{"@context":"http://iiif.io/api/presentation/3/context.json","id":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/iiif/x639z92836/manifest","type":"Manifest","label":{"en":["Steven Ehrlich, 5/23/22"]},"logo":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/497/original/VHM_Aviary_banner.png?1768074560","metadata":[{"label":{"en":["Description"]},"value":{"en":["Steven Ehrlich is a renowned architect with creative roots in Venice."]}},{"label":{"en":["Language"]},"value":{"en":["English"]}},{"label":{"en":["Preferred Citation"]},"value":{"en":["Name of interviewee, date; The Venice Heritage Museum Oral Histories Project; Venice Heritage Museum, Los Angeles, CA."]}},{"label":{"en":["Publisher"]},"value":{"en":["Venice Heritage Museum"]}},{"label":{"en":["Rights Statement"]},"value":{"en":["Copyright © 2024 Venice Heritage Museum"]}},{"label":{"en":["Format"]},"value":{"en":["MP4"]}},{"label":{"en":["Identifier"]},"value":{"en":["OH_017"]}},{"label":{"en":["Keyword"]},"value":{"en":["Venice Beach"]}},{"label":{"en":["Access Ss"]},"value":{"en":["access_public"]}}],"summary":{"en":["Steven Ehrlich is a renowned architect with creative roots in Venice."]},"requiredStatement":{"label":{"en":["Attribution"]},"value":{"en":["Copyright © 2024 Venice Heritage Museum"]}},"provider":[{"id":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/aboutus","type":"Agent","label":{"en":["Venice Heritage Museum"]},"homepage":[{"id":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/","type":"Text","label":{"en":["Venice Heritage Museum"]},"format":"text/html"}],"logo":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/497/original/VHM_Aviary_banner.png?1768074560","type":"Image"}]}],"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/242/862/small/Steven_Ehrlich.mp4_1718830672.jpg?1718830676","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2416/collection_resources/129358/file/242862","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 1 of 1 - Steven_Ehrlich.mp4"]},"duration":615.40267,"width":640,"height":360,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/242/862/small/Steven_Ehrlich.mp4_1718830672.jpg?1718830676","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2416/collection_resources/129358/file/242862/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2416/collection_resources/129358/file/242862/content/1/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-veniceheritagemuseum.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/242/862/original/Steven_Ehrlich.mp4?1718830664","type":"Video","format":"video/mp4","duration":615.40267,"width":640,"height":360},"target":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2416/collection_resources/129358/file/242862","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[{"id":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2416/collection_resources/129358/file/242862/transcript/68041","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["Steven Ehrlich Transcript  [Transcript]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2416/collection_resources/129358/file/242862/transcript/68041/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"00:00:08:22 - 00:00:11:09\nAnd born June 12th, 1946.\n\n00:00:11:11 - 00:00:12:10\nIn 1976,\n\n00:00:12:10 - 00:00:16:09\nI was teaching in at Ahmadu\rBello University in Zaria,\n\n00:00:16:09 - 00:00:18:04\nNigeria, in the north.