A S UM M E R I N SPA C E ••• S U ‘1 6 ••• US A $ 7 .5 0
ESSENTIALS MATRIX FOR SUMMER 2016 ••• VIRGIN GALACTIC EXPLORES COMMERCIAL SPACE TRAVEL ••• A SENSE OF SPACE WITH PHOTOGRAPHER JULIUS SHULMAN ••• ISSEY MIYAKE: DRESSING FOR THE FUTURE
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ON THE COVER
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ESSENTIALLY
the essentials matrix for su'16 Curated by us, for you.
TO THE MOON
read up on how travel goes beyond our atmosphere with virgin galactic: the world's first commercial spaceline.
TO MIYAKE & BEYOND
japanese designer and textile innovator issey miyake debuts his fall 2016 line, "BEYoND".
A SENSE OF SPACE
a small tribute to julius shulman, the master photographer who captured the idea of "california dreamin"'.
A SUMMER SPACE editor-in-chief mary apides shares a photo journal of the quieter side of cabo
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ZEPHYR MAGAZINE
MASTHEAD
PUBLISHER FIDM ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER RANDY DUNBAR EDITOR-IN-CHIEF MARY APIDES SR. DESIGNER ZACHARY STUBBLEFIELD PHOTOGRAPHY HUNTER WOODRUFF JULIUS SHULMAN MARY APIDES ART DIRECTOR JAMES WHITE
take it in. Zephyr Magazine is a lifestyle portal meant to inform and inspire those who love to find inspiration in anything and everything. Most of all, we are storytellers. The magazine is divided into topic-specific chapters. Each chapter comprises stories on places, people, contemporary topics, and products, paired with striking photography and/or art. Our editors are passionate about sharing inspiration and are regularly out and about, researching sources to share with our hungry readers. Thank you for travelling with us.
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CONTRIBUTORS ASHLEY BRANCHICK ANGELO BUELVA GUILLERMO ROJAS THE TALENTED SOULS OF BEHANCE
THE EDITOR’S BIT Zephyr (n): “a soft gentle breeze”. As an inspiration junkie, I am constantly looking to be innundated by anything that moves me to a thought, whether it be (mostly) food, art, and of course, travel. When travelling, there’s always that single moment of calm that sort of makes you go, “Yeah. This is dope. I’m happy.” A zephyr of satisfaction, if you will. Now, although a zephyr by definition is soft and gentle, we here at Zephyr Magazine hope to be anything but. Especially with this month’s new issue, all about space. From the innovative strides that Virgin Galactic is making to have travel extend beyond this planet, to the breathtaking photos of Julius Shulman that are out of this world in their own, we want to share some really great stories and sources of inspiration to do and get done through our little paper space. Here’s to another source of inspiration for you to breathe in, dear reader. (I know my face already says it all, but we’re REALLY excited about this one). Cheers, Mary Apides Editor-in-Chief
Start food • travel • 5th floor
cul-de-sac c u i s i n e the original hidden gems of DTLA BY MARY APIDES
R
ecently, two of the senior editors at Thrillist came to visit LA from NY and New Orleans. I’ve been the LA editor for a long time -- nearly a decade -- and I know when the top brass visits it’s time to pull out the big guns and eat the best meal possible in the city. Which is why I told them not to get dressed up at all, to buy a couple beers or bottles of wine, and that we were going for dinner in a cul-de-sac in DTLA. If you’ve been to New Orleans or New York, you know that they were confused -- but if you’re someone who’s involved with the food scene in LA, even casually, nothing about this equation sounds weird at all. In fact, we’re all used to the presumption of laid-backedness that infuses the scene here so much that even the oddball way to get in to this house party is something we’d never question: a spot at the massive wood table in his living room/kitchen didn’t come through traditional make-a-phonecall-and-hope-there’s-availability means -- instead, the open-seating table was full of people who’d applied through a waiting list, letting
the host know a bit about them while competing with thousands of other people for a chance to be among this curated guest list of diners. There’s no OpenTable page, no phone number to call, and no maitre ‘d; all there is is an overfull email box and crossed fingers. Of course, the guy whose restaurant we were at isn’t just any guy: it was Craig Thornton, whom the New Yorker once called a chef with “aboveground legitimacy, with underground preeminence.” He’s revered by chefs all over the world and could, with just a quick phone call, get the kind of funding other young chefs dream of -- yet chooses to operate his nota-restaurant-restaurant Wolvesmouth out of his own comfortable home in a neighborhood you would barely expect to find a fast-food joint in, let alone a pop-up with a perfect five-star Yelp rating. (Seriously, his next door neighbor is a liquor store; the rest of the street is completely unassuming apartments. It’s a guarantee that the only kitchen with an immersion blender in it on the block is the one we’re in.)
