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Sunday, October 23, 2011

Architecture in L.A.

Wrong Regarding 'Wrights'
This multifamily residential building may 
not appear to the average passerby to 
be a particularly special example of mid- 
century modern architecture; but, it did  
appear so to Republic of L.A.  
Perhaps it's likely most other lay-persons 
sharing RoLA's passion for L.A.'s hodge-podge 
of adventurous, often highly stylized residential 
design and frequently offputting urban-planning 
paradigm, would - as we erroneously did - 
recognize this collection of apartments at 
2036-2046 Griffith Park Blvd. as a fine, 
however modest, example of architecture 
by Eric Lloyd Wright, founder of Eric Lloyd Wright 
Architecture and Planning grandson and former 
apprentice of master 20th Century architect, 
Frank Lloyd Wright. However, It turns out, the 
main cue that led RoLA to think we were looking 
at an Eric Lloyd Wright design - the sculpted 
flourishes atop the painted (cinderblock?) walls separating garages at the site, were etched out by sculptor gordon Newell.  The buildings (there are two) were designed by legendary Los Angeles architect, R.M. Schindler as a home with rental-intcome units for Anastasia Bubeshko and her daughter Luby, whom - according to the Los Angeles Conservancy - lived in the Schindler-designed home that her mother left her, was first completed in the late 1930s.



The Bubeshko Apartments won a preservation award from the L.A. Conservancy in 2010 (Preservation Architect: DSH / Eric Haas & Chava Danielson)