\n\n00:00:18:04 - 00:00:23:06\nAnd prior to that, I had traveled\rextensively for, throughout North Africa,\n\n00:00:23:06 - 00:00:27:03\nWest Africa, and worked as an\rarchitect in Marrakesh, Morocco.\n\n00:00:27:03 - 00:00:28:13\nAnd I came to visit my sister,\n\n00:00:28:13 - 00:00:30:05\nwho worked in the movie business.\n\n00:00:30:05 - 00:00:33:02\nAnd it was just a summer off\rbecause I was going back\n\n00:00:33:02 - 00:00:36:04\nto teach in, in Nigeria.\n\n00:00:36:04 - 00:00:40:04\nAnd I came here and\rthe lightbulb went on.\n\n00:00:40:04 - 00:00:42:18\nI just realized that\n\n00:00:42:18 - 00:00:48:02\nif I was going to ever reenter,\ruh, that this would be the place\n\n00:00:48:02 - 00:00:52:08\nbecause my East Coast tapes\rwhere I was born and raised and educated\n\n00:00:52:08 - 00:00:56:07\nwere all erased.  And I wanted to, um,\n\n00:00:56:07 - 00:00:58:04\nexplore indoor outdoor architecture.\n\n00:00:58:04 - 00:01:01:13\nI had been living for six years\rin courtyard houses and\n\n00:01:01:13 - 00:01:06:16\nbasically I wanted to continue\rthat exploration, and I\n\n00:01:06:16 - 00:01:11:08\nloved the energy of the different\rcommunities coming together in L.A.\n\n00:01:11:08 - 00:01:14:18\nThere was just a raw energy\rthat I really appreciated.\n\n00:01:14:18 - 00:01:19:11\nAnd when, um, when I came down here,\rI just loved the energy,\n\n00:01:19:11 - 00:01:26:05\nand I started roller skating on the beach\rand, uh, you know, it was like a cool place.\n\n00:01:26:05 - 00:01:30:23\nAnd I also met Marlo Wolf,\rmy, who then became\n\n00:01:30:23 - 00:01:35:01\nlater on, my wife,\rmy former, now former, wife.\n\n00:01:35:01 - 00:01:40:08\nBut Marlo was, uh, very connected\rto the Venice community. She was doing\n\n00:01:40:08 - 00:01:45:18\na bunch, she had a bunch of friends, uh, that were\rpart of environmental communications.\n\n00:01:45:18 - 00:01:49:05\nEnvironmental Communications was, uh,\rand you could look them up,\n\n00:01:49:05 - 00:01:55:13\nthey had started probably in the\rearly ‘70’s, uh, and they were documenting, uh,\n\n00:01:55:13 - 00:01:57:14\nfreeway art and,\n\n00:01:57:14 - 00:02:02:00\num, uh, just lots of interesting\n\n00:02:02:00 - 00:02:06:05\nenvironmental,\rarchitectural and artistic endeavors.\n\n00:02:06:05 - 00:02:09:00\nAnd they put it onto a, how do I say it?\n\n00:02:09:00 - 00:02:13:13\nThey, they actually made a\rslide library back in the days of slides.\n\n00:02:13:13 - 00:02:17:22\nAnd uh...people involved \rin that were like, uhmm...\n\n00:02:17:22 - 00:02:20:14\nGary Greenberg, Ted Tanaka,\n\n00:02:20:14 - 00:02:23:21\nDavid Greenberg, Roger Webster.\n\n00:02:23:21 - 00:02:27:10\nSo they had started\rEnvironmental Communications.\n\n00:02:27:10 - 00:02:33:02\nAnd I even had given\ra lecture about my African...\n\n00:02:33:02 - 00:02:37:07\nsort of ethnographic studies,\rif you will.  And they loved that.\n\n00:02:37:07 - 00:02:42:11\nAnd then in 1979, after\rI got my architectural license,\n\n00:02:42:11 - 00:02:48:10\num, I bought a house in Venice on,\rat 1402 Oakwood Avenue.\n\n00:02:48:10 - 00:02:51:22\nI still remember the address\rat the corner of Oakwood and California.\n\n00:02:51:22 - 00:02:56:17\nAnd it was an old craftsman house\rthat I took a few months to fix up,\n\n00:02:56:17 - 00:03:02:10\nand, and that, like the, the screened-in\rporch became my first office.