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Showing posts with label Richard Bradshaw. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Richard Bradshaw. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Los(t) Angeles: Tarzana Ice Rink by Richard Bradshaw and Carl Maston


Tarzana Ice Rink, Richard Bradshaw and Carl Maston, 1960. Julius Shulman Job No. 3031, July 17, 1960. (Modernism Rediscovered, Pierluigi Serraino and Julius Shulman, Taschen, 2000, p. 287).

The Tarzana Ice Rink (seen above) constructed in the 18300 block of Ventura Blvd. in 1960 is emblematic of Southern California's rapidly disappearing architectural past. The building was a collaboration between renowned structural engineer Richard Bradshaw and noted mid-century modernist architect Carl Maston. 1960 was a milestone year in the career of Bradshaw as he played a key role in the design and construction of the Theme Building at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) completed the same year. (See below and my The Kindred Spirits of Deborah Aschheim and Richard Bradshaw for more on Bradshaw's bio and Theme Building design work). 




From left, Joe Kinishita, Jim Santiago, Richard Bradshaw, Don Belding, Welton Becket, Paul Williams and Don Wilcox, ca. 1959. From A Symbol of Los Angeles: The History of the Theme Building at Los Angeles International Airport 1952-1961, p. 85. Photographer unknown.

This was also a very productive period in Maston's career. He was routinely winning AIA and other awards for his single family residences and apartment buildings which were widely published with Julius Shulman's now iconic images. Shulman photographed over 60 Maston projects between the late 1940s and early 1980s and undoubtedly played a major role in his awards success. Similarly, Bradshaw did most of Maston's structural design work.

Maston had never done a project quite like a skating rink before but was knowledgeable of Bradshaw's previous work designing structures to span large spaces evidenced by the below King Cole Market design for A. Quincy Jones in 1950. Jones's papers at UCLA include Bradshaw's structural calculations for the market and an invoice for the "outrageous" sum of $400.00. Bradshaw related to me in an interview last year how the market had a problem keeping the kids from riding their bicycles up and down the rather shallow arches. The original King Cole market in Whittier, CA (pictured below) was featured in the 1967 movie “Divorce American Style” with Dick Van Dyke but like the Tarzana Ice Rink has also since been demolished.

King Cole Market exterior, Whittier, 1950, A. Quincy Jones. Julius Shulman Job No. 1333, August 19, 1952. (A. Quincy Jones by Cory Buckner, Phaidon, p. 173.

ing Cole Market interior, Whittier, 1950, A. Quincy Jones. Julius Shulman Job No. 1333, August 19, 1952. (A. Quincy Jones by Cory Buckner, Phaidon, p. 175.

Another notable project Bradshaw designed for Jones & Emmons was the award-winning Shorecliff Tower Apartments on Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica. The thinness of the floor slabs in this early example of high-rise slip-forming are what give this building its elegance. (See below).

Shorecliff Tower Apartments, Santa Monica, 1963, Richard Bradshaw, Structural Engineer, Jones & Emmons, Architects for Ralph Kiewit. Ernest Braun photo. (A. Quincy Jones by Cory Buckner, Phaidon, p. 141.

Tradewell Market, Burien, Washington, 1958, Richard Bradshaw, Structural Engineer, Welton Becket & Associates, Architect. Charles R. Pearsson photo. ("Lighting is Architecture: Development of Function," Progressive Architecture, September 1958, p. 137).


Bradshaw was becoming well-known for his thin shell designs evidenced in the above and below photos of  his AIA Honor Award-winning wide-span, thin-shell roofed Tradewell Market for Welton Becket & Associates and Windward City Market for Pete Wimberly the year before.

Windward City Market, Kaneohe, Oahu, Hawaii, Richard Bradshaw, Structural Engineer, Pete Wimberly, Architect. Photo courtesy of Richard Bradshaw.

Bradshaw recollected to me in a recent interview that Maston, a steady client, was ambivalent as to how the rink's clear span was to be achieved. Bradshaw recalled that Maston's client for the rink was an Aussie daredevil skater with not a lot of money. The total construction cost for the completed building was $104,000.  Bradshaw, not one to choose a box design when something more exciting could be done for the same price, came up with the creative design and construction process described in detail below while Maston worked on the more straight-forward front (see first photo) and back elevations. 

Interior of rink before gaps were filled in. All photos courtesy of Richard Bradshaw unless otherwise stated. 

Bradshaw employed geometric shapes in his non-rectangular designs to simplify the structural calculations and decided upon a truncated torus as something that could be economically executed for less than a conventional box structure. The corrugations were added to strengthen to the individual sections to enable them to withstand pickup stresses while still enabling their 4 inch thinness.


The torus shape lowered the ends of the building which kept the sun from melting the ice. It also gave the plan of the building an oval shape which, combined with the lowered profile reduced the volume of air which needed to be cooled. (See above diagram).

Four identical dirt molds.

After much thought, Bradshaw developed a very innovative forming process for pouring in place the 36 half-sections needed to build up the roof. With the help of a good field survey, four casting pits were sculptured into the rink's parking lot in the corrugated pattern seen below. This saved the cost of expensive wood forming materials. A two-inch thick waste slab was then poured and screeded with a template to provide the initial smooth surface for the first section's reinforcing steel to be placed. (See below).

