Masala House, 1976
Intro:
My hometown Perth in Western Australia is not an adventurous place, and not particularly sophisticated. Founded in 1829, it's one of Australia's only capital cities that was free settled, ie it didn't have a large penal colony, which meant there was no cheap labour to build all the grand buildings you see in cities like Sydney and Melbourne. Perth has always been more modest, and unassuming.
That's why the mind boggles to think that tucked away in the blandest of beachside suburbia, there are concrete block houses designed by Bulgarian immigrant Iwan Iwanoff which must be some of the most revelatory examples of 50s-70s home design. I'm not an architect or even a dabbler in architecture, but when I saw Iwanoff's Masala house, like some sprawling Incan temple hidden at the end of a cul de sac in a whitebread nowhere suburb, I knew I'd found something truly extraordinary.
If Iwanoff had settled anywhere else in the world, he'd be an international icon, but he settled in Perth, the most isolated city at the ass end of the world. So here's a little day dedicated to his memory and his incredible houses.
Tigersare
Kessel House, 1975
Iwanoff bio:
IWANOFF, IWAN (1919-1986), architect, was born on 2 July 1919 at Küsstendil (Kyustendil), Bulgaria, elder son of Nickolai Iwanow, journalist and poet, and his wife Maria, née Schopowa. Raised in an artistic family, Iwan studied fine arts before undergoing military training. On his father’s advice, in 1941 he enrolled in architecture in Germany at the Technische Hochschule, Munich (Dip.Eng. And Arch., 1946). He graduated with high praise for an exceptional final project, a design for a chapel. Known as Iwan Nickolow Iwanow as a child, he changed his name to Iwan Nickoloff Iwanoff during his student years, and soon further simplified it to Iwan Iwanoff. In the difficult postwar years, he lived at Laufen, Bavaria, and supplemented his income by selling caricatures. On 25 October 1947 at the registrar office, Laufen, he married Dietlinde Hildegunde Zenns. In 1948-49 he worked with the modernist architect Emil Freymuth at Munich.
Migrating to Australia as part of the International Refugee Organization resettlement scheme, Iwanoff and his wife arrived at Fremantle, Western Australia, on 2 March 1950. He was offered employment as a draughtsman with Krantz & Sheldon, Perth, a large architectural firm specialising in the design of flats, and in time became senior draughtsman in charge of staff. He also took on private architectural projects. In 1956 he was naturalised. He worked with the Melbourne architectural firm of Yuncken, Freeman Bros, Griffiths & Simpson in 1960. After a visit to West Germany, where he was accepted as a member of the Bund Deutscher Architekten (Federation of German Architects), he returned in December 1961 to Krantz & Sheldon. In 1963 he obtained registration as an architect in Western Australia and Victoria, and immediately established the Studio of Iwanoff in Perth. He became an associate of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects in 1964 and a fellow in 1972.
A gifted architect, Iwanoff had exceptional drawing abilities, an innovative `expressionistic’ approach to design and detailing and, above all, a conviction that architecture was an art. In 1963-86 his small office produced work of high quality, including numerous houses. His creative use of concrete blocks drew richness out of every aspect of the utilitarian. The Iwanoff house, Lifford Road, Floreat Park (1965-67), a combination of architectural office and living accommodation, is a fine example. He also designed shop fronts and interiors in central Perth, and one larger project, the civic administration centre and public library at Northam (1969-74).
Although dapper and charming, Iwanoff displayed many contradictions. He could be cautious with strangers but was outgoing with friends and clients. Architectural students regarded him as a friend and mentor. Despite his commitment to Australia Iwanoff remained a European in spirit, valuing the artistic traditions and standards of excellence that Europe represented and hopeful that Australians would aspire to these values. Survived by his wife and their two sons, he died of pneumonia on 7 October 1986 in Perth and was buried in Karrakatta cemetery. In 1991 the Library and Information Service of Western Australia held an exhibition of his architectural drawings, most of which are held by the State Archives of Western Australia.
Kessel house interior, 1975
Iwanoff props:
"Iwan Iwanoff. Ivan Ivanoff. Cool name, cool houses. Many people know the name of this Bulgarian born architect, who decided to design some of Australia's most cutting edge homes of the 60's and 70's, right here in Perth. Those who don't are usually amazed that Dianella, of all places, is perhaps the epicentre of the Iwanoff world. Examples are also found in City Beach, Floreat, Mount Lawley, Cottesloe, Coolbinia, and Karrinyup.
