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2004

by

Chairperson

Alan Lieb, 2001-2004

Milestones in the Community

  • ModCom is Twenty Years Old!
  • Atomic Ranch: Midcentury Marvels – A new magazine devoted entirely to ranch houses. Jim Brown, the publisher, and Michelle Gringeri-Brown, the editor
  • Panorama on Hollywood Blvd closes and is torn down.

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Meeting Locations

Event

20-20-20: 20 years – 20 sites – 20 Bucks”

Tout that celebrated the 20th anniversary of the Modern Committee that included 20 sites for attendees to choose from over a weekend. vernacular buildings, formal residential architecture, industrial buildings, innovative commercial design, recreational architecture. Attendees also could purchase a limited edition of 200 prints – 13 color serigraph by SHAG called “L.A. Modern” with all proceeds benefitting ModCom.

Sites included:

  • Eames House – Mary-Margaret Stratton, Tour Captain
  • Casa de Cadillac –Jeff Stork, Tour Captain
  • Downey McDonalds – Tour Captain
  • First Modern Historic District – Tour Captain
  • Cinerama Dome – Tour Captain
  • Crestwood Hills development in Brentwood – Tour Captain
  • VDL Research House – Tour Captain
  • Mar Vista Tract Homes – Tour Captain
  • Pann’s Coffee Shop – Tour Captain
  • Raphel Soriano – Shulman House – Tour Captain

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Hobo Party

In Glendale

Holiday Party

Beverly Blvd.

Advocacy

Case Study House

Efforts to landmark begin. Peter Moruzzi begins to prepare a National Register multiple property nomination for the entire Case Study House Program. Eleven original dwellings remained in Los Angeles, San Diego and Ventura counties. Work by Charles Eames, Craig Ellwood, Pierre Koeing, Eero Saarinen, and Rodney Walker. Ten of them ended up being successfully nominated by 2013. The eleventh was owner opposed.

Friend Paper Company

Portions of the fabulous Modern commercial structure designed in 1964 by Smith & Williams and located on West Green Street, were saved from demolition due to Pasadena Heritage’s advocacy along with ModCom support

Tangents

Mondo Lounge Event “Where Cocktail Cultures Collide.”

A full day event on October 16, 2004 produced by Mary-Margaret Stratton included a vintage car rally and a conference and entertainment event that included many members of the Los Angeles Conservancy Modern Committee. Presentations by Charles Phoenix, Nathan Marsac, Eric Lynxwiler, Tony Merchell and Michael Palumbo.
www.mondolounge.com

10/16/04- Los Feliz-Shot at the first Mondo Lounge DAVID SPRAGUE-fezmen phoenix2

Googie Redux: Ultramodern Roadside

Book released October 7, 2004 by Alan Hess is a significantly expanded follow-up to the seminal book, Googie.
https://www.amazon.com/Googie-Redux-Ultramodern-Roadside-Architecture/dp/081184272X/ref=llvn-20

Getty Talks

Eric Lynxwiler and Charles Pheonix give talks at the Getty Museum

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1996

by

Chairperson

Peter Moruzzi, 1992-1997

Milestones in the Community

  • McDonald’s Corporation rededicates the Golden Arches Downey McDonalds and adds an historic museum to the site.
    mcdonalds 1996

Meeting Locations

Events

Society for Commercial Archeology Conference

Tour coincides with the Society for Commercial Archeology Conference at the Biltmore Hotel in Downtown Los Angeles. Four-day “Life in the Past Lane” conference is co-sponsored by the Automobile Club of Southern California. Over 200 people attend. Panels of historians, architects, preservationists and critics will tackle such topics as “The Four Level Stack as Los Angeles Icon,” “The Stucco Box,” and “Booze, Bread, MGM, Ham and Giant Dogs: The Emerging Urban Landscape of Washington Boulevard, 1920-1940.” Auto Club historian Matthew Roth speaks. Chris Nichols dances along to stock film footage of Los Angeles roads and streets during the decades that commercial archeologists most love–from the 1920s to the ’60s. John English, leads two bus tours Sat: San Gabriel Valley and Anaheim tour and Sun: Central Los Angeles