Rebar being placed on original 2 inch thick waste slab prior to the first casting of nine in each pit.


Bradshaw decided that poured in place sections could be stacked nine deep and came up with a variable thickness (3-1/2 to 4 inch) cross-section that would simplify the construction. As can be seen above, the screed was designed to provide a standard cross-section with matching radii of both the top and bottom surfaces of each section.

Laborers screeding the last of nine stacked sections in one of the four pits.

The same screed was used to pour all 36 half-sections and to simplify construction for an unsophisticated contractor and crew of laborers. Despite the complexities of the project as seen in the diagrams, Bradshaw was successful in translating his innovative design and never-been-tried construction process into layman's terms which "tricked" the contractor and crew into believing that what they were bidding on and building was very straightforward. This resulted in favorable bids and a relatively non-confrontational construction process




The longer sections were cast first and each succeeding section was slightly shorter and more angled on one end to create the arched toroidal ridge-line and truncated base. (See bottom-left note in above diagram).

Picking up shells, The shells were made 4 inches thick because of pickup bolt embedment requirements. Even so, one pulled out.


After all 36 sections were cast and cured, a pair of cranes were utilized to erect the half-sections upon scaffolding. Once all 36 sections were placed, their rebar was tied together, forms were built under the gaps (see below) and were then filled with gunite to form a solid roof.


The roof was then seal-coated with a reflective, waterproof coating, the specification of which was not Bradshaw's responsibility. Richard recalled that when the rink opened in July 1960 that the outdoor temperature was hot and the ice was soupy and the skaters were wet from head to toe. A better roof coating with more insulation value was found to solve the problem. 

Ice rink interior, Tarzana, Richard Bradshaw and Carl Maston, 1960. Julius Shulman Job No. 3031, July 17, 1960. (Modernism Rediscovered, Pierluigi Serraino and Julius Shulman, Taschen, 2000, p. 288).

The Tarzana Ice Rink went on to win an Los Angeles Chapter AIA Merit Award. ("Honor Awards Given by A.I.A." los Angeles Times, October 16, 1960, p. M1-2). Long-time Bradshaw client A. Quincy Jones was on the awards jury and told Bradshaw afterwards that the panel knew that the rink's design was essentially his but the award had to be given to the architect. Like all of Bradshaw's innovative designs, he lost money on this job. He recalled that his $1500 design fee was eaten up in the first few weeks of construction but it was projects such as this which piqued his interest to continue learning as much as possible about structural engineering. (See article below). 

Los Angeles Times, April 29, 1962, p. IX-2. From ProQuest.


Years later, property values along Ventura Blvd. had risen to the point where a developer wanted to redevelop the land to a higher use and consulted with Bradshaw on the feasibility of moving the rink to a new site. After much thought he came the conclusion that moving the building was not cost-effective so another award-winning piece of Los Angeles's past had a date with the wrecking ball.


My Other Bradshaw Articles

The Towers of Bruce Goff and Richard Bradshaw: Visual Similarities and Structural Differences

The Kindred Spirits of Deborah Aschheim and Richard Bradshaw: Nostalgia for the Future: Deborah Aschheim at the Edward Cella Gallery Sept. 11 - Oct. 23, 2010

See Richard's iconic construction photo of the Theme Building and more at Los Angeles Times Magazine, May 1, 2011

Richard Bradshaw at the Theme Building at LAX. Photo by John Crosse, May 25, 2010.

Monday, January 3, 2011

The Towers of Bruce Goff and Richard Bradshaw: Visual Similarities and Structural Differences

Artist Deborah Aschheim, who recently had an exhibition of her work at the Edward Cella Gallery sparked this post this morning. (See my review The Kindred Spirits of Deborah Aschheim and Richard Bradshaw: Nostalgia for the Future: Deborah Aschheim at the Edward Cella Gallery for much on the Bradshaw-Asscheim similarities). In a Happy New Year e-mail message to Deborah yesterday I asked what she she's been up to. It turns out that she will soon be visiting artist at the University of Nebraska- Lincoln. After her stint there she will travel to Bartlesville and Tulsa, Oklahoma and explore Frank Lloyd Wright and Bruce Goff projects and Welton Becket's Philips Petroleum Building. Then its on to Oklahoma City where she will get a personal tour from the wife of the Director of the Oklahoma City Museum of Art of much of the local work documented by Julius Shulman in last-years' one-man show, Julius Shulman: Oklahoma Modernism Rediscovered. (See at the end of this article a bibliography of Shulman's Oklahoma assignments I threw together to aid the curator).

Not only does Bradshaw's work have much in common with Aschheim's, there are some striking similarities with Goff's work as well. The two images below are a good case in point. Thumbing through my Goff collection to see what materials might be of interest to Deborah for her trip I ran across the below Play Tower Goff designed for Sooner Park in Bartlesville, OK which instantly brought to mind a radar tower Richard Bradshaw designed a few years earlier. (See later below).

Bruce Goff, Play Tower, Sooner Park, Bartlesville, Oklahoma, 1963. (Bruce Goff Oklahoma Guide, Friends of Kebyar, Vol. 22.1, Issue No. 71, 2005-2006, p. 7).

