Pure solutions

As daylight fades on a nondescript Beverly Boulevard strip mall, a pastel-blue light snaps on in a translucent window, bathing an outdoor terrace in its ethereal glow. The ordinariness of the space disappears, transformed by this silent homage to a light sculpture by James Turrell. In a divine L.A.-style marriage of art and commerce, the source of this transformation is an illuminated bed in a tanning salon.

Designing interiors for tanning salons might seem an unlikely way to kick off an avant-garde architectural practice, but sparks sometimes can fly from even the most mundane commissions. For Frank Escher and Ravi GuneWardena, the subtle palette of light that emanates from a salon’s beds spoke to their taste for minimalist art. In 1997 they designed a pared-down salon in Beverly Hills, their first of three for Electric Sun owner Brian Heberling. Intrigued by the changing colors that ooze from the private spaces as each machine is turned on and off, they incorporated the illumination as an ever-evolving design element.

The project won them an honor award from the L.A. chapter of the American Institute of Architects, and also was a trigger for their inclusion in the upcoming “National Design Triennial: Inside Design Now,” opening April 22 at the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York. Their young firm, formed in 1995, is one of just 80 design teams represented in the prestigious exhibition, the museum’s second survey of architecture, product and graphic design, fashion and new media.

Yet despite their success, Escher and GuneWardena remain almost apologetic about their tanning salon designs, the last of which, completed in 2001, employs colorful wall panels printed with plant-like graphic images by L.A. artist Jonathan Williams. In a transient business, this third, the most dramatic of their designs for Electric Sun, is also the only one that still exists.

GuneWardena rolls his eyes when he thinks back to the early conversations on the projects. “Who wants to do a tanning salon?” he remembers thinking.

“We’ve never used them,” adds Escher.

But they’re glad they didn’t walk away. They now compare the final salon to lanterns blinking off and on in a variety of configurations. The effect on the space is, says Escher, like “images from Kabuki theater.”

Don Albrecht, curator of the Cooper-Hewitt show, cites such greats as Mies van der Rohe as among those who turned rudimentary buildings into works of art. “One of the nuances of design these days is to make a connection between art and architecture,” he says, lauding Escher and GuneWardena’s ability to “take something so ordinary and make it beautiful.”

No signature style

Partners in life as well as work, both architects are more inclined toward bookish pursuits than the sybaritic image a tanning salon might represent.

Escher, 42, was born in the United States but raised in Switzerland from the age of 5; he studied architecture in Zurich and moved to L.A. after graduation. He has edited a monograph on the work of L.A. modernist John Lautner, whose archives he oversees. He also serves as president of the Los Angeles Forum for Architecture and Urban Design, a nonprofit group that promotes dialogue on architecture and urbanism.

GuneWardena, 43, is doing research for a book on Buddhist temples in Los Angeles. Although born in Sri Lanka, he was not raised Buddhist, and his family immigrated to the United States when he was 8. But he has become increasingly intrigued by the contemplative quality of the religion and the spare design of its prayer spaces.

The duo’s projects are not defined by a single signature style, although their block-like shapes often share the simplicity of, say, minimalist sculptor Donald Judd’s compact, dense concrete cubes. Like Judd, Escher and GuneWardena intentionally pare down their designs as much as possible, aiming for only the purest solution to a problem. “Our work is not so much about developing forms,” says Escher. “It’s much more about developing what we refer to as quiet spaces.”

“We aim to reduce any distractions from the project to only what is required for the space,” adds GuneWardena. “Whether it be light or materials.”

Despite their cultural differences, the architects say their sensibilities meet in the middle. “Ravi has more tendency to absorb a situation and respond to what is there,” says Escher, “and I probably have much more tendency to control a situation. But I think our work is good because it gets worked on from both ends.”

Although they have done many commercial projects -- including the Ruth Bachofner Gallery in Santa Monica, the installation design of an exhibition of photography by Sharon Lockhardt at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, and a Vietnamese restaurant, called Pho, opening soon in Silver Lake -- their residential work allows them the most room to experiment. Two residences completed in 2000, one a restoration and the other a ground-up design, are defining works for the team.

The former involved a complete restoration and rethinking of the landmark Chemosphere House, built by James Lautner in 1960. A spaceship-like octagonal house perched on a concrete column off Mulholland Drive near Laurel Canyon, it was in terrible shape when it was purchased by the German art book publishers Benedikt and Angelika Taschen.

