Urban Landscape Architect
September 19, 2015
I was not the only one counting…
This week is LA City bike and pedestrian-count week #LABikePedCount
Wednesday afternoon I counted for two hours at the corner Crenshaw – West Adams Boulevard. The sun was hot and there was not much going on, bike-wise. A guy approached…
“Could you please help me to take off my chain?,” he asked me. Indeed a fine golden chain with a tiny clasp on a big sweaty neck, something for female fingers.
It all made sense when I saw where he went next.
August 23th, 2015
True stories shining through at a dinner table in Los Angeles.
A movie director was shooting a Second-World-War movie in Europe as the Wall fell. This gave him the opportunity to buy a whole street in East Berlin to blow up. At the final dress rehearsal somebody accidentally pushed the red button.
August 9th, 2015
A night at the Museum of Jurassic Technology…virtuoso and catchy Romanian and Jewish rhythms on a rooftop, together with sleeping doves.
August 5, 2015 How much sun protection is needed?
People make remarks about my tan so I assume I should protect my skin more. Beautiful parasols are clearly a trend, although sometimes it seems a little overdone. 
July 13, 2015
Yes, Semna is coming!
1. 1939, Administration building Johnson Wax, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. By then the biggest office floor ever (drawn after a photo).
2. 1962, Set design of 19th floor of insurance-company “Consolidated” by Alexandre Trauner for the movie The Apartment, Billy Wilder (drawn after seeing the movie).
3. 2015, café Graffiti on La Brea, LA. Designed as an “airy monochromatic space, with the clack-clack of people writing their screenplays” (drawn at location).
I wonder why I combine this very trendy café with those two offices. To express “infinity, anonymity and insignificance” Trauner had children sitting on the far offices, further on taken over by cardboard figures. The airy, totally black and white Graffiti-cafe expresses some of the same neutral feeling but then as a blank slate for each individual thought. It is the repetition of the white round tables (way more than I drew) that reminds me of the columns in the Johnson Wax office, the beginning of the modern office. The creative person here is happy in a work spot with a nostalgic touch of the modern office.
June 21, 2015 Metro-rail station MacArthur Park
MacArthur park is the oldest park of LA and was one of LA’s most popular outdoor retreats a century ago. During the 1980s it became the place for immigrants who fled from civil wars in Central America, to learn how to get around in LA and also to get a false ID or, in the 1980s, to become a gang member. Although parts of the neighborhood has gentrified, the adjoining streets are still packed with street vendors, homeless people and families shopping around. The park is the busiest and liveliest one I have seen in LA until now. Even the metro has a certain vibe of “hanging out.” I assume you could still call MacArthur Park an “arrival city” (Dough Saunders).
June 11, 2015
Yes, Saskia landed in LA!
May 29, 2015
Are you a Vessel Virgin or a Treadle Trooper?
The majority of the biking community here looks like the treadle trooper. Joes and I are vessel virgins (named as such by our neighbor, she does creative writing). By the way, in case of Joes, he wears a suit instead of a dress, but that evokes the same amount of questions.
May 25th, 2015
I see a lot of coffeehouse interiors. I stood next in line to this man and was caught by his minilandscape. So much design in a square inch. 
patriciabijvoet 