Installation view. Photography by Danny Bullocks, 2018.
From 2018 forward, the Fitzpatrick-Leland House will play host to a series of ongoing design-centric exhibitions and programming, kicking off with Pin-up: A Designed Tribute to Schindler’s L.A. This show brings together four Los Angeles-based designers and one artist around the Californian modernist architect R.M. Schindler: Atelier de Troupe, led by Gabriel Abraham; Brendan Ravenhill; Pamela Shamshiri with John Williams; and long-time Schindler advocates Marmol Radziner.
Atelier de Troupe first paid tribute to Schindler during Milan Design Week in April 2017. Staying true to his passion for ambiance, artistic director Gabriel Abraham, a former film set designer, drew on the iconic modernist to create a collection of light fixtures and furniture inspired by the 1920s and reimagined for Los Angeles today. Atelier de Troupe then partnered with the other featured Pin-up participants at the Triode Gallery in Paris this past September for an installation that was deemed one of Paris Design Week’s “10 Must Sees”. That exhibition inspired the evolution to install a show of these Schindler-inspired designers in the Fitzpatrick-Leland House.
Brendan Ravenhill is a prolific designer and a personal champion of Schindler, currently in the process of restoring the architect’s Southall House in Echo Park. Since its founding in 2010, Brendan Ravenhill Studio has created narrative through an exploration of material, physics, and craft, working with a vibrant network of makers in Los Angeles who are always seeking to improve and master their craft. For Schindler’s Bethlehem Baptist Church in South Los Angeles, Ravenhill designed new fixtures as part of the recent restoration: a minimal suspension of cascading lights named the Church family that pay homage to Schindler’s use of the exposed bulb. Recently, he also designed the casework and furnishings installed at the Kings Road House for the MAK Center’s highly acclaimed Pacific Standard Time LA/LA exhibition How To Read El Pato Pascual: Disney’s Latin America and Latin America’s Disney.
Pamela Shamshiri and artist John Williams share a passion for the Austrian-American architect’s work. Like Abraham, Shamshiri is a former film-set designer dedicated to strong environments. She co-founded the studio Commune Design (among their projects are the Ace Hotels in Los Angeles and Palm Springs) before founding her own studio, Studio Shamshiri, in 2016. Shamshiri lives in a Schindler house, also known as the Lechner House, which she bought in 2008. Completely restoring the modernist jewel in Schindler’s simple materials of wood, glass and cement, she also filled the house with furniture designed by Schindler. For Paris Design Week and now for Pin-up, Shamshiri collaborated with Los Angeles-based Willliams in reinterpreting Schindler pieces and newly designed light fixtures.
Faithfully reproducing a selection of Schindler’s original designs for the architect’s former home in West Hollywood, Marmol Radziner Furniture is an extension of Marmol Radziner, a unique design-build firm in West L.A. known for attentiveness to detail and finish. Marmol Radziner Furniture offers collections designed and built by architects for a line of furniture with clarity of design and integrity of construction. Composed of rich materials like walnut, oak, and steel, Marmol Radziner shares Schindler’s belief that furniture design is essential in shaping the experience and scale of a house.