Spirit lost treasures in LA’s devastating fires – the sun of San Bernardino County

Sacramento – More than three weeks have passed since the start of wild fires in the Los Angeles region and the level of devastation is huge. The numbers are great: 28 people were killed and over 16,000 structures burned. Officials attract the economic damage to $ 150 billion or more, with insurance companies expecting losses of $ 30 billion.

We have also seen the heartbreaking images of our fellow Californians who gather through the remains, looking for their beloved pets and the remains of their lives. My wife volunteers on the Red Cross and I do not tolerate to hear the tragic stories after returning from a service conversation.

In this fast world, dominated by social media, we all measure up to different political conclusions. I did it myself because I have pondered in previous columns for various insurance policies, use of land use, prevention of fire and water that exacerbate the situation. These are important issues and must be eliminated, especially since state and federal governments consider help packages and regulatory reliefs to speed up the recovery process.

But sometimes it is best to retreat and just react in a human way by mourning losses. And a boy had some basic ones, especially on the architectural front. In the beginning, I experienced something like panic when I read reports that some of LA’s most notable architectural treasures were destroyed or threatened. Fortunately, many reports were wrong.

“Some early news reflecting and social media chat suggest that the Chinese TCL, Hollywood Cup and Magic Castle Theater are close to burning when these spots were never in direct danger,” The Los Angeles Times reports. He noted rumors (fortunately false) that Ames’ grand house has been burned in the middle of the century. Pasadena’s home home is reported to be the most remarkable home for the arts and crafts in the nation-threatened but also survived.

Other treasures were not so lucky. The fires say Benedict and Nancy Friedman House, a modernist masterpiece designed by architect Richard Netra in 1949. It was also lost: 21 of the architect Gregory Ain Ain Park planned homes in Altadena. Also, dating from the 1940s, “it was one of the first modernist residential developments in the country,” according to the American modernist, thought “as an innovative social experiment, with accessible prefabricated homes for working families.”

These treasures are irreplaceable, even if new buildings have been converted at the sites. I have a special love for modernism and the diversity of the Middle Age, with their dramatic, earthly details (atriums, beams, aggregated concrete floors, innovative materials, etc.). I live in one of the largest neighborhoods of such homes in the Sacramento area. I can only imagine the feeling of loss to Altadan residents.

When I moved to the Los Angeles area from the Midwest in the 90s, I was struck by the beauty of the place. The southern Californians often complain of congestion and from time to time, but there is just something about those wonderful slopes, swinging palm trees and mountains and beaches. And I loved the crowd of the modernist and Spanish Renaissance architecture, which determined the areas that are the most freezing of fire and mud.

I grew up on the east coast in the area of ​​colonial era stone and brick houses and appreciate them because of their solid construction and low beauty. I owned a craftsman house in Iowa, with its solid oak. These homes were a reaction to the vain detail of the previous Victorian era. I also owned a home in Art Deco in Ohio, which at the same time managed to be historical and futuristic, as it embodies the vision of the era of the 1930s.

Architecture is important. Buildings matter. This is one of my beef with the modern urban movement, which seems to be committed to packing as many people in small boxes as possible. Yet it is difficult to convey the sense of joy that one can experience from life in a house that was designed. There is no replacement for a burned -out historical treasure. Of course, the loss of home or business – architecturally significant or not – is painful.