Schindler House

Pauline Mun

Karen Lee

Esther Kim

Justine Kim

 

LA Past Lives Reflection - Daniel

            LA Past lives was a class where we learned about the Schindler house, architecture in Los Angeles, and the nature of the city itself. We visited the Schindler house and learned about its history in class and also learned about the history of LA architecture. We were made to think critically about the relationships between the Schindler house, modernism, and our own personal projects.

            For our group project, Chris and I designed a website for the Schindler House and Rudolph Schindler himself. It was inspired by the modular layout and functionality of the actual house itself.  We were encouraged to think of the conceptual meta-ideas regarding the house and ended up with a site that was much better than the current site. We designed a website that was organized like the layout of the Schindler house, and clicking on different rooms would lead you deeper into the site. These different rooms were categories which would lead you to more specific options regarding the type of information you were looking for. For example, clicking on the room titled “the man” would lead you to a page with the different categories: timeline, projects list, styles, influences. Picking the room titled projects list would give you a page listing all the different buildings Schindler worked on. The layout of the site had an elegant simplicity to it that was very stress free on the user, allowing the user to navigate and explore the site without overwhelming distractions. Its design was also more intuitive and fun to use because it gave you a sense of exploring the house, and it indeed gave a much better sense of what the Schindler house is like than the current site.

            Also during LA Past lives, we visited the Los Angeles Public Library on 5^th and Flower Street in Downtown LA. The library has beautiful architecture itself. My favorite sight was the beautiful paintings on the ceiling of the children’s section of the library. There as a class we learned about the tools available at the library and eventually presented our Schindler house inspired web design project to them.

            All in all it was a good class. I learned a lot, got to explore some interesting places, and had a fun time. The web design project was especially interesting for me because it was something I’ve never really done before. It made me think deeply about the nature of how we experience online media, along with how you could make that relate to something as different as modernist architecture. Also I felt presenting in front of the class was a good exercise to do.  

Josh Dunn's Reflection

Josh Dunn
LA Past Lives

5/5/11

Reflection Paper

This class has really taught me a lot and I got to experience a lot of thing I would have never done. I had never been to the Schindler house before, nor had I heard of it. When I went there, I was surprised on how interesting it was. I also had never been to the LA Public Library before and it was an amazing place. The group project required us to do research about the Schindler house and I learned about the house, Schindler himself, and the surrounding LA area. I enjoyed the class because we were allowed to express and execute our ideas as we pleased and were allowed to work in the medium we wanted. In the past, I disliked my previous IL class because we were put into groups with one person in each major. This however was a problem because the projects we did were only catered to one person’s major out of the group and we were stuck working in mediums we didn’t like.

The visit to the library was very beneficial and we have gone many times since then to do research. The library has a great source of information as well as many people who can help you with your research. I really enjoyed being able to go to the library and research the Schindler house. There were many books we could take photos from and a city archive of the city maps where we could fine information about when buildings were built.

I like how the class was structured and how to be given the opportunity to work in the groups we wanted. I also enjoyed working in a group project because it gave me the opportunity to work collectively on a project and learn how to properly divide work and share ideas together to make a full project.

I really enjoyed the work everyone did being shared on the blog. I thought it was a very interesting and great way to share work and anyone can see what we had done, at any time. I liked how I could look at other people’s references and photos to get ideas and see the development of other people’s projects.

I really enjoyed having Aaron Henne as our mentor because he gave great feedback and was very helpful. He had many ideas that could help further our projects and he was very supportive of our ideas. I also enjoyed the presentation he gave on storyboards and how to properly structure them. 

Overall I really enjoyed the class and was glad we had the opportunity to learn about and visit the Schindler house. I have always been interested in architecture, so the class had interested me from the beginning and the class being “virtual” was a great idea. The blog was a great thing and a great way to share our work with the class.

Esther Kim's Reflection

Schindler House Reflection

    When I was first introduced to the Schindler House in class, I never expected there to be such an historical landmark in Los Angeles. The only historical architectures that I thought significant in LA were the buildings on Bunker Hill or Watts Towers. As I researched more about the Schindler House, I learned that it was such an avant garde modern architecture back in the 20’s. When I visited the Schindler House, I was very fascinated with the structure of the house. The idea of it being studios for artists made it more interesting. Like it described in the research that I did, the space, form and the way the light came into the house was very meticulously thought out and harmonized well. I didn’t notice when I first arrived to the Schindler House but as I was leaving I looked around where the house was located and I felt that it was unfortunate how the city treats history. The house was sited at what seemed like a random residential street. Even though there was nothing was around the house besides cornfields back when Schindler built it, it would have been more sensible to exhibit the house in a better way.

    The idea our group had formed based on the Schindler House was to film a movie that based on the story of the two couples that actually lived in the house. We decided to do a silent film so the film could be more focused on the essence of the house without any distractions. We thought that the idea of incorporating music from the 20’s when the house was built would make the film seem more based on the couples. We incorporated historical information from the 20’s into the film to give background of some political and social issues of that time. Our film featured three very different individual artists who lived together under the same space. We wanted to portray individuality and community within one space.

