Memo 5: Homebodies
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about homes. There’s a lot of different tangents to that, especially in the political sense — like how California’s 2020 legislative session ended without many important bills being passed at all, leaving many vulnerable to evictions. But to not give me a depression wave while writing this post, I will be talking about architecture and interior design!
One of my last classes at UCLA was an intro to architecture class. It stuck with me in the good way, due to how it theoretical it was and how many times periods + locations it covered. Thanks to said architecture class, I was introduced to Lina Bo Bardi.
Bo Bardi was an Italian-Brazilian modernist architect and one of the only/most prominent female¹ architects in the world at that time. She had a pretty crazy (and underrated IMO) life. Born in 1914 in Rome, she was a scholar, designer, entrepreneur, and newspaper editor before setting up her own private architectural office at only 28(!). She was hella socialist, in part to how a magazine in 1945 asked her to catalog all of the bomb-out places around the country after the war. She boo’d up, moved to Brazil, set up a new architecture firm and magazine that focused on community problems in Brazil, all within a couple years.
One of her more famous designs is the Casa de Vidro, or “Glass House,” where she personally lived for 40 years. It’s set in Mata Atlantica, the original rain forest surrounding São Paulo. The above photo was taken when the neighborhood started to build more houses around it, though now the rainforest has returned and the house looks more like this:
What motivated Bo Bardi was an understanding of how architecture is in a constant active conversation with the people in it; all are interconnected and bouncing off each other, as architecture only matters when people are in the space. With Casa de Vidro, the house accepts its fate as being second to the beauty of nature while using jaw-dropping modernism architecture to create a home. Every architecture choice was done with an air of excess that let the home blend into its surroundings. Unsurprisingly, Bo Bardi said rad stuff like this:
Linear time is a Western invention; time is not linear, it is a marvelous tangle where at any moment, points can be selected and solutions invented without beginning or end.
Bo Bardi’s philosophy on space and architecture struck a deep cord to me because it focused on architecture as a means to creating a space, and not accepting four walls as a space on its own. I have been lucky enough to be close to nature in most of my home lives, and sought out nearby parks whenever there wasn’t enough nature around. Existing within nature and a home aren’t separate for me, so Casa de Vidro stirs something in me. Seeing architecture as an event or series of events, reliant upon the human activity in it, creates time-based spaces that I feel we need more of.
While Bo Bardi’s architecture straddles the minimalist-maximalist line, some people dive full-steam into one side or the other. That’s okay. However, sometimes — like Tommy Hilfiger’s Architectural Digest video tour of his Plaza Hotel penthouse — it is still okay, but worthy of judgment.
Everyone has their own personal style, I know that.² But watching Hilfiger’s video just pained me. Look at it! Mock-tortoise and black walls? Small-tufted sofas with more TORTOISE-rimmed mirrors behind them? It’s an attack on the eye and I have a screen between me and the room. It’s a second-hand eye attack. And this doesn’t even touch upon the other excessiveness in the apartment.³
Hilfiger doesn’t make himself look any better when they show the dining room — with red and black walls, you heard me right — and he says casually that they have only used the space maybe three times. Three?!? Why all of the excess, pouring money into making the space pop and bring so much attention to itself, if you rarely use it? At that point, the excess is not even a side effect of function; the excess is the point, it exists to take up space and draw the eye from anything surrounding it to itself.⁴
Hilfiger’s and Bo Bardi’s living situations both sit in between maximalism and minimalism, yet they embody starkly different approaches to living. Bo Bardi encourages conversation with the building’s surroundings and inhabitants, causing the buildings to act as a conduit between the two. Hilfiger, on the other hand, enjoys homes with so much personality that it dwarfs the outside and inside worlds.
When homes blend into their surroundings, the humans in it sick out like a sore thumb and are thus more acutely aware of existing; when their living situations contrast again the other buildings and nature around it, the home becomes its own being so much that any human in it is seemingly lost in the bunch of weird shit. Do we gravitate to surroundings that stand out or blend in, and what does that say about us?
And because there is always more to consume, here are some LINKS from this past week:
The Eco–Yogi Slumlords of 1214 Dean Street, Brooklyn. Landlords suck, but it can be validating to read about their public downfall and subsequent embarrassment.
The Talk to God phone booth from Burning Man is virtual and only runs through the 7th, so if you wanna talk to God… you got 72 hours.
A House Is Not a Home, a very good book excerpt about architecture/homes (relevant to this memo) and capitalism (always relevant).
This Substack post about the life of Mary Shelley, or alternatively, the Mary Shelley Wikipedia page. I had no idea her life was this crazy (she wrote Frankenstein at 18?!?) but the fact that she was surrounded by subpar men her whole life… classic.
The Oysters That Knew What Time It Was. I love this! Oysters and time and the MOON!
I usually detest when women are singled out in their career for being a “cool woman” in the field, as that never happens with men… gender isn’t real… anyway, the architecture field is bone dry of anyone who isn’t a white guy so for Bo Bardi to do what she did, it’s worth a mention.
God knows how many times my mom has grilled me for my quirky taste.
One of these things is Tommy’s daughter Ally’s painting, which they “bought” from her and hung in one of the bedrooms. It’s a painting of an 8 with very cliche terms on it, which naturally caused me to investigate her further. She is a contributor for Goop, she has an autobiography on how her Lyme disease controlled her life, and there’s this video of her losing it while making a burrito. I can’t relate to the first two, but I have lost it while making a burrito before.
Which is impressive, as it’s the Plaza penthouse and has an incredible view. It’s hard to one-up a penthouse NYC view in a bad way.