"Frank Lloyd Wright meets Mike Brady. Marsala House, 1977, Dianella. Spectacular. This, like many others here, is world class. If Marsala was in LA, there would be 30 years of magazine articles on it by now." - 6000times.com
Iwanoff houses:
Golovin House, 1959
Unnamed house, 1970s
Feldman House, 1968
Paganin House, 1965
Unnamed house, 1970s
Burszyten House interior, 1969
Iwanoff Letterboxes:
Iwanoff Extras:
Iwan Iwanoff map of Perth and surrounds:
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF&msa=0&msid=102066571609221749107.00047f79ddb889322a952
6000Times - blog of Iwanoff primary champion Duncan Richards
http://www.6000times.com
Wikipedia link
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iwan_Iwanoff
Iwanoff himself:
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p.s. Hey. Please enjoy today's elegant introduction and structurally sound report re: the clearly under-known architect Iwan Iwanoff by/from internationally renowned d.l., recording artist, and record company honcho Tigersare. Your thoughts are invited, even urged. Thank you, Mr. T., and thanks to all d.l.s and any newbies for your attention and your graciousness. ** Dogboy, Thanks, man. I hope you get to see it somewhere, somehow. Yeah, it's pretty cool to be part of its creation. Being mostly stuck alone in my head when I make things, it's both quite exciting and complicated to make something along with other people. Collaboration: I recommend it. Worming: Well, in the master/slave context, it's when the slave wants to live so powerlessly in relationship to a master that he (or she, I guess) consents to having his arms and legs amputated, leaving him barely if at all mobile, totally undefended, and utterly dependent on the master for everything. The worm title comes, I suppose, from how this slave would wriggle around and, at best, inch across the floor if he needed to go anywhere. Sounds hot, right, ha ha? ** Renaud Cerqueux, Hey. Remind me when it gets closer to the time of the shows at the Pompidou, and I'll get you into the gig or into the dress rehearsals or whatever if I can. ** Stephen, Hey. All's well, just too, too fucking hot at the moment. And the French only do air-conditioning in emergency situations. Whine whine, sorry. I'm good. You too, I hope. ** Colin, Thanks, man. I don't know any details about how the Edinburgh gig got set up, just that the Festival asked for the show and booked it. So, I guess whoever curates that festival is the one responsible. Can't wait to read Perlongher's work. Thanks a lot again for that. That event you read at sounds really fun. I think more events should be kind of variety shows like that. It keeps everything so fresh, and I think putting a bunch of different mediums on the same level can add a kind of spark or an especially clean slate or something to a poet's reading. Mm, that makes no sense, I guess, but maybe you know what I mean. ** Misanthrope, Oh, ha ha, nice Star Wars story/ comparison. The thing with 'TIHYWD' is that for all the slideshows I've done, they haven't given you a sense of what the show really is like at all. It's so much about the sound, the time everything takes, the scenes that were too non-photogenic to show you, etc. Like the fog tempest is 15, 20 minutes long from its wispy beginning to its tripped out end, etc. What I've shown here hasn't really given the piece itself away much at all. Opening night is scariness central. I'll be so fucking glad when it's over, I hope. ** Jeff, Hey, Jeff! Great to see you! I'm glad you finally made the West Coast trip including getting to see Joe and Matt. Well, you'll have to come back out again when I'm either visiting or finally living there. I'm super friendly and easy going, so you wouldn't feel nervous with me, I don't think. And I definitely want to meet you and hang out, obviously. I'm doing okay here, just too busy. I hope you're doing well too. Sounds like it. ** Wolf, Hey! Man, I'm excited and scared for you guys to see it. More than any of our other pieces, I feel pretty clueless about what people are going to think. Mm, not sure if your camera would be confiscated. That seems kind of extreme. But, yeah, you can leave it with me for the show's duration if need be. When do you get in? We'll have to figure out how to meet up. My internet access is going to be pretty limited while I'm in Avignon. But you have my cell number, right? ** David Ehrenstein, Hey, David. Delaney's book is really swell, yeah. Wow, Stubby Kaye ... that's a name I haven't in a while. My mom loved him. Danny Kaye too. All the Kayes, male and female. ** Changeling, Hey, man. The worming definition is up the p.s. just a ways. Make sense? Jonathan S's real hair is really, really curly, that's the big difference. Sure, paste the post into an email, that's fine. Whatever is easiest. If there's anything confusing when I get it or whatever, I'll just write to you and tell