If you’re in Vancouver on July 28, and are interested in the vernacular modernist architecture of our region, buy a ticket for this event. Ouno is hosting this fundraiser to benefit the completion of the film Coast Modern by my filmmaker friends Gavin Froome and Mike Bernard. This film has been widely and eagerly anticipated; it’s the first comprehensive film on the particular form of architectural modernism found on North America’s Pacific coast (from British Columbia to Southern California), and it includes interviews with key figures who are now no longer with us—Julius Shulman and Vancouver’s Abe Rogatnick. The film’s completion was slightly delayed by an early switch to HD format, a smart decision considering the content. Attend on Thursday July 28 and be part of this valuable historical project. Even better, buy the higher level of admission with an artist print poster! You will be supporting a good cause. Trailers/footage will be projected at the party.
Some quotes from the Coast Modern film: “Expressive form, absence of ornmament, new materials—all of that to achieve built forms that invited new ways of living.” —Russell Baker “On the west coast, including Vancouver, Seattle, Portland, San Franciso, there always has been a greater respect for nature.” —Barry Downs “Any way you can break down that barrier between indoors and outdoors, with the comfort of being inside but the feeling of being outside, that’s really what it’s all about.” —Dion Neutra “The smaller they are, the more beautiful they are.” —David Netto “Using the materials and relating to the climate, creating beauty that is unique to that setting.” “Find the beauty in your own times.” —Abe Rogatnick
From the Coast Modern site: “Intimate interviews and unprecedented access to architects in the film include Barry Downs (Vancouver), Fred Bassetti (Seattle), Hernik Bull (Berkeley), Ray Kappe (LA), Michael Folonis (Santa Monica), Dion Neutra (Los Angeles, son and partner of Modernist pioneer Richard Neutra), Barbara Bestor (LA) and others.” Houses are featured by architects including Ron Thom, Edward Killingsworth, Fred Hollingsworth, Richard Neutra, Barry Downs and Arthur Erickson.
If you’re in Vancouver and are interested in Arthur Erickson’s ties with Japan (and by extension Japan’s influence on west coast modernism), it’s worth ordering tickets for this event now. It will sell out. It’s not cheap, but there’s a good deal for students. The event is co-presented by Coast Modern, the upcoming film about modern architecture on the west coast from Vancouver to LA, by filmmakers Gavin Froome and Michael Bernard. The event is November 25, 7 pm at The Vancouver International Film Centre. For tickets and more information contact Cheryl Cooper at the Arthur Erickson Conservancy and see the writeup on the Coast Modern blog. For full information on the talk and Professor Sabatino, click below for more.
These stills were shot during the filming of Coast Modern, a documentary film about West Coast modern house architecture, spanning from LA to Vancouver, by Vancouver filmmakers Gavin Froome and Mike Bernard. The film “speaks with the architects and their patrons and asks if Modernism’s time has finally come or did it never really go away.” It is currently in the editing phase and is set to be completed this coming fall. The filmmakers talked with an impressive number of well-known architects and designers up and down the coast, and based on the preview the film has a great feel – entertaining and informative. You can follow the film’s progress on their blog, watch the preview trailer below, and there’s a set of stills on Flickr. I’m hoping the film will spark increased appreciation of modern architecture in Vancouver before the current spate of house demolitions proceeds any further. Photos here are: the Stinson Beach House, top; DJ Greyboy’s Opdahl House by architect Edward Killingsworth; Barbara Bestor’s LA House; the filmmakers talking with Julius Shulman; and the Etenza House where the idea for the Case Study project was hatched. I’ll post more information on the film and its events closer to the release date. All photos posted here by permission from the filmmakers.
Hi!
1. To read about my book project on Vancouver's Habitat Forum event of 1976, concerning sustainable urban settlements, click here.
2. Vancouver: We thought we beat the predatory, state-run mega-casino the BC government tried to force on downtown Vancouver, but now it turns out City Hall has given the gaming company and PavCo a loophole. The fight continues. Please stay tuned. The gambling industry is powerful, makes huge political donations, and never ceases trying to coerce gov'ts into permitting expansion. Learn about our ongoing fight here. Ask Windsor/Atlantic City/St. Louis Melbourne how they're feeling about the gambling-based urban planning choices they made. It causes untold problems and is not nearly as lucrative as advertised and promised charity contributions are always clawed back.
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This site is a messy photo essay on design. It likes the modern, the ancient, the space age, the futurist and the rustic, the utopian, the anti-utopian, the unstuffy and the unstaid, the green, the possibly not entirely lost promise of the 1960s and 70s, the creative, the practical, the ingenious, the mixed, the unorthodox, and the way people actually live in real spaces. It has an interest in bricolage, making do and the way necessity mothers invention, as well as the sheer level of cultural borrowing evident in design, the impurity of design traditions long considered pure, and just generally the wild miscegenation of everything.
Note: not all mixing is good. I'm not talking about the faux-historification of our cities, demolishing the past and replacing it with faux nineteenth-century 'originality.'". Sometimes you get elements of the past and the future, combining to make something not quite as good as either.
Because design is not divorced from anything else, this essay is also about urban planning, philosophy, art, political economy, architecture, sociology, geography, neurology, pyschology and anything else that pertains to design, which is everything. The word "ouno" is a name in both Finnish and Japanese, it contains the symbols for both zero and one, and it's the same right side up as upside down. This site makes no attempt to avoid being nerdy or critical. There are plenty of nicey-nice design blogs out there and if that's what you're looking for, go for it. But without critique and complaint, the design of cities and dwellings in North America won't get any better, and it needs to get a lot better than it is-- less creatively impoverished and much more pleasurable. We do after all spend almost all of our lives in buildings and towns and cities and altered landscapes, all of which have a overwhelming impact on our conscious lives, our unconscious lives, our health, intelligence, creativity and our social interactions, whether we're aware of it or not. Not only do we need more humane spaces in which to live, we need above all to ensure affordable housing for all. Dear Canada and the USA, quit letting developers run - and ruin - this show.
