Dennis Hollingsworth

Gerard Smulevich

The Photography of Gerard Smulevich.

He caught these ladies very practically improvising head gear at Parc Guell. Monumental and surreal and very real.

Gerry is a longtime friend, we taught architecture together. He was great to work with because he is the ideal kind of teacher. An inner life. Vivid. That burning with fire kind of teacher who not only advocates but lives his ideas and soaring aspirations. Every engaged student can identify with this.

In my years in architecture school, it was Joseph Burton (Louis Kahn scholar, ideas about neoplatonism), Sixto E. Moreira (A fierce poetics of space guy), Terry Hargrave (Big on higher level philosophical treatments built on 70's era pluralism and environmentalism. From earthy soil, early 80's architecture spun a new poetics of function/space. He put a CocaCola can into the middle of my model once and asked if my design could handle it.), and John Lange, a maniac who would drive his class to construct large scale models in a John Lautner language (all the while proclaiming the importance of libido in architecture as he wore "Angel Flight" pants and print shirts unbuttoned at the chest... going on about Louis I. Kahn, lady killer. How right he was About Mr. Kahn that is.).

Well, except for the last bit on Lange... Gerry, I'm sure, is a similar figure for hundreds of young architects coming from Los Angeles.

(At the moment Gerry reads this, I predict a contorted face: "Why don't you ladle on more butter, Dennis!". A testimony, that's all I can say. A testimony.)

Part one of three (because I want to see, and I want you to see -these fotos large.)