The owners of the Huxley Apartments at Fountain and La Brea commissioned this artwork for a new courtyard adjacent to the sidewalk on La Brea Avenue. Our first impulse was to suspend a structure over the courtyard that was self-referential, of a dramatically different language than the Huxley building itself. Stud Wall takes cues from a pair of sources, our previous work entitled Cradle in Santa Monica and leather biker jackets, which owners customize with assortments of studs, spikes and other ornaments.
These spiky jackets have served as emblems of cool masculinity and personal liberty since the ‘50’s. Greaser, motorcyclist, gay and music subcultures (punks, goths, metalheads, rivetheads), have worn black leather for protective and often fashionable reasons, occasionally with the intention to create an intimidating appearance. Each of these subcultures has been associated with West Hollywood at one time or another.
We studied the details of several jackets, in particular the arrangement of studs relative to leather panels of the garments themselves. While many of the patterns followed the contours of the panels they inhabited, we were more drawn to those that operated independent of the substrate. These patterns are not relegated to the boundary of the leather panels therefore becoming a kind of layer, superimposed over the jacket.
We added such a layer of studs to crumpled surface of the installation, imbuing a unique geometry over that of the ¼” stainless steel plates into which they are inserted. The studs also serve a structural purpose – by providing extra weight to the structure. Contemporary design abhors weight. It is customary for designers to view lightness as an ideal quality. That this project was a kind of hovering surface, subject to uplift caused by wind loads, demanded that it be as heavy as possible. So, we added the studs to increase its weight to nearly 4000 pounds.
As we developed the design, and as the engineers asked that more and more weight be added, the stud layer took on an increasingly aggressive look. The result, Stud Wall, seemed like it might hurt someone were they to come to close. The Huxley wears it well.
