a lost Schindler found: the Breacher apartments!

 

Los Angeles bows at the altar of the almighty highway. The gods of ever-expanding asphalt require the sacrifice of all in their path, including the parks, the gardens, and the homes. Several Schindlers fell victim to the hopeless hope of shorter commutes across the ever-expanding suburban nothingness. Such was the fate of Schindler's Breacher Apartments from 1925.

Or was it?

I received an email earlier this week from Dan Caroselli, a fellow Schindler-head, that, miracle-of miracles, reported that he had located the Breacher Apartments! 

"I couldn't believe my eyes at first," Caroselli said. He just happened to be gawking at structures along South Sherbourne Drive on Google Streetview when he noticed the building's distinctive “Schindlerian” characteristics. "At first glance I assumed it must have been a later construction inspired by Schindler," Caroselli said. "But as I looked at more of it there was no doubt in my mind this had to be done by him!"

Indeed, the building, as seen from Google Streetview, looks exactly like the one Schindler designed, :

 It appears remarkably original outside of the doors and windows: 

 

To remove any doubt that this is a Schindler, Caroselli found the relocation permit for moving the building from its original location at 5806 Carlton Way in Hollywood to 2045 South Sherbourne Drive:

"It honestly felt like finding a gold nugget," Caroselli said. Indeed! Besides reaching out to us, Caroselli has notified the MAK Center and US Modernist. "I just wanted to pass along this find and hope that it may help the building be preserved and appreciated," he said.

 

 

water from a home

When I saw the email, I thought “Wha?!?!?!” It was from the MAK Center for Architecture, the good folks that oversee the Schindler House in LA along with two other properties, the Mackey Apartments and the Fitzpatrick-Leland- House. It was a call for proposals to stay at the Fitzpatrick-Leland- House for a month and then give a presentation at the Schindler House at the end of the month. Sounds dreamy! But given that I am a water scientist by professional training, and not an architect, I though “Well, this doesn’t really apply to me.”

I read on.

They wanted proposals about helping to solve the world’s water problems!?!??!?!?

“Holy crap!!!” I holycrapped. “It’s like this was written for ME!!!!”

And so I poured my heart and soul into the proposal because how many Schindler geeks are there that are also water geeks?

Given my knowledge of Schindler and his work, I brought in the log cabin he designed in ____ which cleverly incorporated rainwater harvesting while maintaining hydraulic head for supply. I also realized, pondering his design for the Schindler House, that he included stormwater harvesting in that design through sunken gardens, gardens that would have increased recharge to the aquifers below (although I doubt he worried about increasing recharge). I also included images of a couple other projects (unrealized) where water played a role in his design, the Adobe House in New Mexico (1915) and the Translucent House for Aline Barnsdall (1927). Unlike Neutra, Schindler didn’t use water features in his homes for the non-wealthy.

My pitch was to prepare an easy-to-use and easy-to-understand document on how to design water-resilient homes and other structures using on-site sources, how to calculate resilience for these supplies, and how to think about these designs in the context of a city’s water supply. The award for only $5,000 to cover travel and living expenses.

I was absolutely heartbroken to not have been selected.

When you are in the business of writing proposals, you are in the business of disappointment. A rule of thumb for academics (unless you really have it dialed in) is to only expect 1 out of 10 to be funded. So I knew that was not only a possible outcome, but also a likely outcome. Regardless, it felt like the universe had reached out to me to only, at the last second, reel it all back in, and laugh.

Sigh…

On the other hand, as the person who always see the glass as a quarter full, this allows me to use the time I blocked out on my calendar to finish the book I am working on climate change and water. I’ll save “Water from a Home” for a later date…