THE CALIFORNICATION GUIDE TO LOS ANGELES: Get Familiar with Hank's Hell-A! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |  | How well do you know Hank's LA? Click the EasyEdit button above to add to the city guide to Californication's Los Angeles! (Don't see the EasyEdit button? Sign in or sign up.) |
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Location/landmark: Church
Featured in episode(s): Pilot
What happens there: Hank demonstrates his religiousness ... sorta
| 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.
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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.
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 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)
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 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:

 Modernism Influence: David Godsell, Architect's own House (1960) Beaumaris, Melbourne, Australia- Sean Godsell's father: a dynasty of architects
|  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
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Location/landmark:
Featured in episode(s):
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.
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Location/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:
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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):
What happens there:
| Location/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.
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Location/landmark: Rudolph M Schindler, King's Road House (1921-1922)

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:
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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 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.


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

The September 2007 edition of Dwell Magazine sits well thumbed.

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.
(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



Mies van der Rohe Glass Skyscraper Project (1922)
Charlie & Marcy's House






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.



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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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



Julian Self (the philandering guru wanker) also known as "the Artist Within", and Sonja's domestic space


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




John Lautner's Sheats/ Goldstein House (1963)

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

"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.








Lili Haydn at the reconstructed Hollywood Bowl undertaken by Architects Hodgetts + Fung Design based on the 1929 iteration of the shell structure.