Advocacy

Bullock’s Pasadena

Ongoing preservation issue to save the Welton Beckett designed sprawling Pasadena Bullocks – now a Macy’s. A project that would completely surround the former Bullock’s Pasadena on South Lake Avenue. Modcommers worked in association with Pasadena Heritage. In an unforgettable moment of preservation activism, Michael Kiralla opens an umbrella up at the Pasadena City council meeting and claims: “It’s raining lies in Pasadena.” The issue dragged on for 2 years until success in 1998.

Van De Kamps headquarters

Modcom stages a rally at the Dutch revival headquarters in Glassel Park. The bakery closed in 1990 and the building became threatened. It becomes a HCM landmark in 1992, but is threatened with demolition.

Tangents

20th Century Tiki

Group show at La Luz de Jesus. Co-curated by Otto von Stroheim and Sven Kirsten that included the work of SHAG and the birth of pop surrealism when Mark Ryden showcases his definitive piece “Exotica.”

Car Hops and Curb Service: A History of American Drive-In Restaurants 1920-1960

by Jim Heimann March 1, 1996
https://www.amazon.com/Car-Hops-Curb-Service-Drive-/dp/0811811158/ref=llvn-20

1993

by

Chairperson

Peter Moruzzi, 1992-1997

Milestones in the Community

  • Bob’s Big Boy Preservation Win
  • Nickodell – Famous Paramount Pictures adjacent eaterie on Melrose is closed

Meeting Locations

Events

Postwar Commercial Architecture in Los Angeles

Lecture and Exhibition focusing on Armet and Davis, the firm responsible for bringing the Googie Coffee Shop style to a broader American audience.

Advocacy:

Bob’s Big Boy

Designated a California State Historical Point of Interest. Designed by Wayne McAllister in 1949 in Toluca Lake. The process is difficult due to owner opposition. After designation it becomes the top grossing Bob’s Big Boy in the country.

Tangents

House Industries

A new company in Delaware begins that will influence the graphic world in the coming years. This type Foundry and font catalog allows people across the world to utilize fonts initiated by Southern California architects and artists since 1993.

Eichler Network

The Eichler Network begins to support the lifestyle of the thousands of homeowners in Northern and Southern California who own an ‘Eichler’ home. mid-century homeowners in Sacramento and southern California who live in Streng Bros., Palmer & Krisel, Cliff May, and other Eichler-like mid-century modern classics. CA-Modern, a quarterly full-color hard-copy magazine which contains a mix of features on California’s rich legacy of mid-century modern homes and the people that live in them, home maintenance solutions, and other features that focus on the modern home and its lifestyle. CA-Modern Magazine since 2006

Viva Las Vegas: After-Hours Architecture

An influential book on Las Vegas architecture arrives by Alan Hess with a forward by Robert Venturi in July 1, 1993
https://www.amazon.com/Viva-Las-Vegas-After-Hours-Architecture/dp/081180111X/ref=llvn-20

1986

by

Chairperson

Tom Gardener, 1984-1987

Milestones in the Community

Meeting Locations

Events

Fifties Architecture: Exploring the Issues”

Lecture and panel discussion. Alan Hess moderated a discussion with John Lautner and Whitney R. Smith. A slide show is presented to acquaint the audience with examples of historic and threatened buildings.

Huell Howser Interviews

Huell performs oral history interviews with

  • Julius Shulman, Architectural photographer
  • Garrett Eckbo, Landscape architect
  • Edward Frank, furniture designer
  • Ray Kappe, architect
  • John Lautner, architect
  • Whitney Smith, architect

Advocacy

Tangents

Bowl-O-Rama: The Visual Arts of Bowling

The first influential “Recollectibles” book of many more to come is produced by H. Thomas Steele May, 1986
https://www.amazon.com/Bowl-O-Rama-Visual-Arts-Bowling-Recollectibles/dp/0896596079/ref=llvn-20

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