July 26, 2008

Some things I like about Beverly Hills.

The facade!

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The diagonal crossing!

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The torso!

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The shame ....

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Just kidding! There's no shame.

48 comments:

Meade said...

Labels: architecture, art, commerce, economics, L.A., law, photography, sculpture, genitalia

rcocean said...

"Diagonal Crossing"? What the hell does that mean? Walking in a straight line is forbidden I suppose.

Meade said...

Hey, Diagonals have special rights too!
In other words: Yield to Diagonals.

Palladian said...

"Just kidding! There's no shame."

Ha, you've got that right.

Chet said...

Listen when you've gotta get to Cartier, and you've gotta get there quick, strike while the iron is hot.....sometimes a diagonal crossing is the only fast way.

Ruth Anne Adams said...

Have you seen Kit DeLuca at the Regent Beverly Wilshire? yo baby, Yo Baby, work it, Work it!

Fifty bucks, Grandpa. For seventy-five, the wife can watch.

You should go for him. You look hot tonight. Don't take less than $100. Call me when you're through. Take care you.

Anonymous said...

With 300 foreign-policy advisers, lackeys, and hangers-on, Obama will have no problem throwing them under the bus, particularly at the rate he's been working out.

Incidentally, when is Blogger going to stop telling me that Obama is spelled wrong? Racists.

Anonymous said...

P.S.: That last post somehow ended up in completely the wrong place. And it was brilliant. Oh well.

Maxine Weiss said...
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Mrs. Clowery Haughton III said...

Mrs. Weiss is absolutely correct. If you set foot into a Rodeo Drive boutique, you are then obligated to make a purchase.

That's the rule.

Anonymous said...
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ricpic said...

City of gold, silken city, city of haughty couture,
Where all the wounds heal quickly,
Or if not are expertly sutured.

rcocean said...

Mrs. Haughton,

Any relationship to Mrs Thurston Howell III?

Meade said...

Golden silken city,
city of couture haughty.

Torsos that show more so

Shame on you
if you think it's naughty!

(apologies ricpic)

blake said...

Just kidding! There's no shame.

Amen to that.

MadisonMan said...

There's a curious lack of people in the diagonal crossing shot. Is it before 11 AM?

Kirby Olson said...

Did you see John Edwards while you were there?

He was apparently in the Beverly Hills hotel with the mother of his love-baby, a woman named Rielle.

National Enquirer.

That would be great if you got any pictures of Edwards, too.

Palladian said...

"There's a curious lack of people in the diagonal crossing shot. Is it before 11 AM?"

No one walks anywhere, this is Los Angeles!

bearbee said...

If you like buildings of Jello here is The Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco, but then there is always the need for utensils

rhhardin said...

Ohio facade

Alan said...

Heh heh, Palladian,

That reminds me of Missing Persons' Walking in LA. Great song.

ricpic said...

Well, I just got back from watching Step Brothers, which I was told was a laugh riot and I forced a laugh, once. Guess I'm out of it.


No need to apologize, Meade. You weren't working off anything all that great.

Chet said...

Diana Ross, tonight 8:30, Hollywood Bowl !

http://www.hollywoodbowl.com/tickets/program_detail.cfm?id=1707

The Dude said...

That is an awesome facade - do you have any details as to materials or who the architect was?

John Kindley said...

That is one anatomically correct torso. Normally such sculptures depict only one of the lady's buttons.

Chip Ahoy said...

Why shopping at times can be hazardous.

Ann Althouse said...

Based on Googling, I think the architect of that incredibly beautiful facade to the Harry Winston store on Rodeo Drive is Thierry Despont.

XWL said...

. . . and speaking of sculptures and genitalia,


Jesus!

Revenant said...

I wonder who makes those "Labor dispute, SHAME ON [company name]" signs. You see them all over the place and they all look identical.

vbspurs said...

You should go for him. You look hot tonight. Don't take less than $100. Call me when you're through. Take care you.

What the hell? I'm gone all day and I come back to Ruth Anne having turned into Heidi Fleiss.

Cheers,
Victoria

vbspurs said...

Revenant wrote:

I wonder who makes those "Labor dispute, SHAME ON [company name]" signs.

Unions and protest movements are extremely well-connected in the printing business. Kinko's have Medea Benjamin on speed dial.

BTW, remind me to stay at the Four Seasons next time I'm in Wiltshire Blvd.

I love rewarding scabs.

Ralph L said...

The torso is there to remind them what natural breasts look like.

blake said...

Small and silver?

bearbee said...

