An Architect's Guide to Silver Lake
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I met Bestor on a Friday morning in her architecture office, a cool triangular space on Fountain Avenue in Silver Lake. -
Here's Bestor, ready to gather up some blueprints and chart out our driving tour. -
We started at Sunset Junction, one of the neighborhood's key intersections, where Sunset Boulevard and Santa Monica cross. In the immediate vicinity are a handful of cool shops, cafes, and storefronts—several of them designed by Bestor herself (including the cool Dangerbird Records). -
Also at that intersection is the Silver Lake branch of Intelligentsia Coffee, LA's leading cult coffee brand. Bestor's firm designed this space as well. -
Says Bestor: "It's my favorite local project as so many people use it regularly!" Here's a view of the tiled outdoor patio. -
The wood-and-tile interior was "inspired by the tile environments of Istanbul, mashed up with minimalist plywood wood boxes," says Bestor. The coffee is very, very good. -
We continued up the hill to Bestor's latest project: a house for her and her two daughters. Here's a view on the way—to me, this view just screams LA. -
Bestor was eager to show me her house—a massive renovation project, still in the early demolition phase. She bought the house in part for its heart-shaped swimming pool, a quadrant of which is pictured here. -
Bestor consulting with her demolition crew, in her kitchen-to-be. I'm hoping to get Bestor blogging about her renovation on Dwell.com—so stay tuned for that! -
Next up: a cruise down Silverlake Boulevard, where Bestor pointed out, behind a screen of trees, a pair of houses Richard Neutra developed speculatively in the early 1960s. -
Neutra Place is a dead-end street that's home to a slew of Neutra-designed houses—as well as a few by his son Dion Neutra, who actually lives on the street. -
Here's the Neutra VDL house, a great experimental house that's available for public viewing. For tours, see here. -
Bestor also pointed out the Rudolf Schindler-designed Bubeshko Apartments on Griffith Park Boulevard, which were recently renovated by the local DSH Architects. -
Unfortunately Speranza restaurant was closed when we drove by, but I stole a shot through the fence. The place is owned and run by Jens Hommert, an Austrian architect formerly with Rem Koohass/OMA, and his wife/partner Hu. Bestor says it's a major hangout for local architects and artists. It also has a pavilion done by the artist Jorge Pardo and modern furniture from the local shop Amsterdam Modern. -
I especially loved this classic art deco structure on Hyperion Avenue, known as "the Boat." It's owned and used as a recording studio by the Dust Brothers. -
Further down the road is this creative fence in front of Oyler Wu Collective’s home office. -
Bestor was especially excited to show off the Avenel Apartments on Avenel Street, a so-called "socialist housing project" by Gregory Ain. -
The front gate was closed but we entered anyway. Bestor is a big fan of the plant wall along the main walkway, which ties the various front entrances together and lends some visual detail to an otherwise simple form. -
We ended our tour with lunch at Forage, a lovely cafe with super-local food, sourced from backyards and local producers. Delish! Thanks for the tour, Barbara!
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