by:
arik seidenglanz
written for the
LA TIMES
April 2024
I am probably the first or second most replicated creator of a certain style, or perhaps the pioneer of a kind of Vidal Sassoon classic—razor-sharp bangs defining a blend of Serbian, Colombian, Chilean, and New Zealander influences. It's the late '70s to mid-'80s in Neo Edo, my attire a concoction of mod Chanel Uniform. Man made and made for man of sheer day lingerie and Chanel uniform, Breifs sew from ladies slacks where the hems are cut from the ankle, socklets from hosiery, pants a mixute of pants suit or a drift to wideleg Belenciaga 1920 womans boat and sport or 1960 soul allnighter swoop contrasted with midday switch to anklepants recut from a Uniform line by Chanel or Jil Sanders mixed with Fiorucci—eschewing cliché disco elements for sheer sophistication and dry eyes. dress shirts have to have the collor enchanmets fitting for Karl Lagerfeld or James bond and with the cuff and buttons, hidde down the middle or unique french acrylics. shoes of course oxfords ot broges chanel uniform again or Jil Sander womans something, if softer soul is in my control I’ll wear kicks ment for kicking adidass tikwaondo flat softshoe original or even more lucky a find from the classic white is the addidas made of labels only in a even softer soul slightly less flat and just hard enough to find in your size that is not on anyone elce. Right now I only wwear my chanel unifom dress oxfords , I wear them to bed I wear them with no clothes on it make me feel gounded , but i add a choker make of a nuse I craft sort of like a kneck tie just around anything more than 2 time and your on th e way to execution, But this whiteshoe lace is from the museam of contempty art in it s red bluue green circle square tiangle puzzzle linked to the gilbert and george piece in the permenant collection from the last 60’s compair youll see what i mean. Butt Naked nuse from a museum and shockingly tight in a pair of black chanel uniform does rrequire a bit of working out to commendeer but its what life abourt right.
The essence of my narrative is like a mythopoetic journey; the persona holds the animal's soul in her gaze, embodying siren, song, psyche, sultana. She is the allure, the fates and graces, the witch of the North coupled with the good witch of the South. It’s an agenda woven deeply into the fabric of female approval, yet untouched by any man I’ve met—though not for a lack of proximity.
Fast forward, and here I am, engaging with interior architecture, manipulating the threads to weave new patterns of thought. My playground is an archival list I compiled back in college—from Santa Barbara to Texas U, North Carolina, near the old Black Mountain School, to UC Santa Cruz—holding California modernism captive, accessible only by appointment.
Imagine high-quality scans from blueprints, renderings, and sketches by Fred Diep, alongside works by Gordon Drake, Ray Kappe, Gregory Ain, Rudolph Schindler, John Lautner, Harwell Harris, and Frank Lloyd Wright. These are my tools, trained in the spoken word lectures of Harwell Hamilton Harris from SCI-Arc, his historical narratives threading through my work from his 11th year to his death.
Such intricate tales are how I challenge the traditional narratives of Neutra, Wright, and Schindler, spinning a yarn that casts Schindler not as an ego but as a deity, flawed yet more divine than his contemporaries—his legacy intertwined with Jean Bangs and Harwell Hamilton Harris, mapping the veins of California modernism.
It’s a tale of two homes, broken into for love and documentation by Elishba and me, under the curious gaze of James Stafford. Our story—a counter-narrative where Harwell Hamilton Harris predates the iconic Farnsworth House and the all-glass pavilions of Philip Johnson and Mies van der Rohe by seven years, a whisper before the boom of the International Style.
Our discourse delves into the use of redwood, the integration of seagrasses, the radical gardening style of Gregory Ain—marked as the FBI’s most dangerous architect because of his lineage of leftist radicals. This backdrop sets the stage for the collapse of the Elysian Heights project, rumored as pure communism, paving the way for the theft of Chavez Ravine for a baseball stadium, displacing Latino families and igniting the fires that would lead to the Zoot Suit Riots.
This tangled history, this interwoven fabric of personal insight and public myth, challenges the conventional, stitches new patterns into the old, and redefines the narrative of architectural modernism in California through the lens of alternative history.