From the Ground Up is a series on Archinect focused on discovering the early stages & signs of history's most prolific architects. Starting from the beginning allows us to understand the long journey architecture takes in even the formative of hands and often, surprising shifts that occur in its journey. These early projects grant us a glimpse into the early, naive, ambitious and at points rough edges of soon to be architectural masters.
Rem's first building. Check. Thom Mayne's. Check. Frank Gehry's. Check. Eric Owen Moss (suspenseful pause). IMPOSSIBLE. In today's access to historical objects, historical images, and resources it would seem impossible to not easily find information on such a significant architect but as such things are when they traditionally involve Eric Owen Moss they become enigmas in their own right and yet, MoMA itself has Moss's model of such work stored in its permanent collection.
Other texts present the work but show no images while references are made but no solid details given beyond its function is clearly described.
While Moss's work is largely eclectic yet similar, exaggerated and yet controlled, his early work proves just as interestingly present and yet hidden. His web page does in deed present the work but only its name and date. Other texts present the work but show no images while references are made but no solid details given beyond its function is clearly described. Moss's first work is the Playa Del Rey Triplex Apartments. The Playa Del Rey Triplex Apartments completed in 1976 was a renovation and of an existing duplex was split into three by Moss's touches and took upon itself the contemporary loudness of color, the graphic of building and visual serialization that Moss was working on at the time.
While the written words of Eric Owen Moss in relation to his first project may be hard to find, an older lecture by Moss from 1979 does a perfect job at presenting an early Moss with him describing his work in his usual and famous Kafkaesque approach while simultaneously fostering an insatiable curiosity into what makes him tick and even more, what makes this ticking turn into such amazing Architecture. Give it a watch and get a sampling of Moss's early mind, early process and early preoccupations.
Anthony Morey is a Los Angeles based designer, curator, educator, and lecturer of experimental methods of art, design and architectural biases. Morey concentrates in the formulation and fostering of new modes of disciplinary engagement, public dissemination, and cultural cultivation. Morey is the ...
4 Comments
that’s one of Eric’s best projects.
Nice!
It took a lot of digging to find information on the work of Eric Owen Moss but your determination and persistence yielded a bounty. Now the rest of us can just Google “Eric Owen Moss” and find this article which brought this important architect out of obscurity and into the light. Thank you.
you could've just gone to his website
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