Apple iPhone 12 Pro Max (5.1mm, f/1.6, 1/710 sec, ISO32)
Last day in LA and a real cultural gem but first a pleasant surprise: amazing coffee!
Coffee is a real problem when you travel in the South West of the USA especially outside of the biggest cities. There are some exceptions but they are rare and hard to find. Starbucks is not an option too if you are not into Chestnut Praline Lattes or Peppermint White Chocolate Mochas. If you just want to get a Cappuccino or god forbid an Espresso things get really tough or frankly disgusting.
So imagine our surprise when we entered this coffee house close to the Eames house in the Pacific Palisades. Thanks to the iPhone shot above I can tell you its name Caffe Luxxe. Strange name but excellent coffee. The barista was high as a kite but the coffee was so good that I drank two Cappuccinos and one double Espresso.
We don’t come here for coffee. We come here because we love the amazing landscape and we also come here for architecture. This time it’s the Eames House.
FUJIFILM X-Pro2 (14mm, f/8, 1/100 sec, ISO200)
FUJIFILM X-Pro2 (14mm, f/8, 1/60 sec, ISO250)
FUJIFILM X-Pro2 (14mm, f/8, 1/60 sec, ISO320)
FUJIFILM X-Pro2 (14mm, f/8, 1/60 sec, ISO500)
We managed to book the guided tour on our very last day in the USA. Unfortunately you can’t walk into the houses but they are small and very open so you can glance into an open door and see the whole house. Charles and Ray Eames used two houses. The lived in the one closer to the sea cliff and worked in the studio right behind it. Charles Eames died in 1978, his wife Ray ten years later. The house interior remained unchanged since then. It’s like a time capsule.
What always amazes me is how modest those houses were in the 50s. The Eames were a successful and wealthy couple and of course the piece of land is amazing but the house itself is rather small and functional. No excessive living rooms, huge kitchens and master bedrooms that we got used to nowadays. Our house is not big but it is still bigger and more spacious.
FUJIFILM X-Pro2 (14mm, f/8, 1/60 sec, ISO400)
FUJIFILM X-Pro2 (14mm, f/8, 1/60 sec, ISO250)
FUJIFILM X-Pro2 (14mm, f/8, 1/60 sec, ISO320)
The materials of those two Case-Study-Houses are rather cheap and simple too yet the result is truly elegant. Mostly steel, glass and cementos (cement-asbestos!) Yikes! Little did we know back then.
The building is a very beautiful but of course only suitable for places like Souther California. Like most examples of modernist area those houses are best suited for LA or palm springs where low temperatures are a rare thing and snow is unheard of. If you live in a colder part of the world you need to build differently.
That’s it! Another amazing vacation over. Three weeks in the South West of the USA. Next year is going to be different, very different. Japan!
FUJIFILM X-Pro2 (14mm, f/8, 1/60 sec, ISO320)