Flash - You are right on target

Macromedia has done a great job in selling the designers into using it but not everyone has it. In my site I had to actually spend a bunch of moeny setting up a system whereby if someone does not have Flash and does not want to download it then a standard html page shows up without the bells and whistles. I highly recommend it to keep people from just getting frustrated and clicking off.

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Music: Jim Bianco at the Knitting Factory

I've been taking lots of little one day absenses over the past few weeks. Not intentional, they just sort of happen.

Anyway, Thursday night Kathy and I took the Red Line over to Hollywood and Highland to see Jim Bianco at the Knitting Factory. It was the first time I'd been to the Knit in a good two years, and they've changed some stuff up. The show was in the front bar, which meant that they actually had three events running at the same time (Main Stage, Alterknit Lounge, and Front Bar). Crazy. Anyway, the show was great, the sound was great, the crowd was large... It was a fun time.

I bought Jim's new cd, Handsome Devil. Good stuff. Not quite as good as the live performance, but few things really are.

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the CalTrans Building and understanding architecture

This week's Downtown News is their Best of Downtown issue. One story presents reader answers to the question, "Who Would You Vote Off the Downtown Island?" Top voter-getter was the still under construction CalTrans Building. From the article:

Some have complained that, with 13 stories of metal and steel, the building resembles a futuristic fortress out of step with its Civic Center surroundings. As one critic commented, if architect Thom Mayne - who, it must be noted, is frequently praised and is winning high-profile commissions across the country - was going for the "totally impenetrable" look, he nailed it.

I can't help but agree. The building rises 13 stories shrouded in a black metal mesh. The otherwise flat surface features various protruding panels that seem like they were partially ripped back by some rogue hurricane. Riding my bike to work I pass the building's site on Main and it just feels absolutely dominating.

Opinion on this Archinect forum thread is somewhat split. Some applaud the green features, while others (rightfully, in my opinion) decry the building's very poor interaction with the street and surrounding neighborhoods. All are interesting reading.

What I find most interesting, though, is a quote from an article about lead architect Thom Mayne that ran last year in Metropolis Magazine (the quote's on the second page). The author questioned Mayne about a concept he had done for the Ground Zero site in New York:

I told Mayne I was confused by all this. His plan for Ground Zero seemed to be exactly what he was condemning at the UCLA conference: a paper fantasy that doesn't speak to the concerns of the average person. It was fairly clear that the people of New York were not clamoring for a critique of Modernism in Lower Manhattan. Mayne's answer surprised me. The average person's understanding of his projects is "irrelevant," he told me. "There's layers and layers of ideas that go into a piece of work. It can be engaged at many levels. Probably most people are engaged at a very direct level: how it affects them. Others will recognize that there's an organizational or conceptual tissue."

That's the feeling I get from the CalTrans building. I walk by it and I feel like I'm missing out on something. More than disliking the building, I simply don't understand it. Which is all good and well on paper, but not nearly as cool when I'm standing beneath 13 stories of Borg-like metal.

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another LA blog

I noticed this little bit at the bottom of an LA Times story on PAC-10 Media Day:

USC announced that Leinart has started a blog on the Internet that will feature daily entries. It can be found at http://www.MattLeinartBlog.com.

Now, let's get a couple things straight here right off the bat:

The site's hosted by OCSN, the people that host pretty much every NCAA school's official athletics site. That means this is basically an official USC publication. So while I would really enjoy seeing the NCAA equivalent of Mark Cuban's blog, I don't think you're going to see that. I'm sure this is just USC attempting to be "cutting-edge" as they start the Leinart for Heisman campaign.

Imagine if some college athlete really did start a blog, and really was honest about the refs, the opposing team, etc. Do you think the NCAA would stand for that? I don't, even with the new kindler, gentler, student athlete friendly NCAA.

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remaking a failure

Over the past few days the long awaited sale of 1100 Wilshire has finally completed. The synopsis background for this maligned structure is provided by an article in today's LA Times, titled "Buyers Seek a Home Life for Empty L.A. Tower":

The 255,000-square-foot tower, whose construction was finished in 1986, has never been more than 10% occupied. It has been empty for a decade, its shell an eerie reminder of the city center's construction boom and bust.

Even before I knew any of its story, 1100 Wilshire interested me just in how set off it is from downtown, isolated from the rest of the tall buildings by the 110. It's a funny looking building, too, the actual glass tower rising from 15 stories of red brick parking.

An article from last year titled "Empty Downtown L.A. Office Tower May Be Getting Its Fill" (available several places, including here) had some fascinating bits:

Martin's firm was hired to work on the Wilshire tower by its first owner, East Asian businessman Tsai Ming Yu — but to this day, AC Martin Partners doesn't want to be known as the building's architect. "We couldn't believe he wanted us to do something this bad," Martin said of Tsai. "We were severely criticized for attempting to change the design," Martin added. But "he was the supreme owner, ruler, emperor of this project. Nobody was to question him." Martin thought that the ramped parking structure, which rises 15 levels, would make drivers dizzy and that the building's triangular shape would turn off tenants who were accustomed to laying out space in more efficient rectangles.

So now the new buyers get to try and disassociate the building from years of bad impressions, spending $60 million (on top of the $40 million purchase price) to take this thing and make it into somewhere people would want to live. The building has an unmistakable upside; that's not in question. Being west of downtown offers it an unobstructed view in three of four directions, so that will surely be a big selling point, as will easy access to the 110, the 101, the 5, and the 10. But, wow, $100 mil? That's a pretty big project.

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