\n\n00:03:02:10 - 00:03:03:09\nAnd then I built\n\n00:03:03:09 - 00:03:07:13\na little structure above the garage,\rand that became my second office.\n\n00:03:07:13 - 00:03:11:20\nAnd my third office was at\r76 Market Street, which,\n\n00:03:11:20 - 00:03:14:23\nand that would have been in the mid-\reighties because I was doing, by then\n\n00:03:14:23 - 00:03:15:19\nand that would have been in the mid-\reighties because I was doing, by then\n\n00:03:15:19 - 00:03:16:05\nand that would have been in the mid-\reighties because I was doing, by then\n\n00:03:16:05 - 00:03:19:12\nI was getting established and doing, uhmm...\n\n00:03:19:12 - 00:03:22:12\nI did three projects on Windward Circle.\n\n00:03:22:12 - 00:03:25:20\nAnd they were all,\ruh, they were all projects\n\n00:03:25:20 - 00:03:31:10\nthat actually reflected\rthe past of what was there before.\n\n00:03:31:10 - 00:03:35:16\nSo for example, there was the Race\rThru the Clouds Roller Coaster,\n\n00:03:35:16 - 00:03:38:23\nand I named the building Race\rThrough the Clouds, and the building\n\n00:03:38:23 - 00:03:43:00\nactually has a slash of neon that goes\rthrough it like a roller coaster.\n\n00:03:43:00 - 00:03:45:16\nSo there's a remnant of the memory.\n\n00:03:45:16 - 00:03:47:11\nAnd then there was the Antlers Hotel.\n\n00:03:47:11 - 00:03:49:18\nThese are all along the Windward Circle.\n\n00:03:49:18 - 00:03:55:08\nSo, uh, I did a building right next to\rHama Sushi, that tall three story building.\n\n00:03:55:08 - 00:03:58:21\nAnd that was also a reflection of what\n\n00:03:58:21 - 00:04:02:17\nthe columns that are there\rthat are culvert pipes were actually on\n\n00:04:02:17 - 00:04:07:06\nthe rhythm of the columns of the old\rAntlers Hotel, long ago demolished.\n\n00:04:07:06 - 00:04:08:17\nAnd then the Ace,\n\n00:04:08:17 - 00:04:11:18\nwe, we made, uh, what's called\n\n00:04:11:18 - 00:04:15:21\nAce Marketplace, which was where,\ronce upon a time, Ace Gallery was there.\n\n00:04:15:21 - 00:04:19:03\nAnd, uh, it was the old bathhouse\n\n00:04:19:03 - 00:04:22:00\nthat was there on, also on the lagoon.\n\n00:04:22:00 - 00:04:26:09\nAnd so the Ace, sorry the, yeah,\rthe Ace Marketplace building\n\n00:04:26:09 - 00:04:32:03\nhas, uh, symbolism of big cranes\rthat you, that dredged out the canals.\n\n00:04:32:03 - 00:04:33:20\nThere’s a lot of\rreferences to the history.\n\n00:04:33:20 - 00:04:37:23\nAnd then the three, the three projects,\rthe three commercial projects\n\n00:04:37:23 - 00:04:43:10\non Windward Circle, I think are unique\rbecause they were on the old lagoon.\n\n00:04:43:10 - 00:04:47:12\nI got to, uh, look at a lot of,\rI did a lot of historical research\n\n00:04:47:12 - 00:04:52:00\nand looked at old photos from,\ryou know, from the past about what\n\n00:04:52:00 - 00:04:55:17\nVenice looked like in the ‘19,\ryou know, what Abbot Kinney\n\n00:04:55:17 - 00:04:58:20\noriginal vision was,\rwhich was all the canals and everything.\n\n00:04:58:20 - 00:05:02:09\nAnd that was, that was\ra great kind of, uh...\n\n00:05:02:09 - 00:05:03:17\nIt rooted me into the\n\n00:05:03:17 - 00:05:07:04\nhistory that helped the\revolution of those three buildings.\n\n00:05:07:04 - 00:05:11:02\n\rAnd my office at that time was right on,\n\n00:05:11:02 - 00:05:14:16\nit was right when\r72 Market Street, the restaurant.