Archinect - News

Godfather of LA architecture, Robert Winter, author of "An Architectural Guidebook to Los Angeles", has died

2019-02-12T15:38:00-05:00

Robert Winter, the architectural historian who spent his life chronicling Los Angeles' sweeping cityscape, passed away Saturday night at age 94. His death was confirmed by his publisher, Angel City Press.

Author of the seminal work, An Architectural Guidebook to Los Angeles, Winter is widely considered as the godfather of Los Angeles architecture, and his writings, as Southern California's bible. The exhaustive collection, now in its sixth edition, was notable for going beyond the already famous to feature the humble, manmade structures and other physical features of the city. In his writings, the works of Frank Lloyd Wright, Richard Neutra, Rudolph Schindler and Gregory Ain, appear alongside gas stations, subway stops, and fast food restaurants with equal importance.

Batchelder House in Arroyo Seco.

While his guidebook spanned all regions and styles, from Beaux-Arts to High Tech, Winter himself had a strong affinity towards the American Arts and Crafts movement, for which Southern...

Spruce up with this architectural floor-plan jewelry by QUPA

2017-06-06T20:45:00-04:00

The architectural floor plans of the most extravagant structures can be a work of art themselves, as seen in the “CROQUIS” jewelry line by architects Eleni Kouineli and Stefanos Papadatos of Greek design studio QUPA. Fusing their love for handcrafting and architecture, Kouineli and Papadatos transform the floor plans of some of the world's famous cultural landmarks into elegant pendant necklaces and earrings.

The mini floor-plan pieces are made via classic molding, 3D-printing or laser cutting in materials like 24K Gold, platinum, ruthenium, and sterling silver. So far, the collection includes ancient rotundas, temples, and theaters as well as more contemporary buildings like Bernard Tschumi's Acropolis Museum and Daniel Libeskind's zig-zag Jewish Museum in Berlin.

Rotunda of St. George laser-cut necklace. Photo © QUPA.

Jewish Museum Berlin earrings. Photo © QUPA.

Theatre of Epidaurus. Photo © QUPA.

Parthenon. Photo © QUPA.

Find more of QUPA's floor plan jewelry on their Etsy shop.

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This contemporary medieval-style castle is being built using only medieval tools

2017-05-23T13:13:00-04:00

Funded mainly by tourist dollars, the French site of Guedelon has been building a medieval-style castle for the last 17 years using only the technology and tools that would have been available circa 1245. The result, which has created a living lab of craftspeople visited by curious schoolchildren, is helping archaeologists to understand not only what it was like to live and work in the Middle Ages, but also is reviving physical crafting techniques that are increasingly archaic, if not forgotten, in a digital age. In addition to inducing a desire to visit wine country, this video explains how the castle design itself was conceived:

Stephanie Clark’s embroidered architecture

2015-05-01T13:06:00-04:00

Stephanie K Clark builds homes from swatches of cloth and spools of thread, embroidering tiny dwellings which appear to absorb the sun and moonlight from her small-scale scenes. The structures and their surrounding landscaping appear in vibrant colors while supporting and environment-specific trees, cacti, flamingos, and dogs lay nearby in faint black outlines.

Performing the ghosts of the Gamble House

2014-10-02T17:35:00-04:00

Wanting to stretch one's fascia, the wood wanting to expand, and the people inside being very minute in comparison with the wood's needs. It's almost as if the house itself is turning and emptying out all the residue of the people, wanting just to be free, free of the people, free of... the spoilage is the word that I'm getting, I just want to keep pushing out further and further and further, and as I do my own body just feels much much more relaxed.

Aside from being an emblem of the Arts and Crafts movement and an historical landmark, it turns out the Gamble House in Pasadena, California is also haunted. Or, so it would seem according to performance artist Asher Hartman, who communed with former generations of Gambles in his "psychic reading" performance of the House. Filmmaker David Fenster captured Hartman's performance in a beautiful short piece, while also languishing on a few elements of the House's rich craftsmen style.

"Psychic Reading of the Gamble House" is part of The Machine Project Field Guide to the Gamble House, a slew of ongoing art and performance pieces put on by Machine Project, a maker, teacher, artist and hacker event space in Los Angeles. The Field Guide puts different instances of contemporary art practice in the midst of the Gamble's exemplary early 20th century architecture, creating some interesting counterpoints in the process. Hartman has previously performed for The Machine Project’s Field Guide to L....