June 7, 2006
After the party at Michael Lehrer's, we headed back to the funky old Biltmore Hotel to pick up friends and head out again. This time we wandered around Santa Monica and its airport for half an hour when we ran into, you guessed it, John Friedman and Alice Kimm, looking for the same party. We followed their lead over to the launch party for the California edition of the Architect’s Newspaper, held in the Audi design center.
It was a lush California night, what with the artfully trained spotlights, the music leaking out, and the crowds around the munchies and the bar, straining over the din to hear Peter Cook, (yes, Peter Cook, of Archigram fame), talking above the din.
The eclectic crowd included the architectural cognoscenti, including a couple I overheard saying, “Well, I’m scared not to come. What if they wrote something about us!” They needn’t have worried. It was a celebratory affair, with Thom Mayne speaking from Pritzkerdom, Architectural Review editor Paul Finch offering avuncular offstage remarks, and our little coterie of Record groupies, eating and drinking and hugging everything in sight.
What an evening—our first on the scene in LA for a while. Come back Thursday for more, with meaning.
Robert Ivy, FAIA
Truth be told, the reason Peter Cook had to talk over the din at the Architect's Newspaper event is because no one could hear a word he was saying because the PA system was so bad.
Posted by: Janosh | June 08, 2006 at 04:37 PM
Dude, I've been an architect now for 15 years.
Perhaps you could find out what, exactly, the AIA does [because] I can't figure it out.
Selling pre-printed contracts can't require all that and a convention? Like, do they all hang out and come up with new ways to underbid each other? Or how to be more irrelevant, or carry more liability...
I'm just saying...
Posted by: spot | June 08, 2006 at 08:35 PM