Master Photographer: by
THE photographer Julius Shulman captured Los Angeles and its surroundings in the middle of the 20th century as the city was shedding its small-town roots and becoming an international capital. In a career that started with a shoot for Richard Neutra in 1936 and ended with his death in 2009, Shulman photographed virtually every important midcentury modernist architect’s work — especially those on the West Coast — not to mention taking on an almost daily stream of jobs for businesses, cities and publications.
After having chronicled his native city for over a decade, Shulman
signed on to shoot Case Study Houses, experimental residences
commissioned by Arts & Architecture magazine in the ’40s, ’50s and
’60s, created by masters like Neutra, Raphael Soriano, Craig Ellwood and
Pierre Koenig. These photographs helped make Shulman the most famous
architectural photographer of his generation.
The structures that Shulman captured have been fixed in the popular
imagination as living museum pieces. But a few, detailed below, are open
to visitors, who can experience the homes and landmarks by appointment.
Visiting them not only allows a close-up view of the architecture, it
also allows you to experience the spaces as Shulman photographed them.
He was able to distill the character of a building’s surroundings,
bringing the outside in and extending the inside out with his bold, wide
angles, striking perspectives and diagonals that, as his gallerist
Craig Krull once told me, “suck you in.Unlike the monuments of other cities, those of Los Angeles require you
to work for them. Many are not even open to the public. Some that are,
are off the beaten path. As a result, when you arrive at some of the
city’s greatest architectural masterpieces — many of them that Shulman
himself made famous — you’re often all alone, or touring with a few
other people, communing with the building and reliving a photograph.Case Study House 22
The most famous piece of architecture that Shulman captured is Case
Study House 22, by Pierre Koenig, in the Hollywood Hills neighborhood.
It is open for both day and night tours. Shulman’s shot of two women
staring down at the lights of Los Angeles from this steel house jutting
over the side of a cliff is arguably one of the most famous
architectural photographs of all time.
The L-shaped home, built on a tiny lot that the owner, Buck Stahl, and
his wife, Carlotta, shored up with discarded concrete, seems to perch
over the city. It lives up to Shulman’s image, providing a 270-degree
view of the area, from the Griffith Observatory in the Los Feliz
neighborhood to the ocean beyond Santa Monica. And it’s almost
completely clad in floor-to-ceiling glass — open on three sides in the
living room, which juts off the side of a mountain (although not as far
as Shulman’s pictures suggest). Being inside makes you feel as if you’re floating, or even flying over
the city. The house also provides visitors the chance to recreate
Shulman’s famous shot, taken outside the glassy living space from the
pool, which everyone does, and automatically makes it their new Facebook
highlight." (Information on viewings, freewebtv.org )
Eames House
The site of the Eames House , one of
the most famous houses in Los Angeles, has been open to visitors since
2005. Charles and Ray Eames were perhaps best known for their eponymous
chair and other furniture, but in the architectural world, their house,
otherwise known as Case Study House 8, is singular. Visiting the home,
just off a bluff overlooking the ocean in the Pacific Palisades
neighborhood of Los Angeles, feels like making a pilgrimage.
The public tour allows you to walk around the house, which is
bisected by a small courtyard. From there you can take in the house’s
design, an inexpensive one that used prefabricated materials ordered
from catalogs. The Eameses took advantage of their skill in graphic and
industrial design to create a simple composition of exposed steel frames
and colorful steel panels.What’s striking is not just the architecture but the otherworldly
peacefulness of the site, with its dappled light, sloping hillside, cool
ocean breezes and acacia, eucalyptus and pepper trees. I suggest taking
a second to sit on the wooden swing, hanging from one of the trees’
branches. The living room had been left exactly as it was when the Eameses lived
there. But you won’t see it there until this summer. It has been moved
to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art until June 3 for its exhibition,
California Design , 1930-1965: “ Living in a Modern Way .”Still, from outside the home, you can peer in to see its lofted spaces. (Information on exterior and interior tours: freewebtv.org )
Watts Towers
Shulman’s love of the new was not limited to rare buildings created by
elite architects and enjoyed by the rich. He also photographed the rest
of the city, from the streets of downtown to great department stores to
factories and tract houses on the outskirts. It doesn’t get much farther
from the beaten path than Watts, which is still not the safest of
neighborhoods. But if you’re willing to explore, you’ll be in for one of
the greatest architectural surprises of your life.
The Watts Towers , another subject of Shulman’s created by Simon, a k a
Sam, Rodia, an immigrant laborer from Italy who didn’t think like
everybody else. Day by day, from 1925 to 1955, Rodia worked on the
towers outside of his house, adding glass , bottles , broken plates , tiles
and seashells to his complex of intertwined and jumblede stel structures
that rose as high as 100 feet.
The structures’ frames were made of chicken wire , coat hangers , barbed wire and rebar . His tools were rudimentary, and he used no bolts or
nails. Inside the gates of this mesmerizing twist of steel, ceramics and
color, it feels like a cross between a drip castle, an oil derrick and
the Sagrada Familia. Quite an accomplishment for a lay architect who
didn’t have the imprimatur of a magazine. (Schedule and other information on: freewebtv.org )
Hollyhock House
Shulman is famous for capturing the work of Frank Lloyd Wright’s
protégés Richard Neutra and Rudolph Schindler. But he also shot the work
of the master himself, including several of his homes in Los Angeles.
Wright’s Hollyhock House , in the East Hollywood neighborhood, is open to
visitors. Located atop Barnsdall Park, the Mayan-inspired residence was
constructed for the eccentric oil heiress Aline Barnsdall, whose
favorite flower, the Hollyhock, appears in abstracted form throughout.
As you enter through a cramped hallway, you wonder what all the fuss is
about. But proceed farther and the ceiling explodes upward and you enter
the home’s highlight: its breathtaking living room. Centered on a huge
stone fireplace, etched with a geometric frieze and fronted by what was
once a moat, the room is filled with ornate woodwork , sleek Wright-designed furniture , striking stained-glass windows and wonderful
views of the park and the city.
The house is planned around a central courtyard embedded with an
amphitheater, and light-dappled rooms open to the park. I recommend
checking out the collection of vintage architectural magazines in the
study. (Information on freewebtv.org )
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