Esoteric Survey

Weston Havens House (1939-1941) by Harwell Hamilton Harris, way up in the Berkeley Hills. Docomomo Northern California  was hosting a tour that coincided with a shopping trip to the Bay Area. John Weston Havens Jr. (1903–2001) was the heir to Berkeley founder, Francis Kittredge Shattuck. Weston was an art collector and owned a large amount of property. He commissioned Harris to build him a house that took full advantage of the view  from site, which has a 35-degree slope. The sloping ceilings were designed to take advantage of the sky view. Source: Maynard L. Parker. Courtesy of The Huntington Library The "spider legs" on the bridge might be a nod to Neutra. Harris started his architecture career working at the Neutra office. The furniture was collected by Havens in Finland and Sweden.  He lived in the house until his 90's and made few changes. It was then donated to UC Berkeley and  is under the stewardship of the College of Environmental Design .  Source: Mayn...

Craft geek stuff  Richard Mills from the Artist-Foundary Movement that was happening in San Jose in the 1960s. Dave Hampton wrote a book about it: Pouring Metal in the South Bay Lamps Alvar Aalto stools Sottsass, Peter Shire and a metal Raymor vase Japanese things

Johannes Aasbjerg, Kenji Fujita  and Ben Seibel I stopped by sidewalk sale on my ride to work and a guy was selling some of his nudes collection.

I joined  @arquetipo_de_cambio  while she was documenting historic buildings in Tijuana. Marissa grew up in Tijuana but has been living in Los Angeles for the last 15 years. Many extant structures still exist. However, in this rapidly changing city, more times than not the architecture from past decades is behind layers of change.  Hence the name of her project, the Archetype of Change.  We spent the day mostly in Centro, Chapultepec and this post centers around Colonia Madero or La Cacho. In the 1950s Tijuana became one of the fastest growing cities in the Western Hemisphere. This is when neighborhoods like Cacho started to develop. What it looked like in 1964. This is from a series of photos by San Diego photographer Harry Crosby.  More on Crosby, here . The open carport is covered up with a concrete block screen. Parroquia De Nuestra Señora Del Carmen (1955) by Architect Homero Martínez de Hoyos (1917-1998).  Felix Candela had a role in hiring Martínez d...