These Mondrian inspired townhomes in Playa Vista have been around since 2008. I wrote about them on my previous blog and thought it would be a blast to go back and revisit them. Overall they’ve held up incredibly well. There’s a bit of fading to the primary and secondary colors on the south side of the complex, which has me asking myself, who’s in charge of freshening things up? I hope the developer who created these 16 units gave a list of the proper colors to the HOA to be used for repairs and maintenance. One wrong swoop of color, and the overall gestalt of these homes would be ruined.
The lushness of the landscaping thats grown in over the years looks so pristine. It makes me wonder how Piet Mondrian would feel about his two dimensional paintings being turned into 3-D living environments. Known as De Stijl, (Dutch for The Style) this artistic movement began in Amsterdam in 1917, and is fast approaching it’s 100th birthday. I had the good fortune of going to see the Mondrian / De Stijl exhibit in Paris at the Centre Pompidou in 2011. It was a fantastic survey of the period and included paintings, furniture, and building models. There weren’t any photos allowed in the exhibit, but I did sneak in my digital video camera, shooting gorilla style from under the overcoat I was holding in my arms. The images aren’t the best, but it’s still so fun to look back at the footage occasionally and re-live the exhibit. I have a feeling I’ll need to find a way to turn this artistic movement into a future DIY Youtube video.
Below is an image of a home model, known as the Rietveld Schroder House, that I photographed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art a couple of years ago. Also known as the Schroder House, it was built in 1924 by Dutch architect Gerrit Rietveld in the town of Utrecht. Mrs. Truus Schroder – Schrader, who commissioned the home, lived in it until her death in 1985. There are several famous pieces of furniture that were designed for this house, including the Red Blue Chair, that I’ll share in my next blog post.
If you’re going to Utrecht, Netherlands, you can actually visit the original home run by the Centraal Museum.
Oh, and back to those homes in Playa Vista… they range in size from 2,062 – 2,630 square feet. Originally they were priced at $1 million and up. I remember walking through one of the original models while they were under construction and I thought, wouldn’t it be fantastic to design the interiors with period furniture and and other modern pieces by Le Corbusier. Sadly, who ever designed the interiors didn’t get the memo, instead choosing zebra carpet and mid-century furnishings as can be seen by an old article on Curbed LA. Click HERE if you’d like to see the design disaster… view at your own risk, as your retinas may never be the same again.