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CALIFORNICATION GUIDE TO L.A.




THE CALIFORNICATION GUIDE TO LOS ANGELES: Get Familiar with Hank's Hell-A!
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Every dog has his day in LA. Hank, a New York transplant, ambles around real LA hotspots featured in the episodes of Californication on his numerous amorous conquests. Plot out Hank's love shacks, meat markets, and local haunts below. Don't forget to add location and landmark notes!
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The Church scene in Showtime's CalifornicationLocation/landmark: Church

Featured in episode(s): Pilot

What happens there: Hank demonstrates his religiousness ... sorta

Which LA Bookstore is this featured in Showtime's Californication?Location/landmark: Book Soup on Sunset

Featured in episode(s): Pilot, 103 (***** of Babylon)

What happens there: Hank meets Mia, beats the crap out of Todd freakin Carr.

Location/landmark:
Ray Kappe, architect "Benton House", Brentwood,LA, (1987-1994)
Featured in episode(s): Episode 7 - "Girls, Interrupted"

What happens there:Hank wrangles for Karen to get a look at a much admired modernist work and she gets the brief to design a complementary addition.

Ray Kappe,architect  "Benton House", Brentwood






Californication Guide to Los Angeles - Californication Wiki

Location/landmark:Ray Kappe, architect "Benton House", Brentwood, LA

Featured in episode(s):Episode 7 - "Girls, Interrupted"

What happens there:Published in GA Houses 81 (May 2004)

Californication Guide to Los Angeles - Californication Wiki
Location/landmark: Ray Kappe, architect "Benton House", Brentwood,LA (designed 1987; construction 1987-1994)
http://www.kappedu.com/benton.html#
https://digital.lib.washington.edu/php/architect/record.phtml?type=publication&publicationid=2157

Featured in episode(s):Episode 7 - "Girls, Interrupted"

What happens there:



David Godsell House (1960) Beaumaris, Melbourne, Australia
Modernism Influence: David Godsell, Architect's own House (1960) Beaumaris, Melbourne, Australia
Modernism Influence: David Godsell, Architect's own House (1960) Beaumaris, Melbourne, Australia- Sean Godsell's father: a dynasty of architects
Californication Guide to Los Angeles - Californication Wiki
Location/landmark: Ray Kappe, architect "Benton House", Brentwood, LA

Featured in episode(s):
Episode 7 - "Girls, Interrupted"

What happens there:























Modernism Influence: David Godsell, Architect's own House (1960) Beaumaris, Melbourne, Australia
Modernism Influence: David Godsell, Architect's own House (1960) Beaumaris, Melbourne, Australia

Modernism Influence: David Godsell, Architect's own House (1960) Beaumaris, Melbourne, Australia
Location/landmark:

Featured in episode(s):Californication Guide to Los Angeles - Californication Wiki

What happens there: Hank is thinking how much he loathes LA whilst Karen muses how much she loves the City

Location/landmark: Jonathon Borofsky, Ballerina Clown (1989)

Featured in episode(s):Episode 2 - "Hell-A Woman"

What happens there: Hank's new Porsche, with the lone copy of his new novella, get's hi-jacked while he's talking to some hot chick in the middle of the nite. Then, he walks home thru the empty streets of Venice.

Californication Guide to Los Angeles - Californication Wiki
Californication Guide to Los Angeles - Californication WikiLocation/landmark:

Featured in episode(s):

What happens there:

Location/landmark: Frank Gehry, Chiat-Day Offices (1991)
with Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen

Featured in episode(s):

What happens there:
Californication Guide to Los Angeles - Californication Wiki
Location/landmark: Randy's Donuts (1953)
A Venturi-Brown, "Duck Building" : designed by Robert Graham
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/14/nyregion/nyregionspecial2/14colli.html
just west of the 405 Fwy. at Manchester (near LAX)
Featured in episode(s):Californication Guide to Los Angeles - Californication Wiki

What happens there:

Californication Guide to Los Angeles - Californication WikiLocation/landmark:
David Hertz-Stacy Fong (Syndesis)
McKinley House (1999-2000)
Stage 1


Featured in episode(s): All episodes

What happens there: This is Bill's house, where Karen now lives. Mia and Becca also live here.

