Southern California Architectural History

Carol Soucek King graciously hosted members of the Southern California Chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians for a leisurely tour and conversation with the Society’s “Modern Patrons” organizer John Berley last Saturday, May 8, 2010, between 10AM-12PM. Husband Richard King, seen below, was unable to attend due to a prior commitment to attend graduation ceremonies at Woodbury University where he has been a long-time trustee.

This event a was nice followup to the March 28th Pasadena Heritage Spring Home Tour “Buff & Hensman: The Art of Modernism”, (see tour brochure cover below)

Following is a link to the latest SAH/SCC Newsletter announcing the event http://www.sahscc.org/SAHSCC%20News%20MaJu%202010.pdf.

SAH/SCC organized this very successful event as part of their “Modern Patrons” series which was a very special opportunity to visit the Buff & Hensman King Residence “Arroyo del Rey” adjacent to not so dry Arroyo Seco beneath the monumental Highway 134 over-crossing in Pasadena. (See image below). Built in 1979, the King Residence is a superb example of Buff & Hensman’s melding of architecture and landscape in a most unusual setting in the Arroyo. In March 2009, the Pasadena City Council officially designated the Kings’ home a Historic Monument.

Saturday was a rare chance to experience the house and surrounding gardens, pavilion, and creekside gazebo and also to learn firsthand from Carol how she and husband Richard came about hiring the architects to create a place of serenity and refuge in a spectacular setting. In the monograph Buff & Hensman (USC Guild Press/Balcony Press, 2004), author Don Hensman recalls the King Residence as “a deceptively straightforward floor plan (that) is balanced without being superfluous.

Neutral stucco walls complement the natural wood trim of the sunken living room. In fact, the home feels more like sculpture than structure. We designed the artscape and landscaping to connect three structures, blending them into the natural surroundings.” (The above monograph contains a nice 6-page spread on the King Residence). Carol informed the intimate group attending Saturday’s event that their 1.5-acre compound was executed in three phases during which the undertaking led to a very close friendship with Conrad and Don.

Also major USC patrons, the Kings hosted a memorable symposium “The World of Buff & Hensman” on November 16, 2008 at which the formal announcement of the donation of their fabulous home, “Arroyo del Rey”, a prime example of Buff & Hensman’s work, to USC School of Architecture for use as an events center and the acceptance by School of Architecture Dean Ma were made. The Kings are also providing a generous endowment for the compound’s maintenance. Thus, the home and surroundings will be preserved in perpetuity and in the future will be known as “The Carol Soucek King and Richard King Center for Architecture, Arts and the Humanities/University of Southern California.”

 

Above is the title page for Carol’s soon to be released “Under the Bridges at Arroyo del Rey”. Illustration by Miller Fong. The following link connects you to her impressive Author’s Page at Amazon where you will see that most of these titles are becoming quite scarce. http://www.amazon.com/Carol-Soucek-King/e/B001HMQQPI/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_2?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1273609216&sr=1-3

 Designers West, Vol. 30, No. 12, October, 1983. Modesto Lanzone’s San Francisco Restaurant, Interior Design by Teresa Pomodoro, Russell Abraham photo.

Back issues of Designers West edited by Soucek King are also becoming increasingly rare and quite collectible. The above issue contains a spread of Beth Kudlicki and my Buff & Hensman home in Playa del Rey, the 1983 Harry Dorsey Residence with Julius Shulman photos. We also have a 6-page spread in the above “Buff & Hensman” monograph.

For a related post I did last January on Buff, Straub & Hensman go to http://socalarchhistory.blogspot.com/2010/01/three-amigos-conrad-buff-iii-calvin.html

I have an Annotated and Illustrated Buff & Hensman Bio-Bibliography in the works which currently contains over 500 articles. Also under way, with the assistance of remaining firm partner Dennis Smith, is a Buff & Hensman Project Database. Stay tuned.

