Archinect - News

How Esther McCoy's writings connected Mexican and LA design in this Museo Jumex exhibition

2017-03-15T17:02:00-04:00

Esther McCoy is best known as the architecture writer who helped shape the story of Modernism in Los Angeles. Less known is the nearly year-long period she spent in Mexico in 1951. During this time, she wrote about key architectural developments in the country... “The [“Passersby 02: Esther McCoy” exhibition] presents [McCoy] as this kind of bridge,” says Esparza, “from L.A. to Mexico and from Mexico to L.A.”

Architecture historian and critic Esther McCoy is the spotlight of a micro-exhibition called “Passersby 02: Esther McCoy”, which closes this Sunday at Museo Jumex. The exhibition investigates how McCoy's writings on key architectural developments in Mexico during her extended stay in 1951 had an influence on the architectural styles that developed in Los Angeles. It explores the exchange of ideas and references between Mexico and Los Angeles, and how McCoy became an important connection between the two places.

Favorite Building: Konrad Wachsmann and Le Corbusier

2015-01-29T14:41:00-05:00

From Esther McCoy's 1981 memorial to Konrad Wachsmann:

"Finally all internees who wanted to, were permitted to join the French army. Konrad did. They heard then about the Dunkirk disaster. When Konrad’s regiment crossed the Loire River, the Germans were already in Marseilles. They had destroyed the Pont Transbordeur, which bridged the inner harbor entrance to Marseilles.

Ten years later Konrad sat one day in a restaurant in New York with Le Corbusier. Konrad said, "He asked me what I thought was the most beautiful structure in this century."
"I hope, " Konrad said, "you are not expecting me to say the Villa Savoye.”
“No, no, " Corb replied.

Konrad then proposed that each write the name of the structure and compare them. They had both written Pont Transbordeur..."

Cover photo and quote via Susan Morgan

Orhan Ayyüce: L.A. Love At First Sight

2012-05-24T17:01:00-04:00

I met this gray-haired woman. I lit her cigarette and she asked me what I was doing there? I said I just wanted to meet some architects and learn where I could go to school. "She said, okay, 'If you have a car, tomorrow go to this place in Santa Monica called SciArc, it's a new school. Ask for Ray Kappe and tell them that Esther McCoy sent you.'

KCET just sat down with Archinect senior editor Orhan Ayyüce for an interview about his Turkish roots, the arrival in Los Angeles, and his unlikely introduction to the world of architecture.

Affection, the ruling emotion

2012-05-13T19:52:00-04:00

McCoy had the opportunity to create a school and then witness its foibles, its meanderings, and opine about its legacy.

Alexandra Lange reviews the recently published Piecing Together Los Angeles: An Esther McCoy Reader. The book is the first published collection of her writings and includes out-of-print essays, articles, short stories, as well as previously unpublished lectures, correspondence, and memoirs. Lange concludes that McCoy's "humorous way of noticing, her personal touch, her California-ness" resulted in writing that "reads as wonderfully sympathetic, but not uncritical."

An Esther McCoy revival tells story of L.A.'s modern architecture

2011-12-16T17:37:30-05:00

Esther McCoy is having a moment. The architecture critic and historian, who died in 1989 at age 85, is the subject of a smart Pacific Standard Time exhibition at the Schindler House in West Hollywood, building on McCoy's deep connections with Rudolph Schindler himself. The show is accompanied by a Getty-funded catalog, and early next year East of Borneo Press will publish "Piecing Together Los Angeles," an anthology of McCoy's essays on architecture.

Short Essay: Thank you Esther McCoy

2011-09-30T11:52:00-04:00

I met Esther McCoy in1978 AIA Regional Conference, Newport Beach, California. I was there as a young wonderer hoping to find information on architecture and study it.
Unknowingly and randomly I walked into one of the conference rooms and listened an inspired young architect, Eric Moss, showing kind of buildings I have never seen before.
After the presentation to roughly twenty people, the audience moved to a small patio area outside the room. This is when I lit the cigarette of this silver haired elegant and youthful lady who asked for a match and we start to talk. I responded to her curiosity and in few minutes I told her my story about wanting to go to architecture school. This was right around time I was rejected by "American citizens and California residents only" Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo for being a foreign student. I described her my birthplace Izmir and the Aegean architecture of Turkey. She was taking a great delight of my story, description of architecture I grew up wit...

Irving Gill and Dodge House via Esther McCoy

2011-06-20T19:56:00-04:00

The bulldozers wait for the trees and gardens, which, for a half century, matured. For the House, which, time has not touched. We prize the distant past,but if the immediate past is ripped away, there will be no distant past for the future. The continuity will be broken. Our heritage diminished. There is a hole in the fabric of History. - Ester McCoy

Dodge House 1916 (1965)
This film, produced by architectural historian Esther McCoy, documents the Walter Luther Dodge house in West Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, and the life of its architect, Irving John Gill. The film was made to advocate for its preservation during a 7-year battle to save it from the wrecking ball. The campaign failed, and the house was destroyed in 1970. This film, created to help save the house, now serves as the building's best surviving visual record. For more information on Dodge House and Esther McCoy, see her papers at the Archives of American Art.

Via, with special thanks to my friend John Crosse, Historian.

Film: http://youtu.be/05Jap-YRTPM