Location/landmark: Rudolph M Schindler, King's Road House (1921-1922)

Californication Guide to Los Angeles - Californication Wiki

Featured in episode(s):

What happens there:

Location/landmark: David Hertz-Stacy Fong (Syndesis)
McKinley House (1999-2000)
Stage 1
2420 McKinley Ave., Venice, CA
Featured in episode(s):

What happens there:
Californication Guide to Los Angeles - Californication Wiki

Californication Guide to Los Angeles - Californication WikiCalifornication Guide to Los Angeles - Californication Wiki

Californication Guide to Los Angeles - Californication WikiCalifornication Guide to Los Angeles - Californication Wiki

David Hertz -Stacy Fong (Syndesis)
McKinley House Stage 2

Architecture & Trivia.
We find out in Episode 7 that Karen is an architect with sustainable development credentials.
She designs Bill's house which in truth is the much admired David Hertz-Stacy Fong, McKinley House: a husband and wife architects' own house with passive heating and cooling techniques embedded in the scheme. Both the Ray Kappe, "Benton House" and the McKinley House which is the key set are both published in the Japanese periodical, GA Houses 81 (May 2004). They also share the same alma mater: David Hertz studied at SCI-Arc (Southern California Institute of Architecture) where Ray Kappe was the founding director and Chair of Architecture. For very sharp observers, on Karen's coffee table in episode 9 as she is reading by the fire Charles Bukowski's Sifting Through The Madness for the Word, The Line, The Way: New Poems (2003) is a recent book Venice, CA: Art and Architecture in a Maverick Community (2007) by Michael Webb. Somewhat self-referential as many of the icons of the title sequence and moreover the McKinley House itself is featured in the book.



Life imitates art. This guide was featured in the World's Greenest Homes' feature on the McKinley House The full version: Part 1



Part 2

Karen's workKaren's workSteven Holl Pamplet Architecture 1-10

Karen at work drawing inspiration from Steven Holl's Pamphlet Architecture 1-10 . In the late 1970s and early '80s, Pamphlet Architecture offered a fresh, underground-like alternative to homogenized architectural publishing. Based in New York and San Francisco, masterminded by a young Steven Holl and by bookshop innovator William Stout, the Pamphlets presented notional schemes by a then 30-something clique of intellectual practitioners, men-and one women-who retained a critical faith in certain tenets of Modernism.
To celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the founding of Pamphlet Architecture, Princeton Architectural Press reissued the first ten issues—most of which have been long out of print—in one hardcover volume. This graphically stunning and theoretically stimulating collection includes the early works of many of today's best-known architects, including Steven Holl, Lars Lerup, Mark Mack, Lebbeus Woods, Zaha Hadid, Livio Dimitriu, and Alberto Sartoris.

The Pamphlet Architecture series was founded in 1978 by architects Steven Holl and William Stout as a venue for publishing the thoughts and works of a younger generation of architects. Each issue was written, illustrated, and designed by a single architect, which gives each its unique character. The series, which received an American Institute of Architects award, continues to influence new generations of architects as it disseminates new and innovative ideas on architecture and presents the work of the luminaries of tomorrow.

Karen's work: New YorkKaren's work: New York
In sereies 3 we see for the first time Karen's dream job relocating her back to New York.

Karen's work





The September 2007 edition of Dwell Magazine sits well thumbed.Californication Guide to Los Angeles - Californication WikiCalifornication Guide to Los Angeles - Californication Wiki
Californication Guide to Los Angeles - Californication Wiki
Dwell is good. See http://www.dwell.com/homes/new/2877311.html for a Californication reprise.

As for Karen's comment in episode 7 at the Ray Kappe House, "I think it was Ruskin that once said .."Without architecture, there would be no remembering."
This is a reference from John Ruskin's "The Seven Lamps of Architecture" (1849). In Chapter 6 headed 'The Lamp of Memory' Ruskin writes: "It is as the centralization and protectress of this sacred influence, that Architecture is to be regarded by us with the most serious thought. We may live without her, and worship without her, but we cannot remember without her. "

In episode 8 It is not without whimsy or comment that Hank receives a letter from his father in Levittown foretelling his father's final soliloquy to his son.
Hank's father, Al Moody writes from Levittown, NY.Californication Guide to Los Angeles - Californication Wiki

(a real address: Criminal Justice Media!)

Levittown, this modest suburban tract housing became paradigmatic of the post-war suburbs. White picket fences and cookie cutter housing. Is this where Hank grew up?

Denise Scott Brown
and Robert Venturi most notably in the 1970's collaborated in
theoretical research and education on the nature of cities with their studies "Learning From Las Vegas" and "Learning From Levittown."These projects challenged architects to study the human use and social context of architecture, the role of perception and memory in architecture, and the communicative possibilities of architecture. A primary focus had to do with symbolism and iconography. This turned the authors once again to history, to rediscover facets of architecture forgotten by the Modern movement.