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Start food • travel • 5th floor
DISCoVEr N O r T H AMErICA N o r t h e r n
A r i z o n a BY MARY APIDES
M
ontezuma Well is part of the Montezuma Castle National Monument even though the cliff dwellings of Montezuma Castle are located about 11 miles south of Montezuma Well. Several ancient dwelling ruins still stand on the sides of the rim above the well. Take your time and discover the tranquility of a site that has been an oasis for wildlife and people for thousands of years. The Well was once home to the Sinagua Indians who mysteriously left the area over 800 years ago. Located near Sedona and Camp Verde, Arizona, Montezuma Well is a famous Arizona sinkhole with a long past stretching back to prehistoric times. Boasting a unique ecosystem and oasis-like environment, the Well attracts many visitors to its bubbly shores. The legacy of the Sinagua culture surrounds you with cliff dwellings perched along the rim to large pueblo ruins and an ancient pit house. Montezuma Well got its name from the mistaken belief that Montezuma, the infamous Aztec chief, actually lived in the nearby ruins of Montezuma Castle. Since
the Aztecs never settled in this area, there is little doubt Chief Montezuma ever lived at the “castle” or set eyes on the well. Montezuma Well is 368 feet wide with a consistent depth of fifty-five feet. This natural limestone sinkhole is continuously fed by underground springs. Over 1,400,000 gallons of water from the springs flow through the sinkhole every day. Water from the Well is highly carbonated due to high levels of carbon dioxide. With very little oxygen, the Well does not support fish. Water from the springs enters a “swallet” and flows through over 150 feet of limestone before reemerging from an outlet into an irrigation ditch on the opposite side before flowing into Beaver Creek. Sections of the irrigation system were originalyy built by the ancient Sinagua. The temperature difference at the outlet can be up to 20 degrees cooler versus water along the rim of the Well, making it easy to imagine the people of the Sinagua culture spending hot summer days
in this tranquil setting along the forest-shaded trail. This area is still considered sacred by modern day Indian Tribes. Water from the springs enters a “swallet” and flows through over 150 feet of limestone before reemerging from an outlet into an irrigation ditch on the opposite side before flowing into Beaver Creek. Sections of the irrigation system were originalyy built by the ancient Sinagua. The temperature difference at the outlet can be up to 20 degrees cooler versus water along the rim of the Well, making it easy to
imagine the people of the Sinagua culture spending hot summer days in this tranquil setting along the forest-shaded trail. This area is still considered sacred by modern day Indian Tribes.
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Start food • travel • 5th floor
"HAVE YOU SEEN THE 5TH FLOOR?" See Fidm's Visual Communication students' work come to life on FIDM's Top Floor BY MARY APIDES
A
s you know, The Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising is home to designers, creators, the business-minded, and more. On each floor of the Los Angeles campus, work is displayed by the students of various majors. One of the post popular floors for these examples is located on the 5th floor of the main building. This is home to the Visual Communication and Graphic Design students. On this floor, themed installations are displayed every quarter by the new and incoming V-Comm crowd. This quarter, if you couldn’t already tell,
the theme is “Think Pink”. From Marie Antoinette’s “Let Them Eat Cake” to a display of a designer handbag amidst rubble entitled, “A Diamond in the Rough”, these displays are sure to please or at least entertain. Check out the 5th floor if you haven’t already. You’ll be tickled pink. (Sorry, we couldn’t resist).
