The Marcel Breuer Cottage

My fiancee and I have been going up to the Hudson Valley pretty frequently this season to enjoy the foliage and get away from the city. A few of my photographer friends have been scouting for unique shoot locations, and I stumbled upon a listing for a rather unknown house in the Hudson Valley that was recently renovated and put on the vacation rental market. It is a Marcel Breuer original.

Any furniture lover will instantly appreciate Marcel Breuer for his famous Wassily Chair, conceived in 1925, and inspired by the curved tubular steel handlebars on his Adler bicycle. During that time, Marcel was an apprentice at the Bauhaus design school in Germany. One of the masters of the era of Modernism, Breuer displayed interest in modular construction and simple forms. His architecture has become a recording of early 20th century's iconoclastic movement to reinvent the space of the home.

The Wassily Chair, Marcel Breuer, 1925

During the latter years of his career, Marcel Breuer was asked to design a house to join an aluminum trailer already present on a mound of land near Salt Point, NY. At first he refused but as he was just building a dormitory at nearby Vassar College, he accepted the commission. The result is a unique combination of a modernist house and a streamlined bullet of the Spartan trailer. It comes with all the iconic aspects of Breuer's house designs- cantilevers, fireplace, fieldstone and cypress siding. I had a great conversation with the owner, David, who allowed us to visit the property and take some photos. Unfortunately, we could not go in because of the existing arrangements with a tenant, but it was nevertheless stunning to experience a Breuer house so close to home. It was easy to find, just off the scenic roads of the Taconic Parkway. Since the 1990's, the house was closed for renovation, rendering it relatively unknown to the architectural world, but has recently opened up to rent for short stays. Well worth a visit.

Some shots of the day.

A dark take on Los Angeles Architecture

There were two notable films I saw this week.

1. Visual Acoustics: The Modernism of Julius Shulman

2. Inception

Both films, the former recounting the greatest humanistic architectural photographer of the 20th century, and the latter an astounding piece of visual and mental prowess, changed the way I began to interpret these photos of L.A. I was all ready to post them last week, but things changed.

Now here I am sitting in my office encapsulated by my newly acquired Inception soundtrack, and a bevvy of architectural images which began to speak back to me. They are dark recordings of old and new modernism - a collection of pieces of architecture both adored and scrutinized by Schulman and his own photography of L.A. The more I look at these, the more they seem to freeze me in limbo. I decided to keep figures out of the spaces I photographed (with a few creative exceptions) - an emptiness contrasting the familiarity of the otherwise colorful grandeur we know as Los Angeles.

And there came Inception, a seething look into dreamworld architecture. Folding, tumbling, emerging, crumbling. Take a step back, and you'll see that all architecture around us began with an idea.

Alas, my compositions. Maybe I'll call this "Julius Schulman Romantics vs. Christopher Nolan's Connivings"

Welcome to a different take on Los Angeles.

"In a way, one.. can.. stop time" - Julius Schulman, 1910-2009

The Hollyhock House, Frank Lloyd Wright

Central Los Angeles High School #9, Coop Himmelb(l)au

L.A. Cathedral, Raphael Moneo

The Walt Disney Hall, Frank Gehry