East Meets Eames

In Germany, there is very little influence from Eastern culture, but here you see it everywhere--in sushi bars, in gardens, in New Age religions,” marvels artist Karl Dietz, who moved from Berlin to L.A. in 1989. As it happened, Dietz and his wife, Katharina Ehrhardt, were also struck by the sleek modernist designs of Charles Eames. “In Venice, we lived on Brooks Avenue, next to Eames’ former studio,” he recalls. “We didn’t know much about him before. He was our California discovery.”

Fast-forward to 1994, when Dietz and Ehrhardt resettled in a 1960s fourplex apartment in Santa Monica, adding subtle Asian accents to the interiors and furnishing them with select Eames pieces. The bedroom features a low, futon-like platform bed that Dietz built out of maple; he also designed the flat, spare dining table, desk and benches. And shoji screens conceal the closets in two rooms. “I liked the semi-transparency of the rice paper,” Dietz says. “It doesn’t close up the wall the way solid or mirrored doors would.” The living area brings together an original Eames molded plywood lounge chair and coffee table, steel and hopsack sofa and fiberglass chair. “I liked how he picked up on Bauhaus aesthetics and the way he researched and played with materals,” Dietz says. “His whole work is very playful.”

Finally, Dietz incorporated his color field artwork throughout the space, keeping to a strict Zen-like minimalism. Above the sofa and bed are six-panel installations that appear to be architectural elements; in the combined dining and living area, the eye is drawn to a white wall painted in a quiet study of turquoise, olive and ochre-beige. “My house is my canvas,” the artist says. “We wanted the art to be the primary focus, so we kept the furnishings as simple as possible.”