Standard Shoes

 “making it exhibit like”

John Marshal High School

Interview with Bernard Zimmerman  Page 2

BZ:   One of the last times I was with Neutra, we were at the bottom of the hill, and he wanted to visit that house. So we went to the bottom of the hill and he sat there and looked at it. I think he was proud of it, but felt like he didn't do enough either. He wanted to do more. I think it was within a year or two of his death, as we were sitting on the ground below the house, talking to each other, and I was trying to say to him, because he was writing more, that he should be doing more architecture. But you know they say that every architect has one or two projects and that's about it. (Laughs) Maybe Neutra felt like Ray Kappe, that he did it and he can't beat that house.

 I brought the theory of Charles Eames, I guess you should say Charles and Ray Eames, to the market place. We made a lot of money for people and we did a lot of good environments for people. 

 A lot of commercial work is going backwards, is going back to that playing card table with a table clothe over it and putting the merchandise on top. So, while some people are using high design, to bring people in, others are using low design to make sure people believe they are not being overcharged. I like bringing design to them, I think we did some significant things. The Standard Shoes account, was a very important in terms of graphics, architecture and interiors. Dorman Winthorp, nobody ever saw a discount store look so nice. My planning work was good. Probably the most significant thing that I've done in the importance of the community was working with Jim Pulliam in Old Town Pasadena. That is really a marvel that it even happened. Because it was done thirty-five years ago, when we started. It was even done before the LA 12, (laughs), and it's turned out. Now there is a good example of where you set the parameters and then people carry it through. So somebody should study that and see why that is working and others places are not. Why can you have an Old Town Pasadena that works wonderfully and you can't put Westwood together. Or downtown LA. I would like to work in downtown LA. Most of the planning work we did, Century City, Bunker Hill, we never followed through on the plan. You know you can't follow through one hundred percent on the plan. I guess the other thing I think people should remember is that I'm very active in public service. I think being part of the committee to save Watts Tower is equally important. Watts Tower, Marshal High, Elysian Park. So I think that my life would be fulfilled if I was remembered just for that.
 

Right now working on Frank Gehry's Concert Hall, I feel a part of it. I just love that building and I don't know why. People tell me I'm nuts, they ask why am I not working on my own stuff. But I am working on my own stuff; it's just not as interesting as that building. It seems exciting to be a part of that building and if it gets built and comes out as good as I think it should, that's fine. The sad thing about it is it doesn't have the right site for such a great building. It's walled in by other mediocre pieces of architecture. But as a building, it could be very, very exciting for the City. So like a piece of sculpture, I like it. So I would like to be remembered for those things.

v5:  Where those hard battles, for instance, saving the Watts Tower?

BZ:  Very hard. The Watts Tower, I don't know if someone wrote about it, but it was one of the hardest battles ever fought. You know, I was telling Joe Addo the other day, that they actually did not accept that it would work structurally, everything else we won the battle and they would say they are dangerous structures. So they put a crane to the building and pulled the building and it broke the crane. (laughs) You have no idea how long that battle was.
 

“Rush City Reformed” Drawing of streets and housing blocks. Richard Neutra 1920s.

v5:  What were the forces against the Watt Towers? Who wanted it removed?

BZ:   The City of Los Angeles, the building and safety department. They said it was a danger to the community and it would fall.

v5:  They saw no redeeming value to the work?

BZ:  They did not see any redeeming value at all. We did get a lot of support though.

v5:  Didn't  Mies van der Rohe write a letter of support for the Watts Tower?

BZ:  I don't remember that, I  don't think so. I don't think Mies was bothered with that. But we had a lot of good people. I'd have to go through the names. It was classified as one of the finest of folk arts pieces of the world. Ray Kappe's friends were involved in saving it and there is a very wonderful film, I haven't seen it for a long time, which is on the Watts Towers. But even right now, the NEA, I understand, is going to close, because they don't have a budget. The budget they are giving them is only enough to close them down. Nobody is excited about them. I've been trying to figure out why people are not getting ready for that fight. It's an important battle that we have, the National Endowment of the Arts, and it's wonderful. Probably in the next few months, I will work on that. I try to take the most important issues that are coming forward and get involved with them. I'm very lucky I can do that, I like that fight.  Elysian Park is an important decision. Right now I'm trying to get the ballpark out of Elysian Park and put it down into the sports area and return the land to the park space and housing.

v5:  Neutra had designed a large housing project in that area?

BZ:  It's a shame that it didn't go ahead. But it would probably be in shambles by now. I haven't visited Nuetras' other housing projects that he did during the 1940's and 1950's, but a lot of them were in bad shape.  Those things have to be funded. We do not do a proper job for housing in America. We do not take care of people's needs. Neutra told me that he couldn't understand America, and the first slums he ever saw was in America, he never saw slums in Europe.

v5:  The history of public housing in this country has been dismal.

BZ:  Dismal. Government doesn't know how to do it.

v5:  Should Government do it?

BZ:  Government does it in other countries. It's been successful. Although they can't keep up with the demand. You know in the social countries there is a five-year waiting list before you get housing. At least they don't do housing with a quality that is hard to take care of. You know its losing proposition, housing. You do housing that is supposed to last a hundred years or so, plus or minus, yet the quality is good for only twenty years. They keep it up, so it reverts to slums because we need that housing. So, we don't have a good housing policy, I don't know who does. There is a shortage of housing in Denmark and I would imagine it's the same in Switzerland and other countries. But if not government, then who is going to make up that difference? In America, if you do start doing subsidy, people play around with the subsidy, and make money from the subsidy. There are no altruistic attitudes about what to do. So we haven't solved the housing problem or the transportation system. People talk about Los Angeles being a dismal city or a problem city. I don't see that. I see Los Angeles as a very young city, totally to be redone. Probably the most important thing in LA is to save some of the quality buildings and housing in the Modern Movement.

v5:  What determinants do you consider to have had the greatest impact on Los Angeles?

BZ:  The loss of the downtown area for everyone. The Hispanics saved the downtown area, you know Broadway, but it's not a vital place yet.

v5:  You once told me you grew up working in Grand Central Market.

BZ:  I grew up in the East Side of Los Angeles. During the Second World War there was a shortage of help, so I had a good job when I was twelve or thirteen years old when I worked at Grand Central Market. It was a wonderful place.

v5:  It still is today.

BZ:  It doesn't have as much character as it had then. You find it a wonderful place today?

v5:  Absolutely.

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