“We wondered, should we just go back to what Lautner created, or can we make changes to the house?” Escher says. “We ended up deciding that it was OK to make changes,” both because the Taschens were willing and because of technology that has become available since the house was built.

A slate floor replaced the original ceramic tile. Uninterrupted frameless glass circles the house, replacing off-the-shelf windows and enhancing the panoramic view of the hills and city. The architects also updated the kitchen and created a usable office space without losing the period feel. The house is now up-to-date and livable, earning the praise of even Lautner’s loyalists.

“The house is sparkling now,” says the legendary photographer Julius Shulman, who remains one of the most knowledgeable documentarians of mid-century L.A. architecture. “Frank Escher tore out all the junk and brought the house to a position that John would have loved.”

Balancing acts

At the same time they were working on the Chemosphere House, Escher and GuneWardena developed their own approach to hillside design in the Jamie House in Pasadena. This 1,700-square-foot, four-bedroom home is sited on an extremely steep lot with great views.

Built for Bryce Jamie, a systems analyst, and his wife, Rochelle, a Montessori school teacher, it rests on two 84-foot-long steel beams supported by two concrete towers; the raised design allowed the architects to leave the hillside terrain intact and at the same time fully enclose all of the utility connections within the supporting columns. A continuous open space extends from the family room at one end, through the kitchen and dining areas and into the living room. Bedrooms, the garage and other utility areas act as dividing walls, but no space is lost to unusable corridors.

To demonstrate the editing challenges in the creation of such a stark yet beautiful design, GuneWardena points to the fact that no solid wall meets another solid wall at a corner -- there is always a window. “It can often be something as simple as that,” he says.

Adds Escher: “One of our efforts was to make the house appear as large as possible, and not having a solid corner is a very simple trick to accomplish that. We also had to place the windows very carefully to frame the view. And we couldn’t have all windows without having a steel structure, but we had to build in wood because it’s much less expensive.”

Solutions to a client’s basic desires also can prove very dramatic. The Wilson/Praetorius Remodel, expected to go into construction in the spring, began with a request to build onto a traditional Craftsman house on a tight lot owned by Keith Wilson, chief curator of Asian art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and his partner Martin Praetorius, who runs a textile production business. They found themselves outgrowing their 1,000-square-foot 1920s bungalow in mid-city L.A., and the house had become somewhat dwarfed by the surrounding apartment buildings. Wondering whether to build up or out, they approached Escher and GuneWardena, longtime friends, over dinner one night. A series of conversations followed, and one day Escher suggested that they just lift the old house up and put it on a modern “pedestal.”

“Everyone laughed,” Wilson remembers, “and we all assumed it would be prohibitively expensive.” As it turns out, the practice of lifting houses is becoming increasingly common in property-starved areas of Los Angeles, such as Venice. It allows builders to expand a home and bring it up to current code while preserving the existing structure. “We’re getting a two-fer,” says Wilson. “We’re getting the space we want and a brand new 2003 up-to-code foundation.”

What they’re not getting is a patchwork bungalow, like many upgraded homes that dot the city. Escher and GuneWardena’s design juxtaposes a loft-like structure on the ground floor, housing all the public spaces, with the private spaces of the original, vintage structure upstairs. The former living room becomes the master suite, and the kitchen a large bathroom.

“We wanted to touch the old house as little as possible,” says Escher, “but we were very interested in the image of spaces beneath an ocean pier, where massive posts support a structure. There’s something very light and airy underneath a pier, even if it supports a conventional building. And that’s what we were interested in creating on the lower level.”

Toning down clutter

In conversation, both architects often refer in passing to their love for art and music, making analogies to Mozart or an array of contemporary artists. Their passion is evident in their hushed voices as they describe their reverence for lack of clutter and the absence of ostentation in any art form.

“It is something that exists in many cultures,” Escher says, mentioning the Shakers, American Midwestern farm architecture, as well as the Swiss insistence on functional form and Zen purism.

“We look for a particular element, like the light in the tanning salon, and we realize that is what the space is really about. If you tone down every other aspect and accentuate one single element, you can really celebrate it and give people something to notice, something that they wouldn’t have seen on their own.”