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ESSENTIALLY
THE GO-TO’S FOR THE TRAVELER (OR SIMPLY THE COLLECTOR OF TASTE) IN YOU. WE’VE GOT IT IN THE BAG, ESSENTIALLY.
“COMMANDER” JACKET HELLZ BELLZ $180 • SPF 15 SAGE & ZINC “CRUSH” YUNA FT. USHER SPOTIFY • BLONDE FRANK OCEAN IT OLYPMUS $1990 • TRAVEL THERMOS STANLEY $35 • WOOD HAND GREEN PANDA $10 • COLD BREW COFFEE GROWLER THE BRAUH
C CREME AESOP $40 • DEATH VALLEY MAP BANDANA NOTTHEKIND $14 • TUNES • MARBED WATER BOTTLE SWELL $35 • OLYMUS PEN-F DIGITAL CAMERA DLE POCKET KNIVES OPINEL $16 • BAMBOO ANTI-BACTERIAL TOOTHBRUSH HAUS $5 • TURKISH BLANKETS WANDERLUST $21
ESSENTIALLY
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ZEPHYR MAGAZINE
A SUMMER IN S P A C E SUMMER 2016
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TO THE
MO ••• 16
VIRGIN GALACTIC: THE WORLD’S FIRST COMMERICAL SPACELINE WORDS BY DAVID WARMFLASH ARTWORK BY JAMES WHITE
OON
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"WE KNOW FIRST HAND THAT SPACE EXPLORATION HAS AN ABILITY TO SPARK THE IMAGINATION AND TO MOTIVATE THE NEXT GENERATION OF LEADERS."
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T
he field equations of Einstein’s General Relativity theory say that faster-than-light (FTL) travel is possible, so a handful of researchers are working to see whether a Star Trek-style warp drive, or perhaps a kind of artificial wormhole, could be created through our technology. But even if shown feasible tomorrow, it’s possible that designs for an FTL system could be as far ahead of a functional starship as Leonardo da Vinci’s 16th century drawings of flying machines were ahead of the Wright Flyer of 1903. But this need not be a showstopper against human interstellar flight in the next century or two. Short of FTL travel, there are technologies in the works that could enable human expeditions to planets orbiting some of the nearest stars.
Sun’s closest neighbor; thus science fiction, including Star Trek, has envisioned it as humanity’s first interstellar destination. In 2012, a planet was identified orbiting closely around Alpha Centauri B, one of three stars comprising the Alpha Centauri system. Three years later, astronomers were unable to find that same planet, but if it exists it would be too hot for life anyway. What we really want to know is whether planets exist further out from the two main stars, or whether their much smaller, dimmer companion star, Proxima Centauri, located just 4.24 light years from Earth, has planets of its own. Very soon, these questions will be answered by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) that NASA will be launching into space in 2018, and by other instruments that will follow, instruments capable of more than merely detecting a planet’s PICKING THE TARGET Certainly, feasibility of such presence. They will also be able missions will depend on geopo- to read the chemical composilitical-economic factors. But it tion of planetary atmospheres. also will depend on the distance to nearest Earth-like exoplanet. JWST Located roughly 4.37 light years An artist’s rendering of the away, Alpha Centauri is the James Webb Space Telescope.
(Credit: Northrup Gruman) Imagine this: If there’s an Earthlike planet around Alpha Centauri or another nearby star system, astronomers will know about it within a decade or two— certainly long before we can build a ship like the Enterprise. Maybe we could consider flying under the speed of light.
PROPULSIWWON
It is not widely known, but the US government spent real money, tested hardware and employed some of the best minds in late 1950s and early 60s to develop an idea called nuclear pulse propulsion. Known as Project Orion, the work was classified because the principle was that your engine shoots a series of “nuclear pulse units”—atomic bombs of roughly Hiroshima/ Nagasaki power—out the back. Each unit explodes and the shockwave delivers concussive force to an immense system.
