party in the hills
On Thursday, we drove along a gorgeous tree-lined street all the way up to the top of a hill in La Canada Flintridge to attend a party hosted by LUMENS & Architectural Digest at a 1973 Ray Kappe house.
I spend a fair amount of time beating up on modernist architecture (usually the cheap and unintentional variety) but this was pretty handily the best modern house I've ever been in. It's a home that you must explore to understand, and I appreciate that. It's not intuitive - it winds, weaves, shrinks, and expands. It reveals itself as you meander.
Several water features throughout, with a remarkable view. Amanda Gunawan and her husband renovated and expanded this place, and the views, skylights, wall windows, koi pond, and conversation pit were all right up my alley. They are both architects who run a design-build practice in LA.
It's a wonderful feeling to connect with people you know from the internet and meet them face-to-face. I'm fascinated by all the business models in design.
We heard a lot about how restaurants are loss leaders for designers but worth it because of their public nature, how long it takes to get permits in LA (2 years sometimes), how to structure large trade deals with stone warehouses that extend way beyond your projects and function as a cobranded promotional venture, how brands want to be part of designer creator series - not one-offs, and how realtors get listings in the area..get this...by door knocking $20M homes.
Everything about the party was great, but my wife and I were laughing about the food. It was finger food, but really more like pinky finger food; quarter-sized crudettes with a minuscule dollop of herbed foam. We hung out for a while and were starving by the end, so we closed the night with a late-night sumptuous indian feast in downtown Pasadena, where we sat on floor cushions and recapped the event over some Pan Puri & Fish Tikka.
a few things I saw this week
I'm obsessed with this wallpaper-turned-room-divider by de Gournay. Gives me so ideas.
The Family Chair series from Living Davani. I'm seeing more and more of a move towards curvy, whimsical design, and this is case in point.
The Juliet Chair by Olive Ateliers is a more spanish/midcentury-inspired version of whimsy. This kind of thing on a flagstone stone patio always works.