Analyzing developer-built housing, Venturi-Brown & Steve Izenour noted that even bland tract homes came with a staggering array of options, which homeowners embraced with abandon. They also marvelled at advertising copy for postwar suburban developments (''These Houses Are Exactly the Same! They Just Look Different!'').

http://www.hno.harvard.edu/gazette/2005/06.09/15-radmedal.html
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950DE3DE1E3DF93AA35750C0A96F948260

Californication Guide to Los Angeles - Californication WikiCalifornication Guide to Los Angeles - Californication WikiCalifornication Guide to Los Angeles - Californication Wiki

Mies van der Rohe Glass Skyscraper Project (1922)



Charlie & Marcy's House
Californication Guide to Los Angeles - Californication WikiCalifornication Guide to Los Angeles - Californication Wiki
Californication Guide to Los Angeles - Californication WikiCalifornication Guide to Los Angeles - Californication Wiki

Californication Guide to Los Angeles - Californication WikiCharlie & Marcy's House Series 1

In Season 2 Episode 2 - "The Great Ashby" Sonja asks Karen, "How would you feel about restoring an original Lautner house with me?"
K-"Don't **** with me."
S-"I'm not; I'm bidding on one tomorrow."
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This is a reference to the seminal architect, John Lautner, one of the important Californian Modernists who along with architects such as Charles and Ray Eames, Craig Ellwood, Pierre Koenig, Raphael Sorriano and Richard Neutra created some of the iconic West-Coast mid-century houses; See particularly John Entenza's Arts & Architecture (1938-1967) magazine and the Case Study Programme. Lautner was a glaring omission. Lautner was apprenticed to Frank Lloyd Wright and came to California in 1938 and practised there until his death in 1994 aged 83. He was especially known for his bold, soaring, expressive use of concrete and cantilevered sculptural forms. Some of his houses such as the Elrod House, 1968 in Palm Springs featured in films:the James Bond film, Diamonds are Forever, 1971; and 'the Chemosphere',1960 was in Brian de Palma's movie, Body Double, 1984. Recently, The Los Angeles Times featured the Garcia Residence, recently renovated by Marmol Radziner, and the restoration of John Lautner's, Harpel House. There is currently considerable interest among architectural and mid-century enthusiasts to restore and maintain these properties before they are destroyed by redevelopment. The architects Leo Marmol and Ron Radziner of Marmol Radziner notably restored the extraordinary Kaufmann Desert House designed by Richard Neutra (1946) one of the greatest houses built in the twentieth century. Kaufmann's Palm Springs holiday house was a nice complement to his main house, Fallingwater, Frank Lloyd Wright's masterpiece. Marmol Radziner also design very nice prefabs.

Julius Schulman's famous photo of Richard Neutra's Kaufmann Desert House,Palm Springs (1946)Neutra Kauffman House restored by Marmol RadzinerNeutra Kauffman House restored by Marmol Radziner

http://www.marmol-radziner.com/html/body/press/nyt_041600/text.html
http://www.christies.com/features/special-sites/kaufmann_house/
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http://www.latimes.com/features/home/la-hm-lautner0410-pg,1,1684503.photogallery
http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/la/la-times-house-garden-roundup/restored-john-lautners-harpel-housela-times-41008-047664
http://www.johnlautner.org/
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Elrod HouseElrod house where Thumper and Bambi beat up James Bond in Diamonds are Forever
Julius Schulman's photo of John Lautner's 'the Chemosphere'John Lautner's 'the Chemosphere'
Garcia House restored by Marmol RadzinerGarcia House restored by Marmol RadzinerGarcia House restored by Marmol Radziner


A Very Californication (Pun) Ad: Stop Bad Oral
Cnr S Occidental Blvd & 2801 W 6th St
Los Angeles, CA 90057

Probably a photoshopped fiction: see Google Maps Street View

Californication by name and by nature pun2801 W 6th Los Angeles- Google Maps Street ViewBad Oral Bus




