Julius Shulman

Visual Acoustics and the Westcoast modern

by Jord den Hollander

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One of the many premieres at the festival is Visual Acoustics, an hommage to the recently passed away Julius Shulman, world famous architectural photographer.

Julius Shulman’s photographs mythologized Hollywood’s modernist architecture

The photo became the iconic image of modernist 1960s Californian architecture: two elegantly dressed women are seated in a glass house that cantilevers alarmingly over a steep drop. Far below them sparkle the lights of a metropolis. The strong diagonals, the projecting roof, the way the women are positioned, the lighting – every detail emphasizes optimism, the culmination of a long-cherished dream.

When the photographer Julius Shulman looked through the viewfinder of his camera on the warm evening of 9 May 1960 in the Hollywood Hills and pressed the shutter button for a one-minute exposure, he had no idea what effect this particular photo would have. For him it was business as usual, commission no. 2980 (the Stahl House by Pierre Koenig) in his almost 30-year career as architectural photographer.

Only after the photo had been published in the Arts and Architecture magazine and thousands of requests for extra prints had poured in, did Shulman realize that something special was going on here. This image, more than any of his previous work, succeeded in mythologizing the architecture that was so dear to him: West Coast Modern.
Since the 1920s, the agreeable climate, rugged hills and breathtaking desert landscape had been a source of inspiration for a new generation of architects who were experimenting with light new materials and modern techniques. In the 1930s, it was Richard Neutra (a close friend of Shulman’s) and Rudolf Schindler who set the tone with their minimalist villas, but in the ensuing decades, thanks in part to the Case Study Houses project (a number of experiments in residential architecture sponsored by Art and Architecture editor John Entenza), their example was followed by architects like John Lautner, Pierre Koenig, Craig Elwood, Charles and Ray Eames and William Krisel.

Owing to the booming business of Hollywood, there was no lack of wealthy clients and the fresh optimism and elegance of the architects’ plans appealed to many of the creative industry’s young entrepreneurs. Shulman’s photographs added something extra, an atmosphere of heroism, romanticism and immortality, the very ingredients on which the Hollywood film industry was based. The photographs were shot according to the principles of production design, with added ‘props’ in the form of shiny convertibles, immaculately dressed models and meticulously positioned design furniture. Image and reality merged in the best Hollywood tradition.

Although the celebrated photo of the Stahl House certainly did its architect no harm, Koenig did express some reservations about Shulman’s glamorizing approach. Shortly before Koenigs death in 2004, he commented wryly that ‘architects first had to design and build a building before people like Shulman could take photographs of it’. Koenig worried, not without reason, that the essence of his architecture would be overshadowed by the image it had been used to create.

It is a dilemma that frequently exercises architects: is it about image or substance? The current revival of interest in the West Coast Modernists is definitely about substance. After a period during which this architecture was dismissed as exemplifying extravagance and misplaced exuberance, people are now showing interest in the special details, the minimal and therefore eco-friendly use of materials and the relationship with nature. This is spurring a new generation to restore and revive the best instances which are scattered across the Hollywood Hills and Coachella Valley in varying states of neglect.

But for the hundreds of houses designed by John Lautner, no grand preservation plan is needed. His sometimes baroque interpretations of modernism, replete with curves and massive concrete volumes, have proven to be fairly time- and taste-resistant. Lautner’s unique oeuvre has become a goldmine for film and documentary makers. Location scouts can find their way blindfold to his sculpted interiors. The ideal setting for the bad guys! The Big Lebowsky, Diamonds are Forever, Body Double, Less than Zero are just a few of the dozens of films in which the actors are hard pressed to compete with Lautner’s dazzling decors.

With the death of Julius Shulman on 15 July, aged 98, an icon of architectural photography has been lost. Although tempted to abandon his vocation in the 1970s (he regarded post-modernism as unphotographable nonsense), he remained active right to the last, even photographed Frank Gehry’s most recent work. Shulman’s work will always be associated with the dynamic and optimistic period of the 1950s and ’60s on the west coast of the United States. Oh, to cruise along Sunset Boulevard once more in a bright red Chevrolet convertible; to arrive home and settle down beside your perfect girlfriend, the ice cubes clinking in your double whisky, and to lose yourself in contemplation of the fabulous view. ‘Anything else dear?’

This article is published in the September edition of A10 magazine.
Read another article in Moviemaker here.

Date: 12.08.2009 Tags: premiere, westcoast modernism

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