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"WHAT WE ARE MOST EXC PERHAPS EXACTLY THAT...TH FREEDOM OF IMAG
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CITED ABOUT IS HE POWER AND GINATION."
A
CLEANER
SYSTEM
But what about a less explosive, cleaner propulsion system that could achieve the same end? The British Interplanetary Society took on this goal in the 1970s with Project Daedalus. Named for the inventor from Greek mythology who built wings to escape the island of Crete, the design was based on projected development of inertial confinement fusion (ICF), one of two main strategies for generating nuclear fusion energy on Earth. The other strategy is magnetic confinement fusion (MCF), and similar to ICF, designs exist for adapting MCF to space propulsion. Like Orion, a Daedalus craft would have to be rather large. But using deuterium and helium-3 (obtained from the lunar surface, or from Jupiter’s atmosphere) as fuel, Daedalus craft could reach 0.12 c, cutting travel time to Alpha Centauri to something like 40 years. There are other ingenious ideas, such as the Bussard ramjet that could approach the speed of light, but the size of the engines and technological gaps that we must fill become so large that they may not seem easier than warp drive. So let’s limit our discussion to capabilities up to the neighborhood of the 0.12 c of Daedalus as we consider what form a human interstellar voyage might take
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At some point in this century, motherless birth could become a technological reality. Theoretically, we’ll be able to send cryopreserved embryos through space, for centuries if needed due to propulsion limitations, and set them to develop into full-term infants on the new planet. Then, all you need are robot nannies to raise and educate the infant colonists. And if there’s one area of technological progress that people are supremely confident will keep advancing at warp speed, it’s robots and artificial intelligence. The egg ship concept is loaded with ethical questions, which can be hashed out in the comments section.
ress toward a safe form of human hibernation. Currently, it’s routine to lower a patient’s body temperature intentionally by a few degrees, thereby inducing a mild hypothermic coma, following cardiac arrest. This enables the brain to recover after oxygen has been cut off, whereas remaining at normal body temperature results in what’s called reperfusion injury. Not routine yet, but now under clinical trials, trauma surgeons are cooling patients down to just above freezing temperature in cases of severe blood loss. This is true suspended animation. It’s done just for two hours, or possibly three, stalling death so that injuries can be repaired and blood replaced, but the person is basically hibernating during that time. SUSPENDED ANIMATION With incremental progress, the procedure As technically ambitious as it may sound, medical science is making incremental prog- may eventually be extended to time frames of
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steel pusher plate, which is connected to the most immense shock absorber system that you could imagine. An Orion propulsion schematic. (Credit: NASA) The researchers calculated that the ship could reach five percent the speed of light (0.05 c), resulting in roughly a 90-year travel time to Alpha Centauri. The Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1963, which forbade nuclear explosions in the atmosphere, and the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, which forbade nuclear explosive devices in space, effectively ended Orion. In his epic TV series Cosmos, Carl Sagan noted such an engine would be an excellent way to dispose of humanity’s nuclear bombs, but that it would have to be activated far from Earth. But back when Orion was being funded, amazingly, the plan was to use the nuclear pulse en-
gine even for launching the vessel, in one massive piece, from the surface of Earth. Suffice it to say it does not seem likely that we’ll every build a nuclear pulse ship, but it’s something that we already have the technology to build.
THE GENERATION STARSHIP
It has been said that if you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, go together. This proverb characterizes the strategy of building an interstellar ship so large that you don’t Here’s another science fiction strategy: sending cryopreserved human embryos, or gametes (ova and sperm) into deep space. Upon reaching the destination star system, the embryos would be developed. This would require an artificial uterus, which we don’t have yet, but like fusion, here we’re also talking in terms of a matter of decades.