Mrs. Harold C. Price commissioned the tower in 1963. The Prices are, of course, Bartlesville's most well-known patrons of architecture. They sought out the best architects of the time. Bruce Goff was hired by Joe Price to design his home, Shin'enKanand subsequent additions. Harold Price Sr., his father, had hired Cliff May to design the family home at Starview Farms, and at Goff's insistence hired Frank Lloyd Wright to design his only office building, the Price Tower. Harold Jr. hired Wright to design his home, "Hillside", essentially creating an architectural theme park. The May-designed house deteriorated badly and was razed by developers. After the loss of Shin'enKan by arson in 1996, he only remaining Price family house is the Wright-designed "Hillside."


Originally the above five-story metal-framed, mesh-enclosed spiral stair observation tower with a circular seat at the top, was placed in a circular sand play-pit that also had a Mobius continuous steel construction within it. The tower's condition deteriorated to the point that it was closed to the public in the early 1990s. Recent efforts to restore the tower are summarized in the following two articles from the Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise


City officials seeking donations to restore tower By Jessica Miller E-E City Editor
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Donations being accepted for tower By Jessica Miller E-E City Editor
Thursday, June 18, 2009 
(Click to enlarge)
Radar Tower, Richard Bradshaw, structural Engineer, ca. 1960. Photo courtesy Richard Bradshaw.


Richard Bradshaw designed the above and below radar towers circa 1960 of which he said in a recent e-mail to me, 
"Even though it is just a small structure it is also a large model to experiment with. I did this whenever I had the chance even though it cost me lots of money!"
In his book, "The Non-Shell Structures of Richard R. Bradshaw" Richard wrote of the radar towers,
"These are in front of an aircraft plant. The owners wanted something looking a little better than the typical industrial look of Radar Towers. The vertical load is taken by the central pipe. The wind or earthquake loads are taken by the straight line cables of the hyperboloid. The force in the cables are the main load in the central pipe. The man on the tower at left gives an idea of scale. Note the spiral staircase."

Hyperboloid Radar Towers, Southern California, from "The Non-Shell Structures of Richard R. Bradshaw, n.d., p. [11].

Bradshaw credits the success of the radar towers with giving him the courage to create the design for the enclosed, suspended stadium for Welton Becket & Associates seen below a few years later.

Prototype enclosed suspended stadium. Richard Bradshaw, Structural Engineer for Welton Becket & Associates, unbuilt. (Total Design: Architecture of Welton Becket and Associates by William Dudley Hint, Jr., McGraw-Hill, 1972, p. 222.

Bradshaw said of the stadium he designed as a research study for Becket,
"This was a Stadium for the New Orleans Saints. Becket asked me to come up with an idea so this was it. The geometry of the stadium is a Hyperboloid and the shape is formed by straight cables. This was quite new at the time. Becket did not get the design contract so the idea was never built.
Incidentally, this is just a larger version of the radar tower I designed and which was built. This is a good example of how an engineer should capitalize on opportunities to experiment with small structures when he has a chance. If I had not already built a successful example of the cable architecture on the small tower I would never have had the confidence to commit myself to the solution for the big stadium." 
Upon reviewing the earlier photo of the Goff tower I sent him this morning, Bradshaw, always the consummate structural engineer and firm believer in what he has coined "Structural Elegance", offered this critique, 
"[Goff] was always kind of an "Architects' Architect" meaning he never got the public recognition he deserved. I am sorry to say that I regard his tower as a lost opportunity. It has no use of geometry at all. For that matter it shows no understanding of structure either. It would have looked so much more logical if it had the tower made of a Hyperboloid (like mine) with the sphere at top firmly embraced by the Hyperboloid. Even without using the Hyperboloid but just the straight cylindrical tower. it would have made more sense to just make the cylinder take the forces on the tower and not put the horrible guy wires on it. ... The sphere is quite good but the everything else is just plain amateurish. Goff never was noted for his understanding of geometry or structure. He did good work but of small structures." 
It will be quite interesting to see how the Oklahoma work of Wright, Goff, Becket, Herb Greene and others documented by Shulman will inspire Deborah Aschheim's future creations. Deborah informed me that she will be speaking at the below event at the Cella Gallery on March 26th upon her return from the frigid Great Plains.

Convergence: Art, Memory and Science in the work of Deborah Aschheim, Laurie Frick, and George Legrady, Saturday, March 26, 2011 / 4-6PM

Join artists Deborah Aschheim, George Legrady and Laurie Frick for an overview of selected recent projects which set the stage for an engaging dialog about the function of artistic inquiry within the cognitive sciences including the roles of personal experience, data collection, and research.
Seating is limited.
To reserve please call 323.525.0053 

Julius Shulman's Oklahoma: An Annotated Bibliography

My Other Bradshaw Articles




See Richard's iconic construction photo of the Theme Building and more at Los Angeles Times Magazine, May 1, 2011

Thursday, September 2, 2010

The Kindred Spirits of Deborah Aschheim and Richard Bradshaw: Nostalgia for the Future: Deborah Aschheim at the Edward Cella Gallery Sept. 11 - Oct. 23, 2010

(Click on images to enlarge)
Encounter (The Theme Building So Beautiful Encased in Scaffolding), 2009 by Deborah Aschheim.

 Deborah Aschheim Studio prepping for the Nostalgia for the Future, downtown Los Angeles, 1010. Photo by Deborah Aschheim.

