301

Drawing (301) from THE BASIS OF MAKE-UP

"The ground plan of the villa that Richard Neutra built for Josef Sternberg in San Fernando Valley in 1935. The black oval cut-outs are pools or ponds for exotic fish. Navy pilots of the adjacent airfields used the villa, whose ground plan was similar to an aircraft carrier, as an approach target for their bombing exercises. Sternberg sold the villa due to constant noise nuisance. Moreover, he did not want to live someone else’s dream. This was directed against Richard Neutra, a nice interjection countering megalomaniac architectural modernism. In front, a young aircraft gunner, photographed by Wayne Miller aboard the USS Ticonderoga on November 5, 1944, the day on which he was to bomb Manila with his comrades. On the sleeve of his uniform jacket, the picture of another youth conceived by the German Border Police: a member of the GSG 9 levelling a machine gun." (From: arsenal, march 09).

(1994)

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