\n\n00:05:14:16 - 00:05:17:14\nAnd it was owned by Tony Bill,\rLizaMinnelli and Dudley Moore.\n\n00:05:17:14 - 00:05:21:06\nAnd it was a great restaurant\rdesigned by Morphosis.\n\n00:05:21:06 - 00:05:25:07\nAnd I was one brick\rwall away in my, in my office,\n\n00:05:25:07 - 00:05:27:22\nand, and the street\rjust had a great energy.\n\n00:05:27:22 - 00:05:29:22\nTony Bill was across the street,\n\n00:05:29:22 - 00:05:32:21\nJonathan Borofsky,\rthe artist, had his studio there.\n\n00:05:32:21 - 00:05:37:09\nUhmm... Robert Graham, DeWain Valentine...\n\n00:05:37:09 - 00:05:41:10\nuhmm... it was just great energy.\n\n00:05:41:10 - 00:05:46:17\nUhmm, and, you know, sometimes the power\rwould go out back in those days,\n\n00:05:46:17 - 00:05:49:06\nand every time it went out,\rTony said, “Drinks on me.”\n\n00:05:49:06 - 00:05:52:16\nAnd we'd go over to 72 Market\rand had a good old time.\n\n00:05:52:16 - 00:05:55:16\nA lot of my friends were, were artists,\n\n00:05:55:16 - 00:05:58:23\nand so I became, um,\n\n00:05:58:23 - 00:06:02:17\nyou know, more engaged\rand often would design artist studios.\n\n00:06:02:17 - 00:06:05:13\nSo I did, I did, uhmm...\n\n00:06:05:13 - 00:06:07:22\nGuy Dill’s Studio,\n\n00:06:07:22 - 00:06:12:06\nI did Ed, two of Ed Moses’s Studios,\n\n00:06:12:08 - 00:06:17:09\nand, um, let's see. And I worked with\rRobert Graham on some of his projects.\n\n00:06:17:09 - 00:06:22:08\nI did the architectural base\rwork sometimes with him.\n\n00:06:22:08 - 00:06:27:20\nSo, yeah it was just a really good,\ruh, energy, good vibe and uh...\n\n00:06:27:20 - 00:06:32:00\nTalk about the energy of Venice\rand how it influenced your work,\n\n00:06:32:00 - 00:06:34:06\ntheir work and the\rartists and all that was coming...\n\n00:06:34:06 - 00:06:35:04\nRight.\n\n00:06:35:04 - 00:06:38:18\nWell, you know, Venice\rjust uhmmm...\n\n00:06:38:18 - 00:06:43:16\nI mean, beach community,\ruh, funky, uh...\n\n00:06:43:16 - 00:06:46:19\nthe ocean, the air, the palm trees,\n\n00:06:46:20 - 00:06:51:13\nuhmm, it seemed to...\n\n00:06:51:14 - 00:06:53:12\nbe a good place for people to be.\n\n00:06:53:12 - 00:06:55:06\nAnd the cheap, and the rent was cheap.\n\n00:06:55:06 - 00:06:57:09\nThat's really important back then.\n\n00:06:57:09 - 00:07:01:10\nSo that's how, uh, that's what attracted,\roften, the artists\n\n00:07:01:10 - 00:07:07:13\nwho then did their work and often\rbecame well known over time in Venice.\n\n00:07:07:13 - 00:07:11:01\nAnd, and uhmmm...\n\n00:07:11:01 - 00:07:13:05\nThat, but the energy was great\n\n00:07:13:05 - 00:07:18:08\nand, uh, and there,you know, obviously\rFrank Gehry had his first office in Venice\n\n00:07:18:08 - 00:07:21:04\nuh, where he was doing terrific work.\n\n00:07:21:04 - 00:07:22:14\nYou know, David would be a ,\n\n00:07:22:14 - 00:07:27:10\nDavid Hertz would have been\ra relatively newer comer after me.\n\n00:07:27:10 - 00:07:29:18\nUhmmm,  I'm trying to think of who, who\n\n00:07:29:18 - 00:07:32:13\nyou know, Thom Mayne  was around.\n\n00:07:32:13 - 00:07:36:18\nRotondi, Michael Rotondi was around.\n\n00:07:36:18 - 00:07:40:03\nDid you find you were getting influenced\rby other people or were getting inspired\n\n00:07:40:03 - 00:07:42:12\nby what they were doing or were they getting\r inspired by what you were doing?