Los Angeles-based artist Deborah Aschheim will be featured in a stunning solo exhibition of new work opening with a reception at 6:00 p.m. on September 11th at the Edward Cella Gallery, 6018 Wilshire Blvd. across from LACMA. Aschheim states, "When I was growing up, the future was limitless possibility, jet-age, space-age, techno utopia. 'Modern' meant new. Now, modern means old and the future I grew up with seems dated, irresponsible, and obsolete. ... When I encounter these endangered or ruined monuments to the future from the past, gutted or restored or covered in scaffolding, I am moved beyond anything I can explain. I have a feeling of time travel. I feel sentimental about buildings I am not sure I would have liked when they were new." 

I had the pleasure of meeting Deborah after Frances Anderton's compelling  "Conversation" with Fred Fisher in conjunction with his fascinating show "Frederick Fisher: Thinking by Hand" at this same Cella Gallery. (See my related post at Frederick Fisher). Edward has a wonderful knack for putting together extremely stimulating panel discussions in conjunction with his shows which has resulted in the creation of one of the better salon-like atmospheres associated with any gallery in Los Angeles. Knowing of my interest in architectural history, Edward came up to me after the Anderton talk and said, "I have someone you should meet" and proceeded to introduce me to Deborah. 

Deborah Aschheim, Encounter, 2009, plastic, LED’s

Deborah's ensuing description of her recent architecturally-based work and upcoming show immediately piqued my interest. After visiting her web site http://www.deborahaschheim.com/projects/on-memory/nostalgia-for-the-future and seeing her LED-illuminated model above of the Theme Building at LAX, my excitement level increased as I had recently been spending some time with one of the original designers of the building, renowned 94-year old structural engineer Richard Bradshaw. I learned of Richard while conducting architect William Krisel's Oral History interviews and organizing his archives for recent acquisition by the Getty Research Institute. Krisel met Bradshaw through taking his course designed to prepare architects for the structural engineering portion of the architectural licensing examination circa 1949. Krisel later hired Richard to help create some innovative designs in the early1950s. Film maker Jake Gorst and I met and interviewed Richard while filming a documentary on Krisel's life which premiered in Palm Springs last February. There is footage of Richard and myself in the trailer at the following link. (William Krisel, Architect).

I then told Deborah about Richard and his wife, erstwhile TV star and Red Skelton Show regular, Chanin Hale and my upcoming plans for a photo shoot with them at the Theme Building. Our idea for the shoot was to try to recreate the infamous Julius Shulman photo of Paul Williams posing in front of the Theme Building which had the unfortunate result of creating the still-prevalent myth that the building was designed by Williams. Deborah loved the idea and agreed to join us to meet Bradshaw, help document the event and to do some more research for her show. It ended up being a fabulous day as the weather was perfect and the group ended up having a lot of fun in the process. Chanin was definitely in her element as she selected Richard's wardrobe, hairstyling and makeup and directed the setup and pose for the shoot. (See below)

Chanin Hale directing Richard Bradshaw for cameraman John Crosse. Deborah Aschheim photo, May 25, 2010.

Chanin Hale (Bradshaw) with Red Skelton and Mickey Rooney circa 1965. Photographer unknown. Courtesy of Chanin Hale Bradshaw.

Encounter, Richard Bradshaw and his pride and joy, the Theme Building, John Crosse, photo, May 25, 2010. Theme Building Photo Album by John Crosse

Paul R. Williams in front of the Theme Building. Julius Shulman Job No. 3946, Oct. 21, 1965. From the back cover of The Will and the Way: Paul R. Williams, Architect by Karen E. Hudson, Rizzoli, 1994. Courtesy Getty Research Institute.

Julius Shulman's now legendary images of the buildings of Los Angeles have become deeply ingrained into our collective psyche. The image above has become so iconic that most people have a deep belief that Paul Williams was the architect which could not be further from the truth. Pereira & Luckman was the architectural firm responsible for the design with structural engineering performed by Richard Bradshaw. In an interview with the author, Shulman stated that this was the photograph he most regretted taking because of the resultant myth it created. The above photo taken with a super wide-angle lens and within a few feet of Williams enabled the incorporation of the starburst electrolier, making it an essential element of the photograph. The resulting image conjured the essence of the space-age future for everyone who has ever flown into or out of Los Angeles or have only seen the photo. While helping to create an icon, as have hundreds of his images, Shulman's Theme Building photograph became an icon in and of itself. Whether a conscious decision on Aschheim's part or not, the iconography of Shulman's image above literally demands that the electrolier appear in her Theme Building No. 3 below.

 

 














  


Left, Deborah Aschheim, Theme building No. 3 (With Asterisk Lamp and Palms), 2010. Right, Gary Winogrand, Untitled (Los Angeles International Airport), circa 1964. Gelatin silver print.

Other artists such as photographer Gary Winogrand presciently recognized the Theme Building as a subject with iconic potential. His ghostly 1964 untitled image (above right) from close to the same perspective as Aschheim's drawing (above left) was included in the 1989 J. Paul Getty Museum exhibition Experimental Photography: The New Subjectivity and evokes nostalgia for a close "encounter" of the third kind and along with Shulman's image was a great contribution to the zeitgeist of modernist Los Angeles in the 1960s. Note the hint of the staburst electrolier in the upper left hand corner.

