Page 38 - Studio International - September October 1975

Los Angeles it has become something of a as the ultimate in schizophrenia is the somewhat transformed by
major art form — architectural cosmetics. Security Marine Bank in Wisconsin Supergraphics,5 which also destroys
In fact, Farmer John carries on the (Fig 13), an ordinary clapboard building visual coherence for another purpose :
Hollywood tradition both in style and on one side and a stuck-on billboard of the liner 'Independence' has been
content; pure forests are set behind classical architecture on the other. The repainted by Peter Harrison with an
ever-clipped lawns, friendly little billboard front signifies 'bank' since it abstract rising sun and enigmatic, angry
animals — like the menagerie of uses the customary signs of pediment and eyes that seem to be emerging from out of
Disneyworld — inhabit a wild west that is column which are associated with this the sea (Fig is). Why the image ?
always tame and never polluted. Both function. But it also signifies symbolism Liners are socially respectable and don't
Arnold Jordan, the muralist, and the itself since the communicating element need to be hidden. The motive is once
stage-set designers at MGM paint on is so clearly detached and at odds with again advertisement, to attract people
a scale which is almost life-size. Clearly the main structure. One part of the onto a pleasure-boat by adopting a most
trompe l'oeil is the norm in a city of film building tells the story, the other part unsuitable and outrageous image. The
studios and billboards. Stage sets and actually works. This is not an unnatural law for effective display directly
backdrops 3o by 200 feet are produced division of labour and indeed it has contradicts the norm for modern
as a matter of course, and specially existed for a long time in Main Street architects : the more unrelated a form is
painted billboards spring up and are America with its false fronts and attached to its function the better, the more
resurfaced with amazing rapidity. The signboards. unforgettable. You're bound to
fact that this art form is so ephemeral may The logic of commerce radically remember this sinister, Japanese-like
account for the fact that 'serious' artists dissociates architecture into symbolic and terror ship the next time you want to go
have not for the most part entered the aesthetic areas on the one hand and dancing, even if you settle in the end for
field. There are exceptions such as the cheap, well-serviced space on the other, something more subtle.
Fine Arts Squad and Wayne Holwick, and this dissociation is counter to most Inappropriateness as a virtue has
who has produced several portraits on architectural norms of consistency. An found its zenith in the Los Angeles
buildings (Fig 9). In part however the obvious reason why architects object is custom cars which are in the shape of
genre is confined to amateurs who that this takes away any expressive everything including oversized male
personalize their house by placing their possibilities that aren't directly organs (Fig 16). Of course a car has
self-portrait on it. Quite a few of these connected with symbolism and, more always been a natural and implicit sign
houses exist in Santa Monica to serve as annoying still, hands them over to of male virility, but to make it explicit —
literal identifications CI live in the house non-architects such as sign painters and with glans, veins and all the rest in pink
that looks like me'). commercial artists. They have a point. flesh colour — is pushing way beyond the
Another motive for 'fooling the eye' The result is often a boring separation frontiers of plausibility. The disguise
is quite inevitably profit. Commercial of form and function, sign and use — wouldn't fool anyone, not even a virgin
buildings have to attract the passing the large banks on Park Avenue for aunt. There is no real reason for it except
motorist in a striking and unambiguous example. But when the duality is at its to shock — and seeing this phallus
way. Hence restaurants have become most extreme and brazen, it can travelling straight towards you at sixty
the building type which is by convention actually have wit. Each facade of the miles per hour is enough to make you
now the most colourful and odd. I know Security Bank mocks the other. drive right off the road to a psychoanalyst.
of at least five restaurants which are in Putting on the false facade is not the A monstrous joke, it prompts the
converted airplanes and, of course, prerogative of architects or cosmeticians — question: 'and what does the garage look
phoney railroad cars have been an animals and plants are known to lie. like ?'
accepted tradition for 'Diners' for fifty They often use camouflage to hide from With these zany disguises we have
years. predators, or lure in the unsuspecting reached the Surrealist territory of
A masterpiece of commercial dupery meal by appearing luscious and edible, Magritte, where once-humble objects
is the Fiore D'Italia Restaurant, again in much as the restaurant entices the unwary have suddenly jumped out of their
Los Angeles (one imagines that it was and hungry motorist. An insect mimics everyday station in life and taken over
tarted up by an out-of-work MGM a twig for protection, moths can imitate control of the mansion. Magritte painted
artist). Basically it is just a decorated leaves and flowers, but the classic liar an ordinary apple in a bare room. The
shed, a one-storey blank box made is the chameleon who can become an problem is that the apple has expanded
from standard steel joists and crud- ersatz rock when necessary. Piero beyond the bounds of propriety to
board, which is all Roman pretension on Gilardi, an Italian designer of synthetic occupy all the room, forcing the
the front (Fig 10) and sudden, joyful environments, has followed the example inhabitants to flee. Just your average
disclosure on the back (Fig II). The of the chameleon and designed large green apple gone mad. Why ? We demand
emperor, as it were, delights in losing half ersatz rocks which are actually bouncy, an explanation of this eviction order. It's
his clothes. In fact as you travel around squashy, lightweight blobs of bound to be some absurd pun (an apple
this building you delight in finding polyurethane painted in various shiny a day keeps everyone away) overstepping
duplicity a cause for celebration. The colours that you can sit on. These rocks its bounds.
entrance has ersatz swags and urns and are comfortable seats, and when Things won't stay put in our
fibreglass statuettes, some of which are children discover the deception they environment any longer. They have lost
only half there (the other half pretends to actually go mad with excitement. They their place in the social order and on the
be embedded in the pretend stone), and stumble and pounce over them and hurl cosmic scale. The grand systems of social
when you turn the corner all of this them about the room, as if they had rank and metaphysical order which used
phoney symbolism turns into trompe suddenly become King Kong. In this to provide stability and coherence for
l'oeil painting of phoniness — a triple lie case, ersatz transforms the participant as objects have crumbled, or been jumbled
(Fig 12). Yet the symbolism is well as the object. together in a confusing mess. This leaves
appropriate for all its lies, not only Something like camouflage is now us not without signification, but with
because restaurants are now being used on aspects of the environment too much significance — an endless
conventionally pseudo-vernacular, but which people find ugly, or about which profusion of meanings cut off from their
also because in this case it is they would rather not know. Oil derricks habitual roots and doomed to float about
unmistakably in the same style as the in Los Angeles are dressed up as in an hallucinatory world where they
food served. You start to appreciate skyscrapers, while water tanks and oil can tie up with anything.
little jokes such as the mechanical drums are disguised as golf balls, a The situation can be put very simply.
equipment incorporated into the Roman natural disguise when the shape is the Traditional societies limit the area of
motifs, a bizarre confrontation of gods same (Fig 14). Warships have been artistic expression to conventionally
and electricity of which a Surrealist would camouflaged by strong patterns which significant subject-matter: religious,
be proud. This is the kind of break up the overall shape and make communal and habitual meanings are
mad amalgamation that modern them appear either as part of a dock, or accentuated and put together according
architects have sought to avoid with their random flotsam and jetsam which might to restricted formulae. Never a Madonna
integrated style and high-seriousness. be floating around in the water. This with a brick in her lap. Western
A building which they would condemn tradition of camouflage has been industrial societies, on the other hand,

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