you what's what, and can fix anything then. Thank you a lot, C. Oh, yeah, it's hot and kind of wet as hell here in Paris right now. I hate it. I hate the summer. And I'm about to go to Avignon where it's 37 to 40 degrees in the shade every day. Yikes. ** Dooflow, That's kind of true for me sometimes with Gober's stuff. His stuff walks a pretty wispy line. Oh, yeah, Makavejev is really cool. I haven't seen that film described at the end of your link. (I must be on the NYT's good side since I was lead straight to the review). What have you seen by him? What are your faves? I should do a Day on him. Hm, okay, I will. Thanks much! ** Paul Curran, I'm going to stick around the WC in the limited fashion I've been doing until Holland and Ghana are out, I think. Then I'll watch the Final as an excuse to pound back a rare beer or three, I'm sure. But hooray for your novel! ** L@rstonovich, Jim does seem kind of curmudgeonly about the GbV thing. Curious. I'll have to try to find out why. Las Vegas, absolutely, not a shred of doubt that I'm going to be there. ** Alan, Ah, thank you, Alan. That's, yeah, that's really kind of you. Thank you, really, thank you! ** Killer Luka, Oh, I so hope so. I guess you'll be able to tell from my post-premiere tone of voice. ** Bill, Do you have my French cell phone number? Did I give it to you already? I should if I didn't due to the aforementioned small amount of internet time I'm likely to have while there. ** Sypha, Humbling 2010 reading list you've got there, needless to say. I was doing pretty good myself until the novel and theater piece hit high gear at the same moment and swamped almost all of my time. ** JW Veldhoen, My Satanic optimism, ha ha, that's nice. Nostalgia can have total validity, of course. I just think it's the enemy to be fraternized with only when progress would feel empty without it or something. Systems running down, time as decay, etc. ... Well, new things sometimes need the past to be mulch. My optimism usually involves plucking myself and my own decay out of the world. Time seems more realistic without me in it or something. ** Stan_cz, Made it back, thanks. It's too fucking hot here, though. Yeah, you'll figure something out on the job front. You're nothing if not resourceful. ** Allesfliesst, Hey! How great to see you! I've been making do with your great Transductions entires while you've been away. A belated and ongoing deep bow on that front. Oh, sucks about the Graz time screw-up thing. I'll be really surprised if the piece doesn't come to Berlin. We actually had a firm offer and venue there, but it would have been before Graz, and Graz put some dough into the show, and they threatened that if the piece were performed anywhere in Germany or Austria before they showed it, they'd pull their financing out. Ridiculous political, ego stuff. Hugs to you, my friend! I hope you'll get a chance to be around here more after you get through your stuff. You've been missed. ** Amccartney, Hi, Alistair. Yeah, I heard about the UCLA intl./budget drying up. That may fuck us for bring this new piece to LA, I'm not sure. We'll know better after all the intl. big wigs start seeing the show next week. Congrats on the week off. Melt away. We're literally melting over here in the heat, and not the relatively charming dry LA heat either. Thanks for the kind words, man. My very best to you and to Tim too until further notice. ** Little foal, Hey. Oh, so very glad to hear things are brighter than ever with your best friend, of course. Hm, I don't think I ever read 'Fear of Flying', not even when it was 'the thing' when I was 'young', which is strange. I'm horrible at saving money too. The only way I can sort of save money is to basically buy myself absolutely nothing, which is basically what I do, which is basically why I dress like I'm the only human who survived a nuclear holocaust or something. And stuff like that. Oh, score on your parents and brother going away! You'll get the thrill of being a little kid home alone again plus the oomph that comes along with things that a little kid can only dream about in sketches. Score! ** Syreearmwellion, Thanks, man. I hope you get to see it somewhere. Well, first I hope it's good enough for you to see it somewhere. Have to leap those hurdles in order. The cool thing about the Cobre Verde and post-CV GbV was that their shows got so lengthy. The 'classic' line up erred on the side of brevity, but that had its own jolts. But I can talk for weeks straight about GbV if you get me going. Not a good idea, ha ha. Hey, road trip to Vegas, a d.l. convergence, what do you say? ** Inthemostpeculiarway, Hey! Wow, you're back! Naturally, I've been thinking and wondering about you. Well, what exactly is going on in your body to make all that bad stuff happen? Do they know? I mean, it's a bit spooky and worrying on this end, you know? That needs to stop. The doctor needs to make