This shows Harry Winston Boutique with Ashok Vanmali, Architect;Thierry Despont, Designer.
Could not locate info on facade material used but strongly suspect a Jello admixture.

Richard Fagin said...

If you have time, check out the former corporate HQ of Litton Industries on Crescent Drive. It's a monument to corporate extravagance that only Tex Thornton could have built.

Ruth Anne Adams said...

Victoria:
Quoting 'Pretty Woman.' And you, a cinephile!

BTW: I saw 'The Dark Knight' last night. I agree with Althouse. It left me cold. Really: Maggie Gyllenhaal as the modern day Helen o' Troy? Puh-leeze.

vbspurs said...

Quoting 'Pretty Woman.' And you, a cinephile!

Your point? ;)

But more importantly, I'm so sorry you didn't like The Dark Knight! Maybe it's one of those female v. male type films, because of my two (remaining) female buds, neither of them liked it.

Me, my mind just started working overtime during the film, as the layers of meaning in the field unfolded themselves real-time.

I once saw a Franco-Belgian horror film called Calvaire. It was hideously repulsive, but also rather magnetic.

It's the kind of film you want to find out more, even searching out IMDB boards for likeminded opinions.

That's The Dark Knight. Watch it happen to you, Ruth Anne. Watch.

P.S.: And AVOID X-Files like the plague. Worst movie I've seen this summer. It managed to be anti-Catholic, anti-gay, anti-Russian, and just about anti-everything you can imagine.

Cheers,
Victoria

The Dude said...

I like what was done with that facade - it looks like it was milled on a CNC, and the end result is very nice, at least in that photograph.

I couldn't find much on Thierry Despont - he apparently taught Bill Gates how to use a fish knife. I'll look into Ashok Vanmali next. Hold it - wasn't a returned Grammy involved with that name once?

bearbee said...

..it looks like it was milled on a CNC...

Was not sure I would find anything on CNC. So what materials milled? Wood, marble, stone....

John Kindley said...

In the Naval Academy Yard there's a bronze statue of a goat, and the midshipmen traditionally polish up (in the dark of night) only its nuts, making them shine forth prominently from the rest of the statue. I'm surprised some pranksters haven't serviced this statuesque lady similarly.

Anonymous said...
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Ruth Anne Adams said...

Victoria:
You might be right. My husband really liked the film. I was not able to suspend disbelief because I kept thinking 'Batman is W','There's too much morbid curiosity about Heath Ledger','Gotham is Chicago', and my prior 'Maggie Gyllenhaal has a doughy face and really dark new mom circles under her eyes' the whole time. I was lost in thought and not the director's vision.

The Dude said...

Surface and Panel magazine printed an article a few years ago about a company that developed software that would allow a manufacturer to mill undulating surfaces that would mate with other pieces, but not in an obviously repetitive way. Nice software.

I design in Rhino and limit my 3D surfaces to pieces small enough for use in indoor furniture. I mill solid wood on the CNC machine I have had in my home shop for over 10 years now. Who needs Chinese labor when I have a machine that works for even less?

In any case, a surface like the facade of that building catches my eye.

Anonymous said...
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bearbee said...

Gregory Ryan creator of the Water Wall

Gregory Ryan Sculptures
Slideshow presentation of sculptures by Gregory Ryan. Ryan's work is based on patterns and surfaces found in nature including water, leaves, landscapes and animals. Also includes images of monumental projects such as Harry Winston's Water Wall store facades.

Gregory Ryan

Ryan's works confound the nature of indexical representation. The landscapes are derived from satellite measurements that are radar samples of ranges collected into a digital database. Ryan enters this data into software to achieve a digital 3D model. This data is input to a computer numeric controlled (CNC) milling machine that carves a negative form that is then used to cast the final metal works. Despite all of this mediation the end results read as 3D photographs. All the works in this installation similarly have mimetic patterns and details though they are achieved through very different mediations.

Water Walls" (2003-04) are derived from algorithms--mathematical models of the behavior of liquids in wind. The idea of "casting" liquid water is compelling especially as Ryan makes works that seem to have a nearly photographic specificity, though these waters never existed. These algorithms are again expressed in three-dimensional digital sculpting software. CNC foam is cut using this data, and Ryan then casts the works in aluminum, which is finished to achieve reflections that, like those of water, shift with the viewer's perspective


Pages 129, 131 Ryan’s Scientific Formula

While I don't pretend to understand most of the technical aspect of creating, I appreciate the complexity and beauty of the outcome.

The Dude said...

Bearbee - thanks for posting your research. Good stuff...

And thanks for letting us wander off-topic, Professor Althouse.

Anonymous said...
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