LOVE AND FURY: LOS ANGELES FIRES PART 1

On LOSS AND ASPIRATIONS

Dear Snoops,

The website of Jony Ive’s post-Apple sorta-hush agency, “LoveFrom”, used to contain a very-poetic sorta-Manifesto that was signed off with the words “with love and fury,”. We sorta-paraphrase, but:

The “Love” was a desire to hold high what is deemed immutably precious. The “Fury” was directed at how carelessly we treat ourselves, and how often sh*t and less-than-what-we-deserve prevail

Today, THE LOVE.

Next Monday, THE FURY.

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FOR THE LOVE OF DOMESTICITY

We are devastated at the loss in Los Angeles — that experienced by some FOR SCALE Super Pals, that experienced by strangers to us, and that experienced by the city collectively: history in the form of exceptional houses, which served as bookmarks in the long dream-story of this city.

“DOMESTICITY” is a crucial notion for us, because the materiality of “home” is some of the only material to matter. For the vast majority of us, home is the only place where of our personal histories are ‘written’: in the form of Things collected over a lifetime, i.e. an object-biography.

Monuments may burn, for example, but that will never transform one’s world as much as a Home destroyed. A monument is an *idea*; and a home is that too – but it’s also a very practical, life-supporting, personhood-affirming mini universe.

One particular reason, of many, that these fires in Los Angeles have been so f*cking brutal for the city to digest is that in L.A., Homes are also our monuments.

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WE MUST MAINTAIN THE IDIOSYNCRATIC, INCONSISTENT, INCONGRUOUS AND THE F*CKING BRILLIANT

Los Angeles, more than so many other places really, is a city of Homes. Here, they are so often representative of what CHARLES JENCKS (in “DAYDREAM HOUSES OF LOS ANGELES”) charmingly and optimistically refers to as “personal variation” — the city holds very little sacred, and so the homesphere is super duper idiosyncratic, inconsistent, incongruous and f*cking brilliant.

Because of this, the Home is an inextricable part of the Los Angeles energy.

For example, the home above.

If poetry, says CHARLES J., is unrequited love, then architecture is a species of sexual fetishism: with erogenous zones and secret places of pleasure. “Parts of a building may stick out, from the main body, catching the eye of a passer-by like the billowing skirt of a young girl.”

And perhaps few homes became such an eye-catcher as that designed and inhabited by ROBERT BRIDGES, lost this past week in the palisades fire. A true landmark. (A NYT*MES FEATURE on that house.)

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YOU COULD HAVE OWNED THIS:

As gripped by suffocating wealth as Los Angeles may today be, it was once — as surely you are familiar — a laboratory that sought a path to an “affordable family home”, and most importantly such a home that needn’t be “Humble”.

Why, today, do we believe that aesthetic heights should only belong to those with the greatest means? And why, today, do those with the greatest means so often hire the most atrocious architects to produce disturbingly vast and either (a) spiritually icy-cold sh*t holes or (b) self-consciously “luxury” over-the-top-ness (that still features knock-off art)?

Once upon a time (late 1940s), Los Angeles built the PARK PLANNED DEVELOPMENT: f*cking gorgeous pre-fabrication experiments, a home that archi Gregory Ain (et al.) aspired to be for The Masses. You and us, dear readers, are the masses. (Most of us are, at least.)

“LONG LIVE THE MASSES!” (… Los Angeles once shouted!)

These are not “Houses”, by the way. This is “Housing”. A dirty word these days, it seems, but with the most exceptional spirit. A spirit we need.

There were 28, they were in Altadena. Just now, there are zero. (What will replace them?)

THE PARK PLANNED DEVELOPMENT is emblematic of a homesphere-altruism the likes of which a hyper-corporatized America could no longer produce; today, it would likely be the realm of a viciously profit-driven Silicon Valley venturists, and that is probably in the best-case scenario, which is says a lot.

*GREGORY A. was also a f*cking hero, listed by the "California Senate Factfinding Subcommittee on Un-American Activities as "among the committee's most notorious critics." What absolute godliness!!!!!

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The love we feel for the Domesticity of Los Angeles is the reason we’re here, frankly..

But the flip side of love is the wrenching of hearts. And it is absolutely heart-wrenching to witness this loss and so many others in FOR SCALE’s hometown — Robert B. is a big one, but so many much quieter, private domestic spaces gone and just as hyper-crucial to what Los Angeles is in a way that is far beyond the material.

Much attention must be paid to how this city is rebuilt (and for whom). There will be a vacuum, and we’re nervous about the types of f*ckers in this country who like to fill the void rn.

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Angelenos: very keen to hear stories of anything personally special-to-you that as been lost here. ❤️‍🩹

Wishing you love and safety,