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to miyake & BEYOND Japanese Designer and textile innovator Issey Miyake debuts his Autumn/Winter 2016 Ready-To-Wear line entitled: BEYOND. Featuring innovative textiles, BEYOND challenges the “futuristic” garment trope of reflective metals and minimal palettes with bold tones and 3D-Steam and Baked Stretch fabric technology. Sorry guys, no reflective robot suits here. (But we’re really not that sorry).
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The traveler who sets out into the immeasurable world of Making Things ventures into unexplored galaxies in search of new stars. BEYOND: To pursue as yet unseen and unknown beauty created from A Piece Of Cloth.
3-D STEAM PRINT TECHNOLOGY INFUSED
WITH
VIBRANT, LIVING COLOR
A S E N S E OF S P A C E
Words by Peter Gossell Photos by Julius Schulman
Photographer Julius Schulman’s photography spread California Mid-century modern around the world. Carefully composed and artfully lighted, his images promoted not only new approaches to home design but also the ideal of idyllic California living — a sunny, suburban lifestyle played out in sleek, spacious, lowslung homes featuring ample glass, pools and patios.
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E
Even if you’re confused by the fork in the driveway, which slopes up to the Edenic apex of Laurel Canyon, or don’t recognize architect Raphael Soriano’s mid-century design landmark, you can’t miss Julius Shulman’s place. It’s the one with the eight-foot-high banner bearing his name— an advertisement for his 2005 Getty Museum exhibition “Modernity and the Metropolis”—hanging before the door to the studio adjoining the house. As displays of ego go, it’s hard to beat. Yet the voice calling out from behind it is friendly, even eager—“Come on in!” And drawing back the banner, one finds, not a monument, but a man: behind an appealingly messy desk, wearing blue suspenders and specs with lenses as big as Ring Dings, and offering a smile of roguish beatitude. You’d smile, too. At 96, Shulman is the best known architectural photographer in the world, and one of the genre’s most influential figures. Between 1936, when a fateful meeting with architect Richard Neutra began his career, and his semi-retirement half a century later, he used his instinctive compositional elegance and hair-trigger command of light to document more than 6,500 projects, creating images that defined many of the masterworks of 20th-century architecture. Most notably, Shulman’s focus on xa residential modernism of Los Angeles, which included photographing 18 of the 26 Case Study Houses commissioned by Arts & Architecture magazine between 1945 and 1967, resulted in a series of lyrical tableaux that invested the high-water moment of postwar American optimism with an arresting, oddly innocent glamour. Add to this the uncountable volumes and journals featuring his pictures, and unending requests for reprints, and you have an artist whose talent, timing, ubiquity, and sheer staying power have buried the competition—in some cases, literally. Shulman’s decision to call it quits in 1x986 was motivated less by age than a distaste for postmodern architecture. But, he insists, “it wasn’t quite retiring,” citing the ensuing
decade axand a half of lectures, occasional assignments, and work on books. Then, in 2000, Shulman was introduced to a German photographer named Juergen Nogai, who was in L.A. from Bremen on assignment. The men hit it off immediately, and began partnering on work motivated by the maestro’s brand-name status. “A lot of people, they think, It’d be great to have our house photographed by Julius Shulman,” says Nogai. “We did a lot of jobs like that at first. Then, suddenly, people figured out, Julius is working again.” “I realized that I was embarking on another chapter of my life,” Shulman says, the pleasure evident in his timesoftened voice. “We’ve done many assignments”—Nogai puts the number at around 70—“and they all came out beautifully. People are always very cooperative,” he adds. “They spend days knowing I’m coming. Everything is clean and fresh. I don’t have to raise a finger.” As regards the division of labor, the 54-year-old Nogai says tactfully, “The more active is me because of the age. Julius is finding the perspectives, and I’m setting up the lights, and fine-tuning the image in the camera.” While Shulman acknowledges their