The Hollywood, redux

No one builds apartment buildings anymore, do they?

I spent an hour or so revamping unit A6 at The Hollywood, a recently completed apartment (read: loft) building in Hollywood.

Original floor plan.

In spite of architect Stephen Kanner's boast about the "big open windows" in his spiel on the building's official website, according to his floor plan this "unit" seems to derive almost all of its light from the sliding glass doors that lead to the balcony. But really, you don't care whether your bedrooms have windows, do you?

My revamp leaves all of this apartment's infrastructure—including plumbing, HVAC, and miserly fenestration—in place. But it does complexify and attempt to remedy (insofar as possible) Kanner's reductive grovel to the "contemporary lifestyle, " i.e., no storage space, kitchen as foyer, dining room as afterthought.

The revamp.


The Hollywood, Hollywood.

Crime of the Week

Hey, remember Post-Modernism?

While Gloria Estefan was on the Top 10 and Miami Vice ruled the Peacock Network, Kanner Architects were busy with their aqua-tinged 1988 makeover of this 16-unit Mid-Wilshire apartment building, originally constructed (I wouldn't say designed) in 1957.

686 S. St. Andrews Place, Mid-Wilshire.

Unfortunately, the statute of limitations has expired on this one, and in any case one can hardly feel pity for the "victim" building. My deepest sympathies, however, are extended to anyone who lives across the street from this forced study in the Architecture of Cool.

The perpetrator firm now bills itself as "a Modern design studio in Santa Monica, California" (Modern with a nice big capital M), disingenuously disguising its sordid Post-Modernist past. But the truth will out: Kanner continues its obsession with Swiss cheese in this much more recent gymnasium in Pacific Palisades.