\n\n00:07:42:12 - 00:07:46:05\nWell, I think there was\rthere's always this cross-fertilization,\n\n00:07:46:05 - 00:07:52:07\nbut I had my, my original inspirations\ralways came from Africa,\n\n00:07:52:07 - 00:07:55:13\nbelieve it or not,\rfrom indigenous builders around the world.\n\n00:07:55:13 - 00:07:59:11\nAnd that's always a guiding,\rsort of a guidepost for me.\n\n00:07:59:11 - 00:08:03:14\nTo not go off the rails in terms of,\n\n00:08:03:14 - 00:08:04:01\nyou know,\n\n00:08:04:01 - 00:08:07:11\nbeing, not, not doing things gratuitously.\n\n00:08:07:11 - 00:08:13:00\nI was being on point\rlooking at environment, culture,\n\n00:08:13:00 - 00:08:16:19\nsustainability, all those things\ras a marriage of one thing.\n\n00:08:16:19 - 00:08:21:19\nThe last house I did in Venice,\rwhich was maybe\n\n00:08:21:19 - 00:08:25:18\ncompleted three or four years ago,\rwe call it Spectral Bridge.\n\n00:08:25:18 - 00:08:28:01\nAnd it's on Millwood Avenue.\n\n00:08:28:01 - 00:08:31:23\nI think the perfect moment of Abbott\rKinney was about ten years ago and\n\n00:08:31:23 - 00:08:35:01\nthe story I like to tell is that\rI had heard that there was a new\n\n00:08:35:01 - 00:08:39:22\npop-up restaurant called\rWolf in Sheep's Clothing.\n\n00:08:39:22 - 00:08:42:02\nAnd I had heard about it.\n\n00:08:42:02 - 00:08:46:03\nSo I called, I called them up\rand said,Hey, there's four of us.\n\n00:08:46:03 - 00:08:48:08\nCan we come over for dinner?\n\n00:08:48:08 - 00:08:52:12\nAnd John, the owner, \ranswered the phone and said,\n\n00:08:52:12 - 00:08:56:03\nWell, we're really kind of crowded.\n\n00:08:56:03 - 00:08:58:08\nWe have a table,\rbut we don't have any chairs.\n\n00:08:58:08 - 00:08:59:22\nI go, No problem. I'll bring the chairs.\n\n00:08:59:22 - 00:09:05:10\nSo I brought four chairs with me\rand we had dinner at this fabulous (laughs)\n\n00:09:05:10 - 00:09:07:06\nWolf in Sheep's Clothing.\n\n00:09:07:06 - 00:09:08:11\nWell, Venice is still Venice.\n\n00:09:08:11 - 00:09:11:03\nIf you, if you go to the boardwalk,\rVenice is still Venice.\n\n00:09:11:03 - 00:09:12:20\nWell, what do you mean by that?\rWhat do I mean by that?\n\n00:09:12:20 - 00:09:17:10\nIt's funky, it's, it's energized.\n\n00:09:17:10 - 00:09:19:17\nIt’s uh...\n\n00:09:19:17 - 00:09:22:07\ndirty both in good and bad ways.\n\n00:09:22:07 - 00:09:26:17\nUh, it's, and it's just like,\rI'll go play paddle tennis\n\n00:09:26:17 - 00:09:28:05\ndown at the paddle courts.\n\n00:09:28:05 - 00:09:29:23\nThis just, the world goes by.\n\n00:09:29:23 - 00:09:34:12\nYou know, it's, it's,\rgreat energy.  Uhmmm...\n\n00:09:34:12 - 00:09:37:15\nAnd, and, the boardwalk\rhas evolved in so many ways.\n\n00:09:37:15 - 00:09:40:20\nThere was the big, the big roller skating\n\n00:09:40:20 - 00:09:44:13\nboom box days and then\rthere was the roller blade days.\n\n00:09:44:13 - 00:09:46:11\nAnd, now you've got people\n\n00:09:46:11 - 00:09:50:13\non their electric bikes zooming\rpast people who are just walking.\n\n00:09:50:13 - 00:09:52:18\nAnd, you know, there's, it's crazy.\n\n00:09:52:18 - 00:09:54:05\nI\rI think you see the world go by.\n\n00:09:54:05 - 00:09:57:05\nYou see every flavor imaginable in Venice.\n\n00:09:57:05 - 00:10:02:21\nUhmmm...I think that attracts it's,\rI'm sure many visitors, if they come,\n\n00:10:02:23 - 00:10:06:02\nthat will be at least one of\rthe top three destinations,","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2416/collection_resources/129358/file/242862#t=0.0,615.40267"}]}]}]}