that stop. Period. Well, of course, I look forward to hearing what's been going on with you, if your waking time and energy allow. My day: Did the blog, rambled to the train station and did the usual 4 1/2 hour ride, a ride that thankfully I don't think I'll need to do again until next March. The ride was whatever -- read magazines, smoked, talked to the nice and quite cute guy seated next to me about music. When I got back to Paris, it was boiling hot, and the metro was jam-packed, and it was a sweaty misery. Got home, chilled as best I could. It was Kiddiepunk's birthday, so he and Oscar and I had a b'day dinner at this very good half-vegan/half-not restaurant in the Marais called Passage Oblige. Then we got gelatos and walked around in the heat for a little white. Mine was half-pineapple sorbet, half-Tiramisu ice cream. Then we came back here and went our respective ways. I decided that Yury and I really need to buy a fan, so I'm going to do that today. I ate some food that had been in the refrigerator since I left for Brest and which was semi-still-edible, and then I crashed and sweated/sort of slept all night. That was it. Okay, hoping you feel a lot better today, and wanting to hear what you did and how you are. ** Steevee, Van Der Graaf Generator, nice! Other Music as an FBI office, double nice! Oh, I hardly think 'High Fidelity' owns the idea of a record store scene, and, even if it does, it's high time that its version of that scene get a serious competitor. ** Nb, Hey, All you guys reading and being about to read 'SiH' is making me feel strangely naked, and I promise that I'll keep my cam turned off until the book has had its day, which should be easy since I don't have a cam. That I know of. ** Creative Massacre, Oh, great that the Houston trip went so well! So, things with you and her were, you know, good, ha ha? Yeah, I look forward to hearing about it. It's really good to see you, pal! ** David, Well, I look forward to coming across your profile over at Recon. Heck, maybe you'll even end up here! Nice to have a Fassbinder exploration ahead of you. It's a long, rich one. I should pass along your suggestion, right? Everyone, here's the wondrous writer and d.l. David: 'Look, voyeurs and fans of the male form. www.tapthatguy.com is a tumblog of sneaked photos of the urban human male in his habitats - the subway, Pride weekend in Chicago, Best Buy. Not surprisingly, the beast appears to be scrutinizing a textscreen in many of these shots.' I was going to say what self-respecting gay bookstore needs to be coerced into ordering my book, but then I woke up, ha ha. Thanks for the coercion, btw. ** Brendan, Hey. We want to bring one of our pieces to LA badly. We've been trying hard for a while. No dough, not a ton of interest from LA venues. If 'Kindertotenlieder' plays in NYC next January as is hoped, maybe we can tour it in the US and hit LA. Otherwise, it'll probably be 'Jerk' at some point since it's the cheapest. Not sure what to make of the non-response to the Stahl suggestion. I probably need to do a more forefronted, official announcement re: the book club to find out who wants to do it. Should I go ahead and do that? I haven't yet opened your email, but I'm sure whatever is in it will shiver my timbers. In the right, dreamy sense of 'shiver'. I'll get to it right away. Skylight just doesn't love me anymore. That's it, right? Out of sight, out of mind. Oh, that's so sad. ** Schlix, You got that job! That's awesome! I mean, that is awesome, right? You're ready to move to south to have that job, yes? Like I was saying to Allesfliest, there was a firm offer for 'TIHYWD' from Berlin a while back, but politics caused it not to happen. I think the deal is that the same place will host the show, but later on in time. I'll let you know. ** Math, Thanks, buddy! How's everything? How's the vacation time working out? ** Bollo, Thanks, J. Off I pop too. What a coincidence. ** Tender Prey, Hey, Mark! Thanks for braving the spoilers-filled post to sneak in here, ha ha. Can't wait to see you guys!!! Sure, June 2011 would be fine. Whatever is good for you. Then or earlier or whatever works out. I'm just way into doing the show. I mean, there's always the chance I won't be living in Paris at all by then, but that's a long shot, I guess. We can talk about it in Brest if not before. And about your upcoming shows and your new work too, I hope! ** Tomkendall, Well, I'm just glad you're writing even a bit. You've just got keep it percolating somewhere in your brain, worst comes to worst. Ha ha, nice report by that girl. She nailed you, man, ha ha! I hope that whatever that sickness is, it's either a phantom or a fly-by. Love to you, T. ** I leave you in Tigersare's hands. I'm going to go buy a fan, sweat all the way there and all the way home and then maybe sweat a little less. See you tomorrow.
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