Period postcard circa 1960.


Neptune's Courtyard, theme building and entrance to Pacific Ocean Park, circa 1958. Photographer unknown. (From Paradise by the Sea: Santa Monica Bay by Fred E. Basten, Hennessey + Ingalls, 2000, p. 197).

One can't but help think that the architects for the LAX Theme Building were inspired by Pacific Ocean Park's Neptune's Garden Theme Building in Santa Monica which opened in the summer of 1958.

Bradshaw played a major role in the final design of the LAX Theme Building by solving some very complex structural issues that made construction a reality. The definitive book on the history of the design of this most important Los Angeles icon is A Symbol of Los Angeles: The History of the Theme Building at Los Angeles International Airport, 1952-1961. (See below). The extremely well-documented book written by Victor Cusack and Harrison Lewis Whitney and edited by William A. Schoneberger includes numerous drawings, renderings, construction photos and ephemera giving the most complete documentation of the design and construction as one is ever likely to find and is for sale at the Flightpath Learning Center at LAX.


After working up an appetite during the photo shoot, we all went to lunch at the Encounter Restaurant. Just as I suspected, Deborah and Richard had an eerie amount of work in common as both of their oeuvres are concerned with the skeletal and neural essences of the completed structure. They are kindred design spirits in the truest sense. Deborah discussed having to employ a structural engineer to aid in the design and installation of her intricate neural architecture sculptures (see example below) just as a global cadre of modernist architects relied upon Bradshaw's services to accomplish their creative aims. As we thumbed through Richard's marketing book during lunch we discovered an amazing number of projects which had inspired drawings by Deborah which will be included in her solo exhibition and which I will touch on later. Richard had enthralling stories to tell about the design difficulties of each project and we could have gone on for hours.

Deborah Aschheim, "Earworm" (node), 2008, speakers, LED's, plastic, copper tubing, 2008.

Go to the following link for a 13 second movie of Aschheim installing another complex sculpture Neural Architecture No. 6 and view some of her other very exciting neural architecture in her Reconsider Exhibition Catalog at the end of this article. A review of this extremely cerebral exhibition can be read at "Earworms".

Theme Building page from Richard R. Bradshaw, Incorporated, Structural Engineers marketing book. Courtesy of Richard Bradshaw.

The most interesting anecdote shared by Bradshaw was the problem of wind-induced harmonic resonance which surfaced during construction of the Theme Building. Wind of a certain velocity and direction set up harmonic vibrations in the steel superstructure as illustrated in the cross-section above. Richard had to create a dynamic field test to determine whether the stucco sheathing to be installed around the four spider legs of the building would totally dampen the vibrations. He and his team applied pressure to one of the legs by attaching a cable and cranking down on it and then quickly releasing it to determine the amplitude and force of the vibrations and was able to determine that the design would work. These daring design challenges are what Bradshaw lived for.

Left, Deborah Aschheim researching for upcoming show at the Cella Gallery, May 25, 2010. Photo by John Crosse. Right, Deborah Aschheim, Encounter No. 3 (Something Sensuous About the Grid of Holes), 2010 Ink on Dura-lar, 30 x 23 inches.


From left, Joe Kinishita, Jim Santiago, Richard Bradshaw, Don Belding, Welton Becket, Paul Williams and Don Wilcox, ca. 1959. From A Symbol of Los Angeles, p. 85. Photographer unknown.

Theme Building construction photo, 1960. Photographer unknown.

Recently running across the  above Theme Building construction photo conjured in my mind a space shot being readied at Cape Canaveral about the same time the above construction was taking place. I Googled Cape Canaveral and quickly found the image below. Talk about the power of nostalgia! Bradshaw and the Joint Venture boys must have had great fun creating this masterpiece of modernism.

Theme Building structural steel and scaffolding ca. 1960. From A Symbol of Los Angeles, p. 71. Photographer unknown, courtesy of Richard Bradshaw.

  Deborah Aschheim, Theme Building (Now I Miss the Scaffolding), 2010, Ink on Dura-lar, 24 x 36 inches

Aschheim states, "When I was growing up, the future was limitless possibility, jet-age, space-age, techno utopia. 'Modern' meant new. Now, modern means old and the future I grew up with seems dated, irresponsible, and obsolete." Her initial attraction to the Theme Building came as she continued to view the preservation scaffolding wrapping the iconic structure during the last two years as she jet-setted around the country for her various shows. Bradshaw not only designed work for the superstructure for the Theme Building, he also created the thin-shelled concrete roofs, his world-recognized specialty, for the adjacent maintenance garages seen below.

 Construction photo of Theme Building and maintenance garages ca. 1960. Photo courtesy of Richard Bradshaw. Photographer unknown.

I couldn't wait to send the above photos to Deborah to let her know her instincts were right on as to the scaffolding's role in creating a sense of mystery and timeless nostalgia. It also had the pragmatic affect of enabling preservation of the most-recognized landmark of Los Angeles documented in a recent issue of Preservation Magazine seen below.

Preservation Magazine, September 2009 cover story on the preservation project for the LAX Theme Building.





