Go West 2011
Our recent trip down to southern California and Arizona was inspiring and fun! There is so much great architecture out that way. From SoCal's beach front Googie buildings, to LA's modern landscape to Arizona's old west, we took it all in, and came back inspired.
We traveled to Huntington Beach for the RTC conference, where we gave a presentation on digital fabrication and the processes we have created in-house to realize a workflow from design to fabrication. The conference was great. Lots of very knowledgeable people, great classes and a small enough venu that we were able to talk and meet many great new people.
Huntington beach is literally 'Surf City USA'… where all those cool guys were surfing in the 60's. Now it's a cute resort town with beautiful views, so the conference location was great!
Here is Jillian, enjoying those said views…
From there we traveled down to San Diego, going along the shore past Laguna Beach. This area of CA is filled with old Googie buildings. We love it! This enormous Googie structure is an upscale clothing store.
Just look at that awesome light!
Continuing South through Laguna Beach we heard tale of an amazingly decorated Tiki Bar. Turns out it's once famed interior has been renovated, so it is not as impressive as it was years ago. They do, however, have a great Tiki mug you can get. Which of course, we did. Love the menu graphics too!
Onto San Diego where the SoCal Googie architecture does not stop. From decorative shade walls...
To liquor stores. The Googie is everywhere!
And then further south even more to the Salton Sea, past Palm Springs and into the dessert where this forgotten town lends its self to amazing photo ops.
Parts of the Salton Sea are slowly sinking into the ground. Abandoned trailers from another time.
Investigating that area further you will find outsider art environments that blow your mind, and expand your imagination. You suddenly realize how many ways there are to live in this world.
From Salvation Mountain
to Slab City
And then into The Center of the World
A place that holds the worlds history.... from one man's point of view...
Into Arizona the architecture changes from whimsy art enviroments and space age futurism to Old West ghost towns and abandoned mines.
A different kind of beautiful given to us from this barren desert landscape.
Cruzing back home, we make a stop in LA, to soak in more SoCal art and culture. Culver City gives us huge awesome murrals where ever we seem to turn...
And fun ideas with modern arcitecture. Check out the cool green acrylic over glass windows on the front of this school!
And onto newly renovated LACMA
And of course, the Bruce Goff-designed Pavilion for Japanese Art, which is such an amazing building, designed to hold japanese calligraphy paintings.
We return to the Bay Area, happy to be home in our temperate weather, and fully inspired from the architecture all around us.