Celebrated photographer Julius Shulman dies at 98. We once shared a morning.

When I graduated from architecture school in 1989, I moved to Los Angeles immediately because I loved what was happening there, architecturally, at that moment. Frank Gehry’s smaller residential projects, Fred Fisher’s exposed CMU, Koning Eizenberg’s and Josh Schweitzer’s colorful assemblages. And I’d always loved the kitschy farce of Hollywood, and Disneyland, and 1950’s motels, and Googie coffeeshops and carwashes. But I knew almost nothing about “the California Modernists”. When a friend from high school told me to swing by the office he rented in the Schindler House (THE Schindler House), I asked “what’s that?”. The School of Architecture at UT Austin has always made the “top 10″ list, but in the age of PostModernism, apparently this particular era/genre didn’t merit study. Or even mention, really, save a footnote on Harwell Hamilton Harris, as he was Dean at UT in the 50’s.

But my first, tiny apartment was two blocks from a Neutra house which I fell in love with from every angle. I got invited to a party at the Strathmore Apartments. And I started to find out how amazing and abundant the work of these architects was. Friends from my office took me on tours, and there were guide books with maps, even though at the time MANY of these homes were in disrepair and were often threatened with being torn down. It was when you could still buy an Eames chair at a garage sale, and Silver Lake wasn’t yet SILVER LAKE. And you could rent an office in THE Schindler House. I devoured and learned and noticed that every photograph in every guide book seemed to be by Julius Shulman.

A few years later, I was allowed to accompany Laura and her classmates from SCI-arc as they toured Shulman’s home and studio, with Shulman himself as the tour-guide. It was an amazingly intimate morning.

He told stories about having his assistant tear branches off shrubs and stand just-out-of-frame holding them high to “create foreground”. And about Raphael Soriano’s struggles with feeling “untalented” (Soriano designed the amazing Shulman home where we sat, and later moved to Marin County, where he designed the first mass-produced steel home for Eichler). We toured his detached brick and glass studio, then spent most of our time in the outdoor space between the buildings. We got to peer into the main house through its large windows, and I remember admiring the blonde, built-in seating. When his wife Olga brought out drinks and snacks, things changed. The presentation was thoughtful, and her kindness was clear. But the sweetrolls she served were store-bought and freezer-burned. I suddenly had an understanding of Modernism and how real people inhabit it. That moment, with those danish, really impacted me.

And given the chance, Laura and I still refer to less-than-delicious pastries as tasting “kind of Shulman”.

CLICK HERE for LATimes article