Design for the Planet - May/June 2010 Issue - Sneak Peek

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Impeccable Taste - 2009 AIA/LA Restaurant Design Awards

Restaurateurs serve as contemporary patrons facilitating award-winning design

By Michael Webb
Image: Benny Chan/www.fotoworks.ccJudging a restaurant can be challenging because success depends on intangible factors—from the warmth of the welcome to the attentiveness of the servers and the consistency of the cooking. The experience draws people in and keeps them coming back; however, design plays an essential supporting role. It takes skill to calibrate the flow of traffic, the quality of the lighting, and the acoustics, in order to achieve intimacy and comfort. Too many new restaurants are overcrowded and noisy with conversation amplified by hard surfaces; a few are as still as the grave. Eating out should be an event, and restaurants are struggling to play on that sense of occasion as a strategy for survival. Architects can help their patrons by developing frugal solutions that impart character and strengthen the identity of a talented chef. The 2009 AIA/LA Restaurant Design Awards jury considered nearly a hundred national
projects in three categories—restaurants, cafes and bars, lounges and clubs—and chose six winners based on criteria of function, ambiance, and visual impact. The public selected three by popular vote. The five winners serve as elegant examples. Review them in Workbook under Folios.

2010 AIA/LA Restaurant Design Awards
Call for Entries

Update on Thursday, April 8, 2010 at 3:38PM by Admin

DEADLINE EXTENDED TO FRIDAY, APRIL 16

Julius Shulman - Tribute

Masterful in front of an audience, this prodigious talent’s legacy will continue
to draw crowds

By Christopher James Alexander
-Curator of Architecture and Design
Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles

The Chuey House designed by Richard Neutra in 1956 and photographerd by Julius Shulman in the same year. Gelatin silver print © J. Paul Getty Trust. Used with permission. Julius Shulman Photography Archive, Research Library at the Getty Research Institute (2004.R.10)Visitors to Julius Shulman Photography exhibitions tend to be a bit boisterous. They exclaim, sigh, and holler at their friends across the room. They point and excitedly lean into the framed images, inadvertently leaving smeared fingerprints and nose smudges on the protective glass. It’s not their fault. They can’t help themselves. Exploring Shulman’s captivating photos is an interactive experience.

For a curator like me, this lively gallery atmosphere is exhilarating. When the two Shulman exhibitions that Wim de Wit and I curated and organized with our Getty colleagues were on view, I enjoyed some of the most entertaining and enlightening anecdotes, while unabashedly eavesdropping on visitors in the gallery. People would linger in front of Shulman’s historic photographs and marvel at the inventive architecture, elegant fashions, sleek automobiles and bygone neighborhood vistas framed by his lens. Parents asked their young children how they thought it would feel to live in a transparent, steel and glass home or sleep perched atop the city in John Lautner’s futuristic Chemosphere. Groups of women reflected on blissful afternoons spent shopping at the Bullock’s Wilshire department store, in order to find the perfect dress for a special occasion. Couples happily reminisced about seeing Lawrence of Arabia at S. Charles Lee’s spectacular Academy Theater. Through his precise combination of intuitive timing, distinctive camera angles, and alluring, staged narratives, Shulman not only created some of the most famous photographs in architectural history; he developed compelling images that continue to viscerally connect with people on complex levels.

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