equal partnership, and declares Nogai’s lighting abilities to be unequaled, his assessment is more succinct: “I make the compositions. There’s only one Shulman.” “The subject is the power of photography,” Shulman explains. “I have thousands of slides, and Juergen and I have assembled them into almost 20 different lectures. And not just about architecture—I have pictures of cats and dogs, fashion pictures, flower photographs. I use them to do a lot of preaching to the students, to give them something to do with their lives, and keep them from dropping out of school.” It all adds up to a very full schedule, which Shulman handles largely by himself—“My daughter comes once a week from Santa Barbara and takes care of my business affairs, and does my shopping”—and with remarkable ease for a near-centenarian. Picking up the oversized calendar on which he records his appointments, Shulman walks me through a typical seven days: “Thom Mayne—we had lunch with him. Long Beach, AIA meeting. People were here for a meeting about my photography at the Getty [which houses his archive]. High school students, a lecture. Silver Lake, the Neutra house, they’re opening part of the lake frontage, I’m going to see that. USC, a lecture. Then an assignment,
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the Griffith Observatory—we’ve already started that one.” Yet rather than seeming overtaxed, Shulman fairly exudes well-being. Like many elderly people with nothing left to prove, and who remain in demand both for their talents and as figures of veneration (think of George Burns), Shulman takes things very easy: He knows what his employers and admirers want, is happy to provide it, and accepts the resulting reaffirmation of his legend with a mix of playfully rampant immodesty and heartfelt gratitude. As the man himself puts it, “The world’s my onion.” Given the fun Shulman’s having being Shulman, one might expect the work to suffer. But his passion for picturemaking remains undiminished. “I was surprised at how engaged Julius was,” admits the Chicago auction-house mogul Richard Wright, who hired Shulman to photograph Pierre Koenig’s Case Study House #21 prior to selling it last year. “He did 12 shots in two days, which is a lot. And he
really nailed them.” Of this famous precision, says the writer Howard Rodman, whose John Lautner–designed home Shulman photographed in 2002: “There’s a story about Steve McQueen, where a producer was trying to get him to sign on to a movie. The producer said, ‘Look how much you change from the beginning to the end.’ And McQueen said, ‘I don’t want to be the guy who learns. I want to be the guy who knows.’ And Shulman struck me as the guy who knows.” This becomes evident as, picking up the transparencies from his two most recent assignments, he delivers an impromptu master class. “We relate to the position of the sun every minute of the day,” Shulman begins, holding an exterior of a 1910 Craftsman-style house in Oakland, by Bernard Maybeck, to the lamp atop his desk. “So when the sun moves around, we’re ready for our picture. I have to be as specific as a sports photographer—even a little faster,”
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he says, nodding at the image, in which light spills through a latticework overhang and patterns a façade. “This is early afternoon, when the sun is just hitting the west side of the building. If I’m not ready for that moment, I lose the day.” He does not, however, need to observe the light prior to photographing: “I was a Boy Scout—I know where the sun is every month of the year. And I never use a meter.” Shulman is equally proud of his own lighting abilities. “I’ll show you something fascinating,” he says, holding up two exteriors of a new modernist home, designed for a family named Abidi, by architect James Tyler. In the first, the inside of the house is dark, resulting in a handsome, somewhat lifeless image. In the second, it’s been lit in a way that seems a natural balance of indoor and outdoor illumination, yet expresses the structure’s relationship to its site and showcases the architecture’s transparency. “The house is transfigured,” Shulman explains. “I have four Ts. Transcend is, I go beyond what the architect himself has seen. Transfigure— glamorize, dramatize with lighting, time of day. Translate— there are times, when you’re working with a man like Neutra, who wanted everything the way he wanted it—‘Put the camera here.’ And after he left, I’d put it back where I wanted it, and he wouldn’t know the difference—I translated. And fourth, I transform the composition with furniture movement.” To illustrate the latter, Shulman shows me an interior of the Abidi house that looks out from the living room, through a long glass wall, to the grounds. “Almost every one of my photographs has a diagonal leading you into the picture,” he says. Taking a notecard and pen, he draws a line from the lower left corner to the upper right, then a second perpendicular line from the lower right corner to the first line. Circling the intersection, he explains, “That’s the point of what we call ‘dynamic symmetry.’” When he holds up the photo again, I see that the line formed by the bottom of the glass wall—dividing inside from outside—roughly mirrors the diagonal he’s drawn. Shulman then indicates the second, perpendicular line created by the furniture arrangement. “My assistants moved [the coffee table] there, to complete the line. When the owner saw the Polaroid, she said to her husband, ‘Why don’t we do that all the time?’” Shulman’s remark references one of his signature gambits: what he calls “dressing the set,” not only by moving furniture but by adding everyday objects and accessories. “I think he was trying to portray the lifestyle people might have had if they’d lived in those houses,” suggests the Los Angeles–based architectural photographer Tim StreetPorter. “He was doing—with a totally positive use of the
“
words—advertising or propagandist photographs for the cause.” This impulse culminated in Shulman’s introduction of people into his pictures—commonplace today, but virtually unique 50 years ago. “Those photographs—with young, attractive people having breakfast in glass rooms beside carports with two-tone cars—were remarkable in the history of architectural photography,” StreetPorter says. “He took that to a wonderfully high level.” Surprisingly, Shulman underplays this aspect of his oeuvre. The idea, he explains, is simply to “induce a feeling of occupancy. For example, in the Abidi house, I put some wineglasses and bottles on the counter, which would indicate that people are coming for dinner. Then there are times I’ll select two or three people—the owner of a house, or the children—and put them to work. Sometimes it’s called for.” “Are you pleased with these photographs?” I ask as he sets them aside. “I’m pleased with all my work,” he says cheerfully. “I tell people in my lectures, ‘If I were modest, I wouldn’t talk about how great I am.’” Yet when I ask how he developed his eye, Shulman’s expression turns philosophical. “Sometimes Juergen walks ahead of me, and he’ll look for a composition. And invariably, he doesn’t see what I see. Architects don’t see what I see. It’s God-given,” he says, using the Yiddish word for an act of kindness—“a mitzvah.” I suggest a tour of the house, and Shulman moves carefully to a rolling walker he calls “the Mercedes” and heads out of the studio and up the front steps. As a plaque beside the entrance indicates, the 3,000-square-foot, three-bedroom structure, which Shulman commissioned in 1948 and moved into two years later, was landmarked by L.A.’s Cultural Heritage Commission as the only steel-frame Soriano house that remains as built. Today, such Case Study–era residences are as fetishized (and expensive) as Fabergé eggs. But when Shulman opens the door onto a wide, cork-lined hallway leading to rooms that, after six decades, remain refreshing in their clarity of function and communication, use of simple, natural materials, and openness to the outof-doors, I’m reminded that the movement’s motivation was egalitarian, not elitist: to produce well-designed, affordable homes for young, middle-class families. “Most people whose houses I photographed didn’t use their sliding doors,” Shulman says, crossing the living room toward his own glass sliders. “Because flies and lizards would come in; there were strong winds. So I told Soriano I wanted a transition—a screened-in enclosure in front of the living room, kitchen, and bedroom to make an indoor/outdoor room.” Shulman opens the door leading to an exterior dining area. A bird trills loudly. “That’s a wren,” he says, and steps out. “My
AMERICAN PHOTOGRAPHER JULIUS SHULMAN'S IMAGES OF CALIFORNIAN ARCHITECTURE HAVE BURNED THEMSELVES INTO THE RETINA OF THE 21ST CENTURY.
