Descanso Drive
In architecture, there are few universals. Buildings are complex, their situations more so, and this precludes the generalisation of principles or rules. There are, however, commonly recurring attitudes; sensibilities that rise and fade away, only to emerge again and find fertile ground in novel conditions that have emerged or that were previously underexplored. Mannerism, which was first identified in the artistic output of sixteenth-century Italy, is one such sensibility, and it is this sensibility that surfaces in certain moments within the House in LA.
The term is a contested one, but this sensibility could roughly be defined as a particular way of responding to convention, normativity, or custom. It does not simply abandon the rules in favour of complete licentiousness but, rather, extends or elaborates them, makes their gaps and internal contradictions evident, draws out their ambiguities, and articulates latent possibilities, but, in doing so, makes these conventions and their qualities even more visible.
The logic of structure and loads is perhaps the most universal (and unavoidable) of visible conventions, and is a constant focus of mannerist tendencies — this is also the case at the House in LA. At the rear of the house, the full width of the building protrudes out beyond the lower storey. The not-insignificant mass of the house is supported by quite narrow posts. They appear slight, perhaps insufficient to bear the weight above them, but nevertheless are substantive enough to perform their role. This uncertainty is highlighted by an applied copper lining that not only makes them visually emphatic but, given the soft, pliable, and low compressive strength of copper, heightens the apparent insufficiency.
Similar structural themes return within the interior. A column stands definitely in the middle of the living room, asserting its right to interrupt this occupiable space by virtue of its structural necessity. And, yet, it stands just off from the apex of the folding ceiling planes above, where the necessity of the logic of tent poles and polite geometries would be expected to place it — its necessity suddenly comes into question.
These interruptions of expected structural dynamics recur in the study of the lower level. Here, a large timber beam appears in the ceiling. This seems to be supported by a narrow column that extends down to the desk below, but the column beneath the desk that would be tasked with transferring the loads to the floor is out of alignment by well over a metre. In this, the column between ceiling beam and desk suddenly acquires an ambiguous character: what first looked like a column now looks like it may be a tie, in tension, supporting the desk hanging from the ceiling above.
The ambiguity of parts is another perennial theme for mannerist impulses, especially when parts are made to perform two functions and bring the latent similarities of different kinds of parts to the fore. In the House in LA, the most obvious instance of this plays out in the façades. The breakup of the window panes is brought into step with the familiar rhythm of board-and-batten timber cladding. Then, enabled by the shared dimensions of the battens and the window mullions, these two parts are brought into ambiguous entanglement with one another: apparently sharing componentry and making it uncertain which is ‘figure’ and which is ‘background’. These serve as an outward sign, visible from the street, hinting at the sensibility that permeates through the rest of the building.
Text by Thomas Essex-Plath
