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'Schindler Space Architect' documentary premieres in Los Angeles

2024-11-19T16:20:00-05:00

Here's a heads-up for L.A.-based fans of Rudolph Schindler. Do not miss tonight’s premiere screening of Valentina Ganeva’s new documentary Schindler Space Architect at 7:30 p.m. in Beverly Hills.

Ganeva recently spoke to KCRW about some of its insights, including the overlooked feminist design considerations present in the Schindler House on North Kings Road. Narrated by Meryl Streep and Udo Kier, the film features commentary from Steven Holl, Ray Kappe, Thom Mayne, and Frank Gehry, among others. Ganeva says their critique of Schindler's "spirit of innovation" is still important for today's architects to imbibe. The ticketed screening takes place at the Writers Guild Theatre on 135 S. Doheny Drive in Beverly Hills and will be followed shortly afterward by a Q&A.

Three famous modernist houses set the stage in this video art exhibition

2018-06-29T17:57:00-04:00

At Pioneer Works, in Brooklyn, the show “Gerard & Kelly: Clockwork” — photographs, text, installations, and live and filmed dance — references the three small structures and the intertwined careers of their architects: the Schindler House in West Hollywood, Calif., by R. M. Schindler; Philip Johnson’s Glass House in New Canaan, Conn.; and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s Farnsworth House in Plano, Ill.

Artists Brennan Gerard and Ryan Kelly's film Schindler/Glass uses three iconic modernist houses as the backdrop in which issues of gendered space and domestic intimacy are explored. The video piece is part of an ongoing series by the artists called “Modern Living". Shot on site at the Schindler House, the Glass House, and the Farnsworth House, performers interact with the complicated architectural histories in each structure.

This modernist Rudolph Schindler church in South LA could be yours for $1.85M

2015-03-26T19:01:00-04:00

Prolific Los Angeles Modernist Rudolph Schindler designed dozens of timeless duplexes, apartments, houses, and office buildings, but he only ever designed one church. Bethlehem Baptist Church in Central-Alameda was built in 1944 for a small, black church congregation. Now, just after a much-needed restoration to what was for many years a pretty rough-looking building, the architecturally significant church—an official Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Landmark—is up for sale.

Rudy's pink by Stephen Prina, as he remembers it

2013-04-07T13:59:00-04:00

“brave new color, for a brave new world.”

"It’s 1980s Los Angeles. Nighttime. (Freshly graduated Michael Asher students from Cal Arts,) Stephen Prina and fellow artist Christopher Williams walk along La Brea Avenue and a pink shape in a glowing storefront display catches their attention. Unable to identify the object, they approach the store and discover the puzzling unit is a desk designed by Austrian architect R.M. Schindler. Something feels odd about the desk, and the artists soon learn it was once built-in to a Schindler house; but, having been removed from its original architectural context, the desk has been painted pink and is now presented, awkwardly, as a freestanding object.

Looking back on that noteworthy discovery nearly three decades later, Prina says of the desk, “it appeared to us as an amputated limb.” Thus the seed was planted for Prina’s installation As He Remembered It, opening as part of his solo exhibition in BCAM and in the Pavilion for Japanese Art. The exhibition is open to members starting toda...

Laurelwood Apartments Renovation

2012-01-18T18:54:00-05:00

The Laurelwood Apartments, designed by R.M. Schindler in 1946, recently underwent a complete exterior restoration after years of neglect and disrepair. The 22-unit hillside housing complex, located in Studio City California, is Schindler’s largest completed work and a designated Historic Landmark. It demonstrates the innovation and experimentation of the last phase of his career. Constructed in the “Schindler Frame”, a modular construction system Schindler developed during WWII, it was built with inexpensive and efficient building materials and methods, such as exposed framing used as screens and trellises or grape stakes used as fencing. Schindler was an early critic of the International Style, and here its prevailing principles were challenged through the use of rotated, staggered forms built from common or low materials and adapted to site-specific conditions.

From the street, the carports create a buffer and point of entry. A central walkway connects the two halves of the...

R. M. Schindler's Lovell Beach House, A Rare Look

2011-10-10T23:00:00-04:00

Known as one of the finest example of Los Angeles' canonical modernism period, R. M. Schindler's Lovell Beach House will be open to public on a 'very' rare occasion.

In conjunction with the exhibition Sympathetic Seeing: Esther McCoy and the Heart of American Modernist Architecture and Design, the MAK Center for Art and Architecture at the Schindler House is pleased to open the Lovell Beach House (R.M. Schindler, 1926) in Newport Beach for public tours on Sunday, October 16 as a fundraiser.

Don't miss this EXTREMELY RARE opportunity to visit the Lovell Beach House, 1926, in Newport Beach, AND be part of a small group guided into the house by one of these esteemed speakers:

Thom Andersen, Filmmaker, Professor of Film and Video at CalArts
Frances Anderton, Writer, Host of KCRW's DnA: Design and Architecture, Los Angeles Editor of Dwell magazine
John Crosse, Historian of Southern California Architecture
Jocelyn Gibbs, Curator of Architecture and Design Collection at Art, Design & Architecture Museum, UCSB
Greg Goldin, Architecture Critic
Christopher Hawthorne, Los Angeles Times Architecture Critic
Craig Hodgetts, Arc...