Esoteric Survey

This weekend I went to the estate sale at the  Dr. Edgar and Allison Mauer  House by John Lautner (1947). It's  located on Mount Washington in Los Angeles.   It's in a state of disrepair after decades of deferred maintenance and a severe hoarding situation.  What must have been at least15 years ago, Scott from Ten10 took me on a tour of Mount Washington. This was one of the stops. It looked horrible then.  David, the grandson of the Mauer's inherited the house. Along with his partner, they are at the beginning stages of restoring the house, with plans to live there. Edgar F. Mauer House (1939) by Frank Lloyd Wright  Pre-WWII, the Mauer's were working with Frank Lloyd Wright on a house for the site. The plan was for a small one bedroom home that would have been by many accounts, the first Usonian. The war got in the way and it went unbuilt. Post-war, they had children and needed a larger house and it was too expensive for the couple to have Wright ...

  Ted Saito ceramic pendants Guy Williams!

In June I went to visit  Mu  (1950) by Isamu Noguchi. It's hiding  on the third floor terrace on Keio University's Mita Campus in Tokyo. Shin Banraisha interior, Keio University, Tokyo, Japan Noguchi was invited to design a space within the Shin Banraisha, ''Building of Welcome," for Keiyo University in Tokyo. Also known as the Noguchi Room, it was a collaborative interior and garden space designed by Isamu Noguchi and architect Yoshirō Taniguchi. It was built between 1951-1952.   The room was as a memorial to his father, Yonejiro Noguchi—a poet and professor. A graduate of Keio University's Department of Literature, Yonejiro would teach there for forty years, before his death in 1947. Noguchi creating Mu (1950), which he created two of. Mu at an exhibition in Japan.  Source: Arts & Architecture, 1950  In addition to the room, Isamu designed his first garden, where Mu was installed.  Photo: Isamu Noguchi by Altshuler, Bruce 1961  Source:...