    I think our film captured the house very well but our storyline could have been more elaborated. Also instead of having a separate board to show the historical information of the 20s that was briefly shown in the film we could have figured out a way to put enter text into the film itself. LA past lives was one of the most interesting and beneficial LAS classes I took. It was a great experience of learning in depth about Los Angeles’ historical architecture, the Schindler House. 

Karen Lee's reflection

The experience i gained from the Schindler house project was great. i enjoyed this Schindler house project and i've learned so much from it. Our group started off researching how the house is built what the behind story is about the house. we found out that the place was built as a studio, not much of 'home' to Schindler and his wife and his friends. the house was a working place for them and we thought it was very interesting how the house was used, so we began to focus on this idea of the house being used as a studio, then we created imagianry characters with different careeres as if they were the people who lived in the house when the house was built. There is Esther who is a photographer who is married to Karen, the housewife and Pauline who is a fashion designer and lives with Esther and Karen. Then we decided to capture the house and the characters on film. we researched on the house to see and learn about the history and what was going on during the era and we thought it would be very interesting to put some of the historical facts in 1920s(Prohibition) on the the film and this is how we got the hidden wine scene.  we also used Jazz as the background music to give the view the roaring 20's vibe. we used Bix Beiderbecke's Singing the blues and Billie Holiday's gloomy sunday. overall, i was very happy with how the final project came out and it was one of the best school experience i had during my Otis years. it gave me a chance to look the house differently. it is not just a residential architecture, but a house that two couples lived and shared their life styles together.
the project could have gone better, if i had more time to work and reseach more on the house. i felt that there is so many things to learn from the house. it was actually the couples who lived in the house that struck me the most. i wish i had more time to reseach on these people to make the movie more realistic.

Javier Banuelos: Reflections

Schindler House Reflections

            I found the experience with this Schindler House project educational, but lacking in some respects. The research aspect of the project was rewarding, since it allowed us a look into the history of the Los Angeles and the area around it. While we were specifically working on the Schindler House as our subject it was unavoidable that we would also find information about Los Angeles. I think this part of the project was very enjoyable. Learning a bit of the history of Los Angeles is great, since it is a rare subject even at local schools. Those curious enough must seek the information on their own, and I find that learning as a byproduct can be easier than seeking a subject yourself for certain subjects. Learning about the history of the city from the perspective of the Schindler House was very interesting, and I think that it offered a great atmosphere to learn about the history.

            The ideas and concepts that we wanted to present through our work were easy enough to find. We then proceeded to whittle down the choices to our final idea to display the history of the Schindler House's neighborhood throughout the lifetime of the Schindler House. While the idea itself was easy enough to find there were some difficulty trying to find a good way to present our idea/concept. We settled on a very straightforward presentation of the information we have compiled, but we knew that it was far from what we wanted it to be. the information was not very clear, and we had difficulty finding a simple way to present the our idea. the physical aspect of our project turned out weaker than we had hoped, but we could not change our minds any longer. The video we made turned out closer to what we wanted, but it still lacked several essential things that would make it a much more viable instructional tool . Basically, I think the concept/ idea we wanted to present was great, but we had some trouble when it came to the actual presentation.

            When it came down to group dynamics it helped that I was working with a group of friends. There was also some trouble though. Although we have an established dynamic there was some trouble with wasted time. It was easy for us to get distracted sometimes, but we always finished our work on time. Overall I think it helps if you have some level of conformability with the people you are working with, since you know what to expect. With strangers there is a period of getting to know each other in which it may make working a bit more difficult. With people you are acquainted with you can also more easily agree on which direction to take the project into. I think this was a great advantage, since we were able to save plenty of time. We had all worked with each other before, and we understood our strengths and weaknesses. This allowed us to better decide what each of us would be able to do.

            The project  could have gone better, but I learned some great things. I now know a bit more about the history of the area around us. I learned a bit about how  to present information, which will definitely be helpful for future projects. This project was definitely educational, but I wish it could have gone a bit more smoothly with what we ended up producing.

Pauline Mun's Reflection

               In the beginning of the class when I was told about Schindler House, it was first time ever hearing about that house. And as I began to research about Schindler House I became more excited and couldn’t wait until I finally get to visit the house in person. My first thought when I walked into the house was: ‘what is so special about this building?’ The house itself was definitely bigger than I expected, with so many empty spaces and rooms, and lots of windows and doors. It almost felt like a maze. I was still having hard time finding why is this house so important as such a well-known architecture in the history of Los Angeles.

            Our group had decided to make a film about Schindler House. I thought filming was a great idea so we can put every detail in the house in different angles. Basically what we did was to show three different artists living in the Schindler House together but they have their own individual space of living and working, but somehow they interact each other in the house. We had a baker, fashion designer, and photographer who experience and study the house with their own method and enjoy the life in the house. In our film the element to connect all three artists was the baker’s cookies. During daytime the artists in the house are busy working on their own stuff but they all love cookies.

            We also tried to put some historical information in the scenes, such as the scene where the photographer goes upstairs to get wine that is hidden under the shelf because of the Alcohol prohibition in 1920s.

            After shooting the film in the house I finally realized the significant of the Schindler House. The house is built so functional and spacious, which obviously shows Schindler’s intention of building the house. It was fun filming in the house and was an honorable experience to have such a detailed tour in the one of the greatest modern architectures remained in Los Angeles.