Asphalt Trip - 3rd Bit

(Venice Beach - Installation Art, artist unknown)

• PHOTOS OF THE GAMBLE HOUSE BY GREENE & GREENE
• PHOTOS OF VENICE BEACH RESIDENTIAL ARCHICTECTURE AND OTHER THINGS...

Asphalt Trip - 2nd Bit

Here's a Pasadena Fact: Julia Child, the American who cooked French cuisine, was born in Pasadena on August 15th, 1912. Who knew a Pasadenan would write a 734 p. best-selling book on French Cooking? Who knew any 734 p. book would be a best-seller in America. It took a visit to France and an epiphany over a plate of oysters for Child to become the most famous cook in America but Southern California was the right geography to supplement her culinary awakening. In 1981 (at the age of 69) she founded the educational American Institute of Wine and Food in Napa, California with vintners Robert Mondavi and Richard Graff to "advance the understanding, appreciation and quality of wine and food" and today the institute has 25 chapters.

we're going to learn some new words

Currently spinning in my thoughts:

• Going to Mpls in 11 Days


• Schreibers going to Switzerland


• The first of many dérives to Los Angeles


• Sonoma County


• New multi-disciplinary job doing architecture + urban planning


• Paris someday


• "The Rise of Network Culture" by Kazys Varnelis


• ambiting southern and northern california

This probably seems like a schizo, spazzy, dis-connected list of things to think about but they are all connected. My gray matter operates as a mixer and the more material the better. Today I came upon the binder needed to set and cure this aggregate of thoughts - Psychogeography.

First, a little background, in the late 50's a deviant group of young artists in France established a movement called the Letterists Internationale which was the French version and counterpart to the American Beat movement.

An important theme of both camps was Psychogeography, defined as "precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behaviour of individuals." Within the concept of psychogeography and central to Letterist and Beat culture is the idea of the "dérive" or "drift", defined as the 'technique of locomotion without a goal', in which 'one or more persons during a certain period drop their usual motives for movement and action, their relations, their work and leisure activities, and let themselves be drawn by the attractions of the terrain and the encounters they find there'. The dérive acted as something of a model for the 'playful creation' of all human relationships (from Drifting with The Situationist International, author unknown).

Sunday's Asphalt Trip is the continuation and conscious beginning of many dérives. I will be locomoting to geographical nodes that fit within a 2 day ambit (ambit = an external boundary; a circuit, range, sphere or scope). LA is the first node with the second significant node being SF+SONOMA, which thanks to modern life I can get to in less time than it takes to get to LA. In retrospect, my first trip to SF+SONOMA was a dérive-in-disguise. I had no goal, no usual motive and left myself open to the attraction of the terrain and its temptations. The experience of Sonoma County has affected the way I feel and think about California as a whole. Visiting the heart and soul of the wine industry ( $15 Billion dollars a year in California sales) has made the world seem ever-so-slightly smaller.

And so 10 months of living in a bigger city, in a more connected region, amongst a circle of international friends (whom I'll travel with and visit abroad), entering sideways into the field of urban planning is culminating into a major psychogeographic shift. The new office locale and increase in vacation will begin to allow 5 and 10 day ambits on an annual timeline with Paris and Zurich as the next nodes. If I had limits before they are changing now.

Asphalt Trip - 1st bit

This weekend I left the safety of San Diego for new sensations via Pasadena and Venice Beach, Los Angeles. My specific stop in Pasadena was the Gamble House, a historic Crafsman Home designed by architects Charles and Henry Greene. My favorite features were the extra-large over-hangs over the sleeping porches and the very simple pond and patio in the back, which was recently restored for the bargain price of $100K. The interior woodwork was almost all "Burma Teak" and was based on western arts-and-crafts style with japanese influences. (more to come, gotta run to work!)

sketch for a Block Tank Top

Front: Single Block Back: Lots of Blocks

Lord of the Rings meets $893M San Francisco Transbay Proposal

Big news in San Francisco today! San Francisco City Hall is reviewing proposals for a new Transbay Terminal that will serve as a regional transit superhub and be the tallest building on the west coast - several hundred feet higher than the TransAmerica Tower. However, this proposal's similarity to Isengard Tower in Lord of the Rings is a little too coincidental. Northern California is clearly trying to dominate middle earth.

Pictured above: Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners

The Diamond Block

I love the color scheme and signage font on this apartment building. I look at this photo and see circles, then look again and see diamonds, then look again...and?

{song for the evening: Daft Punk - Aerodynamic}