“52 stairs?” exclaimed Julius with a sharp scolding
tone.
“That’s ridiculous.” He eagerly exited the car
and paced up and down the street three times looking up
at our home. “Here! See this angle,” he professed as the
inconvenience of navigating the stairs at age ninety-eight
with his Porsche design walker succumbed to his curiosity
of architecture and his excitement of discovering where to
frame a view.
I assisted Julius up our stairs though he did not need much
help with the exception of retrieving his slippers every few
steps.
With a tight grip on the handrail, Julius
Shulman, the greatest American architecture photographer
on my arm, shuffled upwards, his eyes locked onto the
cantilevered wood box above him ignoring the 52 moments
of escalation. It was a dreamy Sunday afternoon with a
glowing haze common to Hollywood Hills in the late Fall.
Once inside I asked a simple question driven from my
nervous energy. “What do you think?”. “Quiet! Do you want
me to shoot it or not”?, Julius lashed out as he walked the
first of four circles around the interior of the house.
Shulman with a determined expression, raced his red
Porche through the open floor plan looking up to the left
and right searching for something.
Some two years prior to Mr. Shulman’s scouting visit I met
him at his house, arranged by a client who had befriended
the legend.
I traveled four blocks to Julius’ home
bringing a large scale model of the home I had planned to
build, not knowing if it would ever happen.
I sought
his opinion hoping to receive encouraging support and his
interest in photographing it.
With my entourage of
my wife and client, we visited Shulman in his studio. He
was spirited and energetic. His passion for architectural
photography had not dimmed through the decades, nor
quiet revealing the origin of the rumors about his
vociferous opinions.
I presented the home in a few short statements. A moment
of awkward silence followed before he bellowed, “Why
would you want to live in a prison” as he placed his hands
in a grid masking his face. Disapproving of my design to
clad the home in louvers he began a 45-minute scathing
critique of the errors and problems created by architects
through the decades and relating it to the design before
him. I sank into my chair feeling the brunt of his
disapproval and the weight of my predecessor’s mistakes
as Julius saw them. In a strident and billowing voice after
concluding his commentary he piped, “but call me when its
done,... Ill shoot it.
”My wife telephoned him after we had been
living in the house over a year, enticing him with
homemade borscht, Russian dumplings, and chocolates. He
responded to comfort food that reminded him of his
parents who immigrated from Russia. I still don’t know if
he came that day because of the photographic commission,
the food, or my wife's company.
After scouting the house Julius sat down on our sofa for
the better part of an hour discussing a variety of subjects,
and again after some highly critical and humbling jabs he
agreed to shoot it again.
On the day Shulman arrived
with
his camera his control of the production was like watching
a director and artist sculpting the spatial atmosphere to
create the vision he imagined while staring though the
viewfinder.
I followed him around hanging on his
words
until he snapped, “do you want me to shoot it or not!.”
At the beginning of the shoot in no more than a minute
he arrived at the back corner of the kitchen looking
through the dining room and into the sitting area beyond.
He had evaluated the future lighting conditions for the day
scheduling the other staked out shots relative to the ever
changing lighting conditions in a predominantly south
facing glass structure.
“This house is photogenic”, he stated in a
slow and highly articulated breath. My hand trembling from
nervous excitement, I slowly asked in the driest possible
voice, “why”? “Because of the rhythm of the repeating
beams” Julius offered. His energy that day was strong and
engaging, full of enthusiasm for his life’s work spanning
seventy-three years.
Sitting, eating, and working with this giant of
cultural significance has bestowed me with a story to add
to the documents about his life, and a small insight into
the man who successfully delivered to the world his
historic review of California modern architecture thorough
his art of photography…and his memorable opinionated
rants.
Julius, Thank you.
Jeffrey Eyster, M.Arch. Associate AIA
Abrahams+Eyster Architecture, Inc.
Julius Shulman Shooting Eyster Residence
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- Francesca Picchi
- 08 November 2009