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wife and I had most of our meals out here,” he recalls. “Beautiful.” We continue past the house to Shulman’s beloved garden— he calls it “the jungle”—a riot of vegetation that overwhelms much of the site, and frames an almost completely green canyon view. “I planted hundreds of trees and shrubs—back there you can see my redwoods,” he says, gesturing at the slope rising at the property’s rear. “Seedlings, as big as my thumb. They’re 85 feet tall now.” He pauses to consider an ominously large paw print in the path. “It’s too big for a dog. A bobcat wouldn’t be that big, either. It’s a mystery,” Shulman decides, pushing the Mercedes past a ficus as big as a baobab. The mystery I find myself pondering, as we walk beside the terraced hillside, is the one he cited himself: the source of his talent. In 1936, Shulman was an ama-teur photographer— gifted, but without professional ambition—when he was invited by an architect friend to visit Richard Neutra’s Kun House. Shulman, who’d never seen a modern residence, took a handful of snapshots with the Kodak vest-pocket camera his sister had given him, and sent copies to his friend as a thank-you. When Neutra saw the images, he requested a meeting, bought the photos, and asked the 26-year-old if he’d like more work. Shulman accepted and—virtually on a whim—his career took off. When I ask Shulman what Neutra saw in his images, he answers with a seemingly unrelated story. “I was born in Brooklyn in 1910,” says this child of Russian-Jewish immigrants. “When I was three, my father went to the town of Central Village in Connecticut, and was shown this farmhouse—primitive, but [on] a big piece of land. After we moved in, he planted corn and potatoes, my mother milked the cows, and we had a farm life. “And for seven years, I was imbued with the pleasure of living close to nature. In 1920, when we came here to Los Angeles, I joined the Boy Scouts, and enjoyed the outdoorliving aspect, hiking and camping. My father opened a clothing store in Boyle Heights, and my four brothers and sisters and my mother worked in the store. They were businesspeople.” He flashes a slightly cocky smile. “I was with the Boy Scouts.” We arrive at a sitting area, with a small pool of water, a fireplace, and a large sculpture (purchased from one of his daughter’s high school friends) made from Volkswagen body parts. Shulman lowers himself onto a bench and absorbs the abundant natural pleasures. “When I bought this land, my brother said, ‘Why
don’t you subdivide? You’ll make money.’” He looks amused. “Two acres at the top of Laurel Canyon, and the studio could be converted into a guest house—it could be sold for millions.” He resumes his story. “At the end of February 1936, I’d been at UCLA, and then Berkeley, for seven years. Never graduated, never majored. Just audited classes. I was driving home from Berkeley”—Shulman hesitates dramatically—“and I knew I could do anything. I was even thinking of getting a job in the parks department raking leaves, just so I could be outside. And within two weeks, I met Neutra, by chance. March 5, 1936—that day, I became a photographer. Why not?” Hearing this remarkable tale, I understand that Shulman has answered my question about his talent with an explanation of his nature. What Neutra perceived in the young amateur was an outdoorsman’s independent spirit and an enthusiasm for life’s possibilities, qualities that, as fate would have it, merged precisely with the boundless optimism of the American Century—an optimism, Shulman instinctively recognized, that was embodied in the modern houses that became, as Street-Porter says, “a muse to him.” “[Shulman] always says proudly that Soriano hated his furniture,” says Wim de Wit, the Getty Research Institute curator who oversees Shulman’s collection. “He says, ‘I don’t care; when I sit in a chair I want to be comfortable.’ He does not think of himself as an artist. ‘I was doing a business,’ he says. But when you look at that overgrown garden, you know—there is some other streak in him.” That streak—the free soul within the unpretentious, practical product of the immigrant experience—produced what Nogai calls “a seldom personality”: a Jewish farm boy who grew up to create internationally recognized American cultural artifacts— icons that continue to influence our fantasies and self-perceptions. I ask Shulman if he’s surprised at how well his life has turned out. “I tell students, ‘Don’t take life too seriously—don’t plan nothing nohow,’” he replies. “But I have always observed and respected my destiny. That’s the only way I can describe it. It was meant to be.” “And it was a destiny that suited you?” At this, everything rises at once—his eyebrows, his outstretched arms, and his peaceful, satisfied smile.
“WELL,” says Shulman, “HERE I AM.”
A Summer Space
Cabo san lucas, Mexico photos by mary apides
The pueblo Bonito rosé cabo san lucas, mexico
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ZEPHYR SU'16 //
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NI REMMUS A E C AP S ••• 61‘ US ••• 05.7$ ASU