Atop the highest peak of the highest hill in the Silverlake neighborhood of Los Angeles rests Silvertop -- one of architect John Lautner's most intriguing houses. "Real  architecture is everything in life: Free-enduring spaces, heart, soul, spirit ... " Lautner said. Started in 1963, Silvertop wasn't finished until ten years later. In this podcast, hear about the clients who finished the house and have lived there ever since. Photo of Silvertop by John Ellis. www.tedwells.com.

John Lautner and Silvertop: Architecture & Design

Architecture and design can make your life better ... or worse. Architectural historian and writer Ted Wells explores what we can learn from celebrated architects and designers, and the houses, buildings, gardens and objects they create.

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“It's the end of the world where we thought nature was an infinite resource and we could exploit it without consequence,” Professor Richard Weller says. By bringing urbanization and conservation together in the same study, the essays, maps, data, and artwork in this Atlas lay essential groundwork for the future planning and design of hotspot cities and regions as interdependent ecological and economic systems. Interview with Richard Weller, the Martin and Margy Meyerson Chair of Urbanism and Professor and Chair of Landscape Architecture at PennDesign. He teaches in three subject areas: advanced design studios at all scales, urban design history and theory, and historical and contemporary ideas of Nature.  

Atlas for the End of the World: Urbanization Joins Conservation

What is the psychological process whereby one person inspires and influences another? In this interview, Dr. Raymond Richard Neutra traces the forty-year relationship between his parents and the great architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Cheap and Thin: Neutra and Wright, Kindle available at Amazon.  The author's father, the pioneer modern architect Richard Neutra, immigrated to the United States in the early 1920's with the dual motivation of working for his idol Frank Lloyd Wright and for exploring the American industrial potential for economical and light weight housing, schools, medical facilities and other "architecture of social concern." Wright's early cordiality changed when he characterized those projects as "Cheap and Thin." Although meant as an insult, the characterization revealed a recognition of the different direction that Richard Neutra's goals had given to the basic strategies that Wright had developed twenty years earlier: Neutra wanted to develop an economic and light way to deploy technology and nature for a happy and healthy life. The relationship between Wright and Neutra recounts family memories of visits between them. It then explores the substantial influence of Wright on Neutra and how Neutra adapted, adopted and added strategies and design features to gradually develop what was to become mid-century "California Modern." Cheap and Thin: Neutra and Wright, Kindle available at Amazon.   

Cheap and Thin: Richard Neutra and Frank Lloyd Wright

Change has arrived and it's time that the art world increases its influence, inspiration, and power. We’re entering a very interesting time in the arts, when increasing numbers of artists will use their talents to push back against a growing climate of racism, inequality, and social conservatism. As Ted Wells says: "Jump off the BLANDwagon."  Dark times can make life beautiful. With the arts, our lives can be transitional during a time full of powerful artistic commentary and vivid artistic and social expression.  Some artists protest the present while shaping and reinventing the future; others artists help us escape our current reality or remind us that beauty and novelty still exist in the world, regardless of how bad we’re currently feeling about it. During the 1960s, artists created work that protested injustice and inspired the counterculture to battle the conservative backlash. And others made art that was so beautiful that it soothed shattered nerves and lifted average people out of the shadows. That was what the world needed then, and it’s what the world needs now. And I feel that’s exactly what is coming in the next few years. The creation of art, by any of us, can be a way of expressing our feelings within a realm of freedom that we might not be experiencing in our job, or among our community, or within our family. In some ways, it can a be way of emerging some part of our soul that would otherwise be trapped because of the way artistic expression can be squelched by society. Be raw, rougher … more honest and expressive … and way more real. Andy Warhol, Green Day, Revolution Radio, Billie Joe Armstrong, Bob Dylan, Rolling Stone Magazine, Dion, Jefferson Airplane, Sly and and Family Stone, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Emory Douglas, Black Panthers, Broadway, Barry Goldwater, Donald Trump, Martin Later King Jr., Robert Kennedy, JFK, John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, George Wallace, Vietnam War, Abraham Lincoln, Walt Whitman, Man Ray, Edward Steichen, Lee Miller, Stuart Davis, Jospeh Cornell, Lucien Carr, William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, John Giorno, Laurie Andersen, Andrea Fraser, Gus Van Sant, Ted Wells  

Troubled Times = Great Art

Wally Byam, the creator of Airstream travel trailer, said: “Adventure is where you find it, any place, every place, except at home in the rocking chair.” In addition to recognizing the beauty in and potential of Hawley Bowlus’s original travel trailer designs, Wally Byam’s genius was understanding that in addition to a strong tendency toward wanderlust is the adventurous desire to travel and see the world before we leave it. COMING SOON: a new feature-length documentary, ALUMINATION, about the fascinating world of Airstream travel trailers and the Airstreamers who love them. From director Eric Bricker (Visual Acoustics: The Modernism of Julius Shulman), ALUMINATION will not only take the viewer on a feature-length film odyssey, there is a good chance of finding the best way to travel the road. Learn more, and provide support, at Kickstarter. Charles Lindbergh, Spirit of St. Louis, flying, flight, glider, aluminum, spaceship, Wright Brothers, National Geographic, Apollo, astronauts, astronaut, outer space, Johnny Depp, Lenny Kravitz, Tim Burton, Tom Hanks, Adrien Brody, Diablo Cody, Steve Carrell, Billie Joe Armstrong, Green Day, John Mellencamp, Eddie Vedder, Francis Ford Coppola, Matthew McConaughey, Sean Penn, Brad Pitt, Denzel Washington, Pamela Anderson, Sandra Bullock, Neil Armstrong, Michel Collins, Buzz Aldrin.    

Airstreaming and Alumination: Adventure on The Road

These couples each worked together as partners for lifetimes...Charles and Ray Eames, and Robin & Lucienne Day…transforming their lives and the lives of all of us. They empowered very talented women at a time when women in business was a great struggle. We  Lucienne and Robin Day, of Great Britain, shared this philosophy—that good design should be affordable, and that through their work they could not only transform homes but also improve lives. Their American contemporaries, Ray and Charles Eames, who did the same thing in the United States, and helped propel design add culture at a time when it was greatly needed. Seeing the world in a positive and innovative way was, and is always, greatly needed.  Architecture, furniture, art, graphic design, film, entrepreneurs, copreneurs,Wall Street Journal, Colleen Debaise, Sarah E. Needdleman, Emily Maltby, Helen Keller, Inc. Magazine, Knoll, Herman Miller, William Morris, MOMA, Museum of Modern Art, Case Study Program, Royal College of Art, Cranbrook Academy of Art, Eero Saarinen, Today Show, NBC, The Guardian, Royal Air Force, La Triennale di Milano, Heal Fabrics, American Institute of Architects, American Society of Interior Designers,          

John Lautner and Silvertop: Architecture & Design

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