The Architecture & Design Museum of Los Angeles has a number of cool exhibits going on right now.  This is definitely on my list of upcoming field trips!  "After The Flood- A Movement Performance Piece Based On The Writings Of Tennessee Williams And Andrei Codescu" on June 22 looks especially intriguing. 

I am so excited to see Between Heaven and Earth:  The Architecture of John Lautner this summer at the UCLA Hammer Museum.  The exhibit will run from July 13 through October 12, 2008.

“Lautner’s dwellings took on dramatically new and varied shapes, as he moved toward the central theme of his career -- how to use architecture to sublimate the domestic, and to domesticate the sublime.  As we follow him from his early work with Frank Lloyd Wright to the emergence of his own practice in the 1940s in rapidly expanding, automobile-based Los Angeles, we see how he responded to a changing society and the natural environment by developing an extraordinarily sensuous, thoughtful and innovative architecture, poised between feeling and reason, stillness and motion, vista and shelter.”  -Nicholas Olsberg, curator

Who knew Montreal was such a hotbed of Art Deco architecture?  If there was any doubt, a quick visit to Art Deco Montreal will wipe it out.  They have maps, history, information & events, including a tour of St. Joseph's Oratory on May 20th.

"The Art Deco Society of Montreal is a bilingual, nonprofit organization formed to foster awareness and appreciation of the Art Deco period (c.1920-1940) and to preserve the precious decorative, industrial, and architectural arts of that era.  Montréal ranks in the top ten cities in the world for its Art Déco architecture."  -ADM Website

I loved this LA Times article about Fette and Matthew Green, whose home doubles as a gallery space and exemplifies minimalist cool at its best.  Be sure to take a look at the photo gallery.

 Can you imagine having a studio treehouse?  I would love one of these magical creations in my backyard.

Visit the TreeHouse Workshop and let your imagination run wild! 

...you get sent to The Cool Hunter, one of your weekly links this week.  Super-freaky, n'est pas?  I didn't even realize they had an entire section devoted to architecture, but I must say their selections are the epitome of COOL.

Let's have a martini with three olives and listen to Dean Martin on our refurbished hi-fi.

Then we'll head to the neighbor's house to catch a film.  It's all cool, daddy-o. 

From the FAT {Fashion*Architecture*Taste} website:

"This live/work building, now affectionately known as the blue house, has a cartoon-like billboard character which communicates its function as a home and office. The front has a miniature scale, but the side addressing the main street is big in scale. Built for £300,000, the project makes innovative use of standard construction methods. The house contains a maisonette for family of three, an office and a separate apartment. The significance of the blue house as one of the most important houses built this century is widely recognised, it features prominently in numerous publications including the new edition of Pevsner's Buildings of England."

I love the colors, lines and shapes, and I especially love this:

That's a home you can't help but smile when you walk out the front door. 

I love the XXX House by Mount Fuji Architects, although I realized too late I have to be careful about my google searches - anything with "XXX" in the entry is risky... 

The Chicago Spire - can you imagine living here? 

I have been wanting to visit the Denver Art Museum ever since it opened to controversial reviews in late 2006, and I finally got the opportunity to see what the fuss was all about a couple of weeks ago.  My time was limited and I was only able to focus on their modern art collection, but it was enough time to get a feel for what makes the museum unique.

In galleries and museums, we usually make our way through a series of square or rectangular spaces (or maybe round, such as at Hirshorn in Washington, DC or the Guggenheim in NYC), but at the Denver Art Museum spaces are angular, walls seem to appear out of nowhere and many works of art can be found in tight corners all by themselves; the walls themselves are even slanted in some areas - with art hung on them.  I found the space itself to be so intriguing as to almost overshadow the artwork itself, which is something I often hear about the Getty Museum in Los Angeles as well, with view of the Pacific Ocean being so spectacular it almost seems a shame to go inside.

 One of my favorite pieces in the museum was a large work by Sean Landers:

Basically Landers' personal journal on canvas, excerpts cover everything from the death of his father to art and commerce.  I spent most of my time in the museum exploring this piece.

I am on the fence as to whether or not I think the space itself works as a building to showcase works of art.  On the one hand, it could be argued that it makes sense to make the space itself a work of art and envelope-pushing creation.  On the other hand, if the purpose of a museum is to display important works of art, shouldn't that be the number one priority in designing the space, and is the risk of overshadowing the art too great in a space like this?  Maybe the fact that it brings up interesting questions about the nature of art, exhibiting art and housing art is the whole point, and maybe these questions sharpens visitors' focus that much more, creating an experience that is more likely to stay with them and make them think about the art long after they've left.  That is certainly what happened for me.

This is the interior view of a lovely Meditation Hut I read about recently.  Where are your sacred spaces? 

This dwelling was built in Costa Rica as a writer's retreat and to house a collection of 16,000 books.  Can you imagine calling this your creative haven?

[Eagle's Nest :: Malibu, CA :: Taken December 15, 2007] 

Anytime I drive on the Pacific Coast Highway heading north from Santa Monica, I always find my eyes being drawn to the hillside where Harry Gesner's Eagle's Watch House sits.  Angular and fluid, it always looks as if it is about to lift off from the earth and soar into the clouds.  In a recent interview with Dwell magazine, he said, "What I've learned for the six decades I've been doing this is to go to the soul of the site, to learn its secrets before I begin."  An avid surfer as well as architect, World War II veteran and Ecuadorian treasure hunter, Harry Gesner is a creative soul I would love to have tea with, or maybe a cocktail in the sunken living room of one of his fascinating creations.  I think I'd wear white go-go boots and lots of eyeliner...

 Check out this wonderful interview with him at Malibu Magazine, and feast your eyes on his visions.

I read about Sakura House in a recent issue of Wallpaper.  Can you image how beautiful it looks twinkling at night?