 












Left, Theme Building superstructure designed by Richard Bradshaw for the Joint Venture headed by Pereira & Luckman. From A Symbol of Los Angeles, p. 53. Photographer unknown. Right, Deborah Aschheim, Theme Building No. 5 (Observation Deck with Scaffold), 2010

Much of Deborah's work in her Cella show was inspired by the 1964 New York World's Fair. She made drawings and created a model of the New York Pavilion (Tent of Tomorrow) and the Unisphere. Unbeknownst to her, some of Bradshaw's most iconic designs, the multiple award-winning General Electric and Ford Motor Company Pavilions were also major features of the Fair and were widely published to much critical acclaim.

Deborah Aschheim, Tent of Tomorrow (We Rode the Subway All the Way to Flushing Corona Meadows), 2009
Postcard of the New York Pavilion and Unisphere, New York World's Fair, 1964.




 Left, Deborah Aschheim, Tent of Tomorrow, 2009, plastic and LED’s. Right, unbuilt domed stadium, Richard Bradshaw for Welton Becket & Associates. From an unknown issue of Architectural Record ca. 1965. Courtesy of Richard Bradshaw.

Aschheim's model and drawings of the New York Pavilion at the 1964 New York World's Fair echo Bradshaw's unbuilt hyperbolic-paraboloid stadium design for Welton Becket & Associates using remarkably similar design elements. Becket was trying to break into the fledgling domed stadium market and commissioned the above right stadium design from Bradshaw in 1964.

Deborah Aschheim, Unisphere (I See in My Mind Mom in Front of it Looking Like Jackie Kennedy), 2009, Ink and acrylic on Dura-lar, 25 x 34 inches

General Electric Pavilion, New York World's Fair, Welton Becket & Associates, Structural Engineering by Richard Bradshaw, 1964. Photo courtesy Richard Brashaw.









Left, General Electric Pavilion Walt Disney Progressland Fair Brochure, 1964. Right, G.E. Pavilion structural details by Richard Bradshaw for Welton Becket & Associates

Carlos Diniz, General Electric Pavillion - New York World's Fair 1964-65, 1965, Serigraph on paper, 40 x 26 inches. Courtesy Edward Cella Gallery.

Ford Pavilion, New York World's Fair, Welton Becket & Associates, Structural Engineering by Richard Bradshaw, 1964. Photo courtesy Richard Bradshaw.

Aschheim's Unisphere and Bradshaw's G.E. and Ford Pavilions above round out their Fair-inspired production.





















Left, Gulf Life Insurance Building, Welton Becket & Associates, Structural Engineering by Richard Bradshaw, 1968. Courtesy Richard Bradshaw. Right, Deborah Aschheim, Gufl Life, 2009.

Bradshaw's above left photo of the Gulf Life Building in Jacksonville, Florida elicits the unbridled spirit of the modern skyscraper at the peak of the Modern Movement during the mid-1960s. It is coincidental that Becket & Associates, a firm whose work has inspired much of Aschheim's, called upon Bradshaw for the firm's most challenging design projects. The exterior frames are precast, post-tensioned sections. The floors are composed of prestressed concrete T-beams. At the time the 27-story concrete shear wall structure was built in 1968, it was the tallest precast prestressed building in the world, just the kind of challenging project Bradshaw sought out his entire career. The building garnered for Richard the Prestressed Concrete Institute Honor Award for 1968. Bradshaw is also not too shy to relate that the architects in the Becket offices thought he was a genius.

Many projects completed by Welton Becket & Associates appear to trigger a deep nostalgic response in Deborah's psyche.  Her above right drawing of Gulf Life, enshrouds the building in scaffolding and evokes wrapping ourselves in a blanket to protect the modernistic memories of our youth. Ironically, at the May 25th Encounter luncheon, Bradshaw regaled us with a story of how a major repair had to be made to all four corners on each of the 27 stories which required a creative solution akin to to wrapping the building in scaffolding as above. If you attend the opening, don't forget to ask Richard to share this anecdote with you as he is looking forward to being in attendance.

Another building which evoked Aschheim's "Nostalgia for the Future," not to mention that of the Los Angeles Conservancy, is Minoru Yamasaki's Century Plaza Hotel. This building serves as an extremely interesting case study on the importance of preservation of our icons to our psyche's mental health. Architects take note. Images in any form are essential in the quest to save your structures from the wrecking ball. Yamasaki had the foresight to engage Carlos Diniz to create the below fabulous presentation drawing (see below) for the hotel to help sell it to Century City's developers. Upon completion he then commissioned Julius Shulman to photograph it, almost guaranteeing it iconic status. (See further below). Had he not had the foresight to do that, I think most would agree that it is unlikely the building would have been saved.

Carlos DinizCentury Plaza Hotel - View of Tower, 1964, Silkcreen on paper, 25 1/2 x 25 1/4 inches. Courtesy Edward Cella Gallery.

 Century Plaza Hotel, Minoru Yamasaki, 1965. Julius Shulman Job No. 3997, March 3, 1966. © Julius Shulman Photography Archive, Research Library at the Getty Research InstituteCentury Plaza Hotel saved and, with it, a '60s vision of the L.A. dream, Los Angeles Times, February 11, 2010

Guide to Good Architectural Photography, Architectural Record Special Supplement, 1966. Julius Shulman cover photo, Job No. 3997, March 3, 1966© Julius Shulman Photography Archive, Research Library at the Getty Research Institute.

