Moby Los Angeles Architecture Blog

i guess some people would have an architectural blog and actually focus on architecture. that would make sense.
but for whatever reason, possibly owing to unresolved and proustian childhood issues, i just like to look at oddball buildings and places in l.a, which occasionally sometimes have architectural significance.

today’s building has, unless one is willing to cast a broad net of criteria, no architectural significance.
it’s a bail bond shop.
and i’m including it because:

i think it looks like a time capsule from 1961.
it’s a generic building, but put ‘bail bond’ on the front and all of a sudden it’s no longer a generic building. suddenly with that little semiotic signifier it becomes a dark and desperate building, populated by desperate people.
re: ‘b’, at least that’s what it does for me.
i’m still sad that i didn’t get to major in semiotics at brown. of all the academic disciplines i kind of believe that semiotics has the most relevance to our daily lives. even moreso than psychology or philosophy or religious studies.
this list has strayed.
we judge buildings from one temporal and contextual perspective, but other people, (like, perhaps: in the future), will judge buildings from a different temporal and contextual perspective. sometimes i think it’s ok to like something but not fully understand why you like it or if the object of your liking has any broad or grand significance. but maybe, intuitively, you know it’s interesting, even if most people would dismiss it as random or odd or generic. kind of like this bail bonds place.
i think it looks cool.
it still seems odd to me that in the middle of hollywood there are run down bail bonds places. and pawn shops. and strip clubs. and $59 a night motels.
it’s odd to me that hollywood, the land of dreams and sunshine, is still a repository for so much odd, archetypal noir stuff. and not just stuff that looks like old timey noir, but stuff that is noir in it’s truest sense, the haunts of desperate people cobbling together desperate lives and trying to find meaning and happiness and solidarity on the edges of polite societies garbage.
this list has probably gone on long enough.

ok, so a beautiful, dark, odd, pawn shop in the middle of hollywood, hidden under some old trees and facing a crumbling street and a crumbling city.
one of many reasons to love los angeles.

thanks

moby