I finally got around to watching Visual Acoustics: The Modernism of Julius Shulman [buy here]. The documentary looks at Julius Shulman’s career as an architectural photographer not from simply the typical chronological series of events that made him successful, but attempts to describe his place within architectural history. The film includes him revisiting a few iconic modern buildings he photographed and some interviews with home owners telling stories of the architecture. Prior to watching, I knew who he was in general, but I hadn’t put it all together. He really touched all those places – touched more than physically, but in the way that his work has left an impression on all of our connections and memories to the buildings he photographed from 1936 to 2009. There is nothing small about that.
A Place of My Own: The Architecture of Daydreams is a book I read several years ago that I seem to be thinking about again. Now that I’m in a new house this spring, I feel as if I’m rediscovering my life at home. So I decided to revisit the book and see what exactly kept pulling my mind back to it. Michael Pollan, the author, is not an architect, he’s a writer. He tells the saga of undertaking the creation of a small building a short distance behind his house. In need of a place to work from home, he hires an old friend to be his architect, then chooses to build the structure himself. I might need to mention, this is a rather daunting task not having any prior experience in building. The thing I love, is the story is told from his perspective beginning with design ideas all the way through to the end where he ends up with exactly what he wanted. And, through the entire evolution, he is researching and trying to understand the bigger implications of architecture and building. He discovers Kahn, Wright and Venturi among others and discusses them alongside Thoreau, parti diagrams and the complications of how to construct an operable casement window – theory and real life all mushed up together. In the end, he gets it. He finds an appreciation for all the meanings of his writing house and reminds me why I am an architect.