Deborah AschheimCentury 2010 (After Dad's 1968 California Vacation Slides), Ink on Dura-lar, 25 x 40 inches.

Aschheim's parents stayed in the Century Plaza during 1968. Her father's vacation slides were also important in ingraining the beauty of this 1960's icon into Deborah's memory which is now resurfacing in her work. Her model and drawings are an important addition to the body of art which will continue to increase the critical mass of our nostalgia for this important landmark and the others in her show. The Los Angeles Conservancy would do well to put Deborah on the payroll full-time and trust her uncanny instincts to discover more of our collective  "Nostalgia for the Future."

Deborah Aschheim, Century 2010, work in progress, Aschheim studio. Photo by Deborah Aschheim. 

The images above resurfaced my personal nostalgia for this icon as I have many fond memories of attending heated Viet Nam War protest rallies in front of the hotel in the late 1960s shortly after it opened for business.With its relative isolation in Century City, it was the preferred watering hole for visiting dignitaries and politicians such as Ronald Reagan and Lyndon Johnson as the police found it quite easy to defend from protesters. That certainly didn't stop us from trying as we filled the fountains of the establishment's bastion with red Koolaid to evoke the blood spilled during the war. There were some very dramatic cat-and-mouse games between the police and us radical, pot-smoking "Hippies" back in the day. (See below). 

I did not really come to appreciate the hotel's architecture until about 10 years ago when I ironically started attending the annual California Antiquarian Book Fairs to search for material on the the history of Southern California modernist architecture. I took a real close look around the facility during last February's Fair and found the crisp, clean architecture as aesthetically pleasing as if it was new. I rejoice that it will be saved even though we wished a completely different fate for it in the 1960s as we mourned the loss of Bobbie Kennedy and Martin Luther King.

Los Angeles Times, June 15, 1967, p. II-1. From ProQuest.

Los Angeles Times, June 24, 1967. From ProQuest.

Los Angeles Times, June 24, 1967. From ProQuest.

Los Angeles Times, July 28, 1967. From ProQuest.

Aschheim writes in her statement for the exhibition, "I have been urgently seeking out the buildings before they are erased. I don't want to go inside the buildings. I circle them, trying to understand them before they are removed or renovated into the present. It is a strange way to feel about architecture. Working from memory and from photographs I take on my visits, I am drawing them and building them, somewhat inaccurately and not to scale, sometimes entombed in clouds or scaffolding. ... The buildings are landmarks at the intersection of two worlds: the elusive, private space of memory, and the contested space of bodies and the built environment."

 Royal Hawaiian Hotel Addition, Wimberly, 1969, Whisenand, Allison, Tong & Goo, Structural Engineering by Richard Bradshaw, photo by Walton Photography. Courtesy Richard Bradshaw.

Richard Bradshaw, coincidentally, worked on hundreds of hotels around the world, specializing in Hawaii with his WWII pal, architect Pete Wimberly, a classmate of A. Quincy Jones and Minoru Yamasaki in the late 1930s at the University of Washington. Below is an intriguing profile of Richard and his career published in the April 29, 1962 issue of the Los Angeles Times. It gives you the sense of the man's deep desire to learn all there was to learn about the field/art of structural engineering and to translate his complex equations and calculations into the elegant designs seen herein. Nearly fifty years after this article was written, Bradshaw is still trying to solve ever more complex structural problems with a new sophisticated structural engineering software package he recently installed on his powerful Apple computer. Thom Mayne and Frank Gehry, do you need any help?

 Profile on Bradshaw from the Los Angeles Times Real Estate Section, April 29, 1962, p. 2. From ProQuest.

Richard Bradshaw model of McCarran Field Terminal, Las Vegas for Welton Becket & Associates. Courtesy of Richard Bradshaw.

Much of Bradshaw's design work could not be found in the structural engineering textbooks and since it was before the age of powerful computers and sophisticated design software programs, he had to be creative to find solutions. By using complex stress-testing of design models equipped with strain gauges and other innovative techniques and adapting aeronautical engineering techniques to building design, he was able to determine how the structural forces between the interconnecting materials of concrete and steel might react to exterior and interior forces of nature, dynamic interior loading and aging. Add some LED lighting to the above manta ray-shaped model of McCarran Field Terminal in Las Vegas (see below) and it would make a great accompaniment to Aschheim's show. Read the Scarlet Cheng review of Deborah's exhibition "Rework, rebuild, recycle" at the Ben Maltz Gallery at Otis College of Art and Design to discover eerie similarities between her Neural Architecture Series and Bradshaw's design models. 

McCarran Field Terminal, Las Vegas for Welton Becket & Associates. Courtesy of Richard Bradshaw.

Bradshaw's most recent lecture was titled "Structural Elegance" and was presented at the 2008 National Conference of the American Society of Civil Engineers. The following excerpt from the abstract gives one the sense of the his design philosophy. 
"The use of the expression Structural Elegance should be used more often to describe excellence in Structural Engineering. Only Structural Engineers are qualified to decide which structures possess the quality of Structural Elegance: The attributes which define the expression are herein discussed. Structural aesthetics  are a part, but only a part, of Structural Elegance. It is possible to have structural elegance without aesthetics. Many structures today are built on whimsical structural decisions rather than on classical methods. Structural Elegance also includes a clear sense of purpose, efficiency of materials and construction methods and lastly, daring."

