets of axis minded passages. In the front, overlooking Pacific Ocean rather edgewise and build like a long drawing depicting a horizontally composed architecture. The fog, roof and the walls are more of Chumash hiring Hopi to build on their mountains for few exquisite basket full of shellfish to adorn the wedding dresses in Hopi villages like the ones a Don Juan dreamed of, a fair exchange.
Then beyond that wall starting from small, and from the left side if one is facing the ocean and slowly moving sideways like a tracking shot capturing images from one space to another. First a large bathroom and a bedroom, then another room to watch TV, and then, the scale conscious living room combined with an open kitchen. From there, outside framed through the carefully placed windows capturing wide spreads of the landscape around the House. If the fog ever clears, a mountain, the ocean and the dirt carpet on which the structure resides would appear. I saw it like that too but forgot.
Second axis is the street created by parallel and across arrangement of disparate buildings dissected by sometimes interior perpendicular cuts. This axis, not the ocean, and not thin, is the lungs of the house. A horizontal chimney, a breezy passage. Bobcats, rattle snakes and giant owl would roam here and take refuge. This is the passage at fog, illuminated by a blurry light all around and wiggles of walls running wild like the eaves.
Another axis runs along the other edge of the flattened ridge. An eastern view with hills covered with native yuccas, verbenas, sages and other variety of native brush and obscured after few feet down disappearing into the skirt of the hill covered by the weather.
I guess it could be any building but it was construction of Larry's. As he was battling with cancer knowing he was going to die, this house was his lifeline and kept him alive and he saw it finished. He attended client and contractor meetings for which I would drive him there and walk around taking photos. Larry liked the images and I liked them too. Not much later though. When I was there few months after Larry died, house was transformed beyond my relationship to it. A wealthy and driven lawyer lived in it and all the work was done inside. Outside was quiet and the fog was back.
(from an architectural remembrance.)
A long-time contributor to Archinect as a senior editor and writing about architecture, urbanism, people, politics, arts, and culture. The featured articles, interviews, news posts, activism, and provocations are published here and on other websites and media. A licensed architect in ...
7 Comments
is it just me? or does anyone else notice the bad grammar and misspelled words?
Hmmm. I am kind of torn between. Can you be more specific? I am willing to edit if I like it.
fitzpa2, if you know Orhan's writing you know that those idiosyncrasies are patina, not flaw.
Beautiful, Orhan, especially in light of other familiar cancer deaths of late. And how images live on and trigger memories of how a loved one existed themself and intersected with our own life.
"...if you know Orhan's writing you know that those idiosyncrasies are patina, not flaw."
Interesting euphemism.
literal truth, in fact. not euphemism.
fitzpa2, when you're done with the number crunching go read some prose. It should help to free your thinking. You need to break the cycle. olson185, let it go. Nobody is your enemy, you need to break the cycle. When you are done with crunching numbers, go read some prose. It should help to free your thinking.
Donna,
the young ones don't understand how Cancer can crush a life in its prime. i have lost three personal friends and architects to Cancer. There is not a day goes by that I don't think about them and what we are without because they were not able to carry their ideas forward.
I think of my first architecture friend lost to Cancer. This is a short thought about how you get to know people. One morning I came into work early and I could hear what I thought was James Taylor on the radio...turns out it was Clinton...singing. I never new he sang, but yes sang in a church choir. His brother was a music major, in a band. He was a great help in putting projects together. He was into computers...so we were exploring together in the early years. One day he tells me he is so sick he fell out of a chair at home. The radiation an the cancer took him way before his time.
My second friend lost to Cancer, Dominique. She did the battle a couple of times. She was a great designer and an educator. She above all was a great friend. it took her before her time.
My third friend , Paul. His was quick, but he had struggled thru life with a lot of things going on. He was finally settled in life, doing what he really wanted with a wonderful woman and with a beautiful daughter. Then the darkness of night took him., way before his time.
I think of all three of these people fellow architects and often think I would have gone for them if I could. In stood I live thru memories of them. We were all racing chariots toward the Sun.
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