New Forms Taschen 031

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Pages34/35 Erie Owen Moss Lawson-Westen House Los Angeles, California. 1988-93

This private home, located in the Brentwood area, is one of the few entirely new structures designed by Moss. By including references to the design process in the house itself, the architect creates a built equivalent of "pentimenti" in painting. At once innovative and practical in its use of unusual shapes, the Lawson-Westen House confirms the considerable architectural talent of Erie Owen Moss.

period of time and require an independence which is akin to leadership. It is up to you to define the issues. I am not interested in fashion or even in the look of the work. I am interested in starting ideas that take you someplace, and in the process, in the methodological process. You have to build to get feedback. Some people start with the visual or physiognomic characteristics. They work towards manifest-ing that vision. I don't work that way. I work with concepts that build to something. I don't knowwhere I amgoing. Materials arechosen very late. It hasto do with lines and directions and forces which have nothing to do with appearance. It is not easy to deal with clients because most of them are not at all interested in the investiga-tion. The solution is a process of getting to a further or deeper analysis of the problem. People react to architecture in stylistic terms, but making architecture has to do with the invention of something that contains its own power and beauty - its own authenticity. Laying a few things on top of each other isn't enough. Out of that has to come some sort of invention. The process of actually making follows the invention. It is that first part which is morę difficult. I start with complete blackness.*⁸

34 Introouction