Julian Self (the philandering guru wanker) also known as "the Artist Within", and Sonja's domestic space
Sonja's and 'Artist Within's' Hous
Sonja's and 'Artist Within's' House
Compare with the iconic Pierre Koenig Case Study House #22 (1959)
http://users.tce.rmit.edu.au/e03159/ModMelb/mm2/lect/50_60_70/html/casestudy/casestudy4.html
Pierre Koenig Case Study House #22 (1959)Julius Schulmans's photo of Pierre Koenig's Case Study House #22 (1959)
LA ModernJohn Lautner's Sheats/ Goldstein House
John Lautner's Sheats/ Goldstein House (1963)
John Lautner's Sheats/ Goldstein House


Lew Ashby Mansion, Rick Rubin Studio's, "The Mansion", 2451 Laurel Canyon Blvd, Los Angeles
http://www.laurelcanyon.org/20cHist.html
Ashby Mansion-Rick Rubin Mansion, Laurel Canyon

"It was also during this period that frequent cabin-guest Jimi Hendrix briefly resided in the Errol Flynn mansion to the north of the property. The mansion was once a home for "wayward women" and was also occupied in earlier years by notables ranging from Bugsy Siegel to W.C. Fields. The mansion is currently owned by Rick Rubin, co-founder of Def Jam Records and producer of The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nine Inch Nails, The Black Crowes and numerous others."

Seminal California Modern Architecture from Raymond Kappe as originally published in Arts & Architecture in 1955.

Raymond Kappe 1955: Arts & Architecture

Raymond Kappe 1955: Arts & Architecture
John Entenza's Arts & ArchitectureLili Haydn: Hollywood Bowl

Hollywood BowlLili Haydn: Hollywood Bowl
Californication Guide to Los Angeles - Californication WikiCalifornication Guide to Los Angeles - Californication Wiki

Lili Haydn at the reconstructed Hollywood Bowl undertaken by Architects Hodgetts + Fung Design based on the 1929 iteration of the shell structure.
Postcard: Burton Frasher, 1936, Ponoma Public Library

Sidney Myer Music Bowl-Melbourne Australia 1958 Yunken Freeman architects per Barry Patten restored by Gregory Burgess Architects: photo John Gollings

Sidney Myer Music Bowl, Melbourne Australia, 1958 Freeman Yuncken architects per Barry Patten




Brooks Ave, Venice BeachThe Loft
Hank & Karen's Brooke Avenue, Venice Beach LoftBrooks Avenue Loft
Brooks Avenue, Venice Beach near Speedway (one way side street)

Hank & Karen's Brooke Avenue, Venice Beach LoftCalifornication Guide to Los Angeles - Californication Wiki
Google Maps Streetview of Karen and Hank's Loft in Brooks Avenue, Venice Beach

Art Opening at Julian Self's Gallery [Equator Books]Equator Books
Equator Books Retail and Gallery designed by RA-DA
rania alomarRA-DA
Venice Beach Canal WalkVenice Beach Canals 2
Venice Beach Canals
VideoVenice Beach Canals 2

A very useful site for Venice architecture is here



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Latest page update: made by vernissage , Yesterday, 3:04 AM EST (about this update About This Update vernissage Karen at work - vernissage

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Danielle7171 What restaurant are they always in? 1 Saturday, 11:03 PM EST by vernissage
Thread started: Jan 19 2009, 11:52 AM EST  Watch
Does anyone know what restaurant they are supposed to be frequenting all the time? The one with the cool artwork and exposed brick. Maybe it's a set...?
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C.Munro Hank and Karen's loft 1 Feb 24 2009, 7:00 PM EST by jbourne
Thread started: Feb 24 2009, 4:17 PM EST  Watch
That's interesting. I always thought the loft was on Windward, between Speedway and Pacific. It is indeed on Brooks Avenue, but looking through some Season 1 episodes I noticed that they did edit things to make it appear that the loft was on Windward.

For example, at the end of "The Devil's Threesome," you see Hank, Karen, Charlie and Marcy come out the front of the loft. Charlie and Marcy go to the left (toward Speedway and the beach), while Hank and Karen go to the right. As Hank follows Karen, the camera angle shifts so that it is behind Hank. In this shot, no part of the loft is visible, and the street in the background is definitely Windward Avenue, not Brooks. The sign for Cafe Collage is easy to make out. Other giveaways are the parking meters on the side of the street and the fascia of the ex-Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf location.

Incidentally, the carjacking scene was also at Windward and Pacific, not on Rose and Main near the Ballerina Clown.
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NickNorthern The Canals where Hank walks with his daughter 3 Aug 25 2008, 5:23 AM EDT by calagal
Thread started: Jul 13 2008, 10:13 PM EDT  Watch
Where is that at? Is it private property?
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