For a related link to John Berley, Project Manager of Frederick Fisher Partners Annenberg Community Beach House project in Santa Monica see http://socalarchhistory.blogspot.com/2010/05/annenberg-community-beach-house-at.html

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Architect William Krisel’s 1973 Ocean Towers condominiums can be seen atop the bluff in the background. Film maker Jake Gorst featured the towers in some fascinating time-lapse footage in the recently released “William Krisel, Architect” documentary. http://socalarchhistory.blogspot.com/2010/02/william-krisel-architect-los-angeles.html

The Annenberg Community Beach House project manager for Fisher Partners, John Berley also happens to conduct the “Modern Patrons” series for the Southern California Chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians and organized a wonderful event Saturday morning at the Richard and Carol Soucek King Residence in Pasadena designed by Buff & Hensman in 1978. He is also involved in the firm’s other Annenberg Foundation Trust Projects in Palm Springs, i.e., the restoration of the Annenberg’s Sunnylands Estate designed by A. Quincy Jones and the new visitor’s center which is rapidly nearing completion.

Relatedly, on Saturday afternoon at his gallery on Wilshire across the street from LACMA, Edward Cella hosted a salon titled “Restore, Refresh, Renew: New Desert Projects” where Janice Lyle, Director of the Annenberg Foundation Trust at Sunnylands (http://www.sunnylands.org/) discussed the Annenberg Estate restoration and new visitor center and how the new 200-acre compound and surrounding grounds are envisioned to be used. Sidney Williams, Curator of Architecture and Design for the Palm Springs Art Museum (http://www.psmuseum.org/councils/architecture_and_design.php) lectured on the legacy of modernism in the greater Palm Springs region and current efforts to preserve, restore, and interpret this legacy within the dynamic community context. She broke the exciting news to the group that plans are under way to acquire E. Stewart Williams’s 1960 Santa Fe Federal Savings Building on Palm Canyon Drive for use as exhibition space and storage for their growing architectural archives.

To learn more about A. Quincy Jones and Sunnylands I recommend picking up a copy of “Sunnylands: Art and Architecture of the Annenberg Estate in Rancho Mirage, California” edited by David G. De Long. (See below). To learn more about the Annenberg Foundation and growing portfolio of cultural centers and activities go to http://www.annenbergfoundation.org/

Image from Amazon.com.

The historical connections of Frederick Fisher Partners and A. Quincy Jones now run quite deep. The firm works out of the historic Jones & Emmons office building (see rendering above) at 12348 Santa Monica Blvd. which they sensitively restored to period pristineness. How ironic (and appropriate I might add) that they be the firm to restore the A. Quincy Jones-designed Annenberg Estate’s Sunnylands compound and design the new visitor’s center. On top of the Community Beach House and Sunnylands projects, Fisher Partners is also restoring A. Quincy Jones’s iconic “The Barn” on Pico Blvd. in Century City for the Metabolic Studio, an arts program affiliated with the Annenberg Foundation. See the Sam Lubell article, “Century City Pastoral” in the 03-12-2010 issue of The Architect’s Neswpaper at the following link for more details. (The Barn)

The Barn, A. Quincy Jones Residence, Century City, 1966. Los Angeles Times Home Magazine, 05-22-1966. Julius Shulman Job No. 3988, 02-11-1966.

    
Thus it appears that Fisher’s decision to move his firm into the restored Jones & Emmons offices has paid off in a big way with the resultant Annenberg Foundation commissions. It is also quite coincidental indeed that the Annenberg Community Beach House is in such close proximity to Jones & Emmon’s Shorecliff Tower Condominiums. 

All this seems to cry out  to me for an exhibition on Jones whose last show was a tribute curated by Esther McCoy at Cal-State Dominguez Hills shortly after his passing in early 1980. What better place for a Jones exhibition than an inaugural show in the soon to be acquired Santa Fe Federal Savings Building in Palm Springs where Jones is revered for his desert work. February, 2012 Modernism Week seems like a great target to shoot for unless other plans are already under way for that date. For my related post which references A. Quincy Jones’s Plam Springs work see http://socalarchhistory.blogspot.com/2009/12/paul-r-williams-and-quincy-jones.html.

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