 Deborah Aschheim, Building as Body, 2007

Although the opening date for this exhibition, the date of the destruction of Yamasaki's Twin Towers, may be a coincidence, 9-11 plays a big role in the evolution of Aschheim's art. Meg Linton, Director of the Ben Maltz Gallery at Otis college of Design and curator of Aschheim's Neural Architecture exhibition wrote of the show in 2008,
"As we have seen, the tragic events on September 11, 2001 changed the world immediately and forever. It threw the United States into a patriotic maelstrom that included a strategic erosion of the Bill of Rights and a move to suspend the writ of habeas corpus. It spawned a never ending, bankrupting war, and it continues to fuel an obsession with safety by perpetuating a steady media diet of anxiety and fear. What Aschheim observed shortly after 9/11 was the pervasive use of fear mongering words like invasion, terrorist, and contagion creating a hysterical need for a feeling of protection. This lead to the public's demand for (and the subsequent availability of) affordable surveillance equipment to protect against invasions - a placebo like sealing your windows with duct tape. The access to new surveillance equipment proved beneficial for Aschheim: before the attacks, she was exploring the possibility of using light and motion sensors in her installations, but the incorporation of these products proved exorbitant because the technology had to be hardwired into the building and installed by professionals. But by the end of 2001, Home Depot, Target, Wall Mart and other big box stores had "Home Security" aisles filled with affordable plug-and-play motion, light, and audio sensing devices. No longer the sole purview of the property owner; this technology was now made available to all. Her access to this technology permitted her to narrow her focus from the entire body to the intricacies of the human nervous system resulting in the creation of Neural Architecture."
Join Linton and Tom Leeser on September 25th and Margo Bistis and Norman M. Klein on October 16th for the special Gallery Exhibition Programs below.


IN CONVERSATION: MEG LINTON AND TOM LESSER WITH DEBORAH ASCHHEIMSaturday, September  25, 2010 / 4:00 PM, 
6018 Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles


Join Meg Linton and Tom Leeser as they discuss Nostalgia for the Future with artist Deborah Aschheim.  Leeser and Linton bring their unique perspectives as artist and curator, respectively, in opening dialogues about memory, modernism, and our conceptions of the misremembered future.  Both Leeser and Linton have included Aschheim’s work in recent exhibitions at the Ben Maltz Gallery and the Museum of Jurassic Technology.

For photos of this event go to My Facebook Album


Meg Linton is the Director of Galleries and Exhibitions, Ben Maltz Gallery, Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles.  Over the last sixteen years, she has organized hundreds of solo and group exhibitions and published dozens of catalogues.  She received degrees from the University of California at Irvine and California State University, Fullerton, and completed the prestigious Museum Leadership Program at The Getty Leadership Institute.  Her previous curatorial positions include the Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum and University Art Museum at California State University, Long Beach. 


Tom Leeser is the Director of the Center for Integrated Media at CalArts and has been active in the field of art and technology for over twenty years as a digital media artist, writer, educator, and curator.  A graduate of the San Francisco Art Institute, his work has been exhibited at MassMOCA, Santa Monica Museum of Art, the Kitting Factory, and film and video festivals nationwide.




NORMAN KLEIN AND MARGO BISTIS: BAROQUE MODERNISM: AN UNEASY ALLIANCE OF POWER AND CULTUREThe Odd Poetics of Modernist Cities in the Midst of Their Own Erasure (1960-75)Saturday, October 16, 2010 / 2:00 PM
6018 Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles


All buildings speak to power, simply in the way that they are designed and constructed.  The process of putting up a building is a narrative that leaves traces. Join Norman Klein and Margo Bistis as they discuss a collective unconscious of architecture and cities, and what modernist buildings can tell us about our catastrophes today.


Margo Bistis is a European cultural historian, independent curator, and teaches in the School of Critical Studies at California Institute of the Arts.  Her publications include essays on Henri Bergson, modernism, and caricature. In 2003, she assisted in the curating of Comic Art: The Paris Salon in Caricature at the Getty Research Institute.


Norman M. Klein is a critic, urban and media historian, novelist, and teaches in the School of Critical Studies at California Institute of the Arts.  His publications include The History of Forgetting: Los Angeles and the Erasure of Memory; The Vatican to Vegas: The History of Special Effects; Freud in Coney Island and Other Tales; and the database novel Bleeding Through: Layers of Los Angeles, 1920-86.  His work centers on the relationship between collective memory and power, from special effects to cinema to digital theory, usually set in urban spaces; and often on the thin line between fact and fiction; about erasure, forgetting, scripted spaces, the social imaginary. THE PROGRAMS ARE FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
Seating is limited.  To reserve please call 323.525.0053


Deborah Aschheim Curriculum Vitae:


Deborah Aschheim: Reconsider Exhibition Catalog

Don't miss this opening! It will be a very fun event with a great cross-section of artists and architects in attendance. The soon-to-follow gallery talks will also be prove to be very interesting if Edward's past events are any indication.


My Other Bradshaw Articles





See Richard's iconic construction photo of the Theme Building and more at Los Angeles Times Magazine, May 1, 2011