On Personal Belongings After a Catastrophe

                     

Musical homage and offerings to a dead musician. Santa Ana, CA, November 2024. Photo by Myriam Mahiques 

1.     Receptiveness

Psychology and sociology continuously refer to objects from a technological perspective which is not related to individuals or the collective discourse.

In his book The System of Objects, sociologist Jean Baudrillard adds the (social) imaginary as a a dimension linked to the object: “The object as humble and receptive supporting actor, as a sort of psychological slave or confidant- the object as directly experienced in traditional daily life and illustrated throughout the history of Western art down to our own day. This object was the reflection of a total order, bound up with a well-defined conception of décor and perspective, substance and bound up with a well-defined conception of décor and perspective, substance and form. According to this conception, the form is an absolute dividing-line between inside and outside. Form is a rigid container, and within it is substance. Beyond their practical function, therefore, objects – and specifically objects of furniture- have a primordial function as vessels, a function that belongs to the register of the imaginary. This explains their psychological receptiveness.” (Baudrillard, 2020). In this sense, personal belongings are not just “things”.

 Emotivity and Phenomenology 

Materiality is essentially physical. It shapes the objects, their fabrication technique, the traces left by time. Materiality is apprehended through our senses which differ according to the culture of communities. It is a concept that expands to the idea of “social” and foremost to the relationship between people and things.

Objects achieve a special strength with the feelings they are assigned to. It could be just a simple pencil which was part of an event; for social groups, it could be a procer’s relic. Offerings are left before statues and memorials, then objects are a bridge between the alive and the dead. 

The element of human perception, the understanding, the intangible part, would be the “atmosphere”. Philosopher Gernot Böhme defines “atmosphere” as a holistic, affective, and sensual quality of a space that mediates between the objective environment and the subjective experience of individuals:

“I have introduced the concept of atmosphere (…) to designate that which mediates the objective qualities of an environment with the bodily-sensual states of a person in this environment; the environment in its entirety generates an atmosphere in which I, as a human, feel in one way or another. (…) I sense in which environment I am located (…). The concept of atmosphere is, according to this etymology, a concept concerning the in-between (Zwischen): between objective conditions and subjective states, between object and subject.” (Böhme, 2014)

China and pottery remnants in Altadena after the wildfires. March 2025. Photo by Myriam Mahiques

In an approach to the sensory expression, the previous paragraphs are pertinent to the importance of our findings in Altadena. We have seen multiple objects of daily life with different degrees of deterioration. Pieces of folk-art stand out among cutlery, toys, décor. The Army Corps of Engineers’ contractors were working with heavy machinery, cleaning lots, and preparing the preliminary excavation for soils remediation. There was no possibility of selecting what would be of value for its repair, recycle or return to the owners. The intangible and emotional aspects were not included in the post-fire management protocol.

 

1.     Possible exhibition of objects

 

Objects have their own biographies. David Howes (2023) writes about the social force of objects: “It is not that this force needs to be “revivified,” though, just acknowledged: “When you see an object reconnect with its family, when they hold an old piece of beading or interact with a pipe, it is not the object which is being reanimated but the relationship which is being rekindled on both sides because of the materiality and sensory connection that happens between them.”

There is also an extrapolation of these objects’ meaning. For example, what was décor, and now is a ruin, could become a piece of exhibit in a museum. An example of this, would be the piece of melted glass from the San Francisco earthquake and fire (1906), donated by Grace Gratton Masterson to the Turtle Bay’s Collection in Redding. The piece is exhibited online and at the museum. In this context, the glass could be exposed due to its mineralogical conditions or because now it is part of the fire collective memory.

 

2.     Brief account from San Francisco history

 

Souvenirs hunters and homeowners looking for personal possession after the earthquake and fire in San Francisco, 1906. Photo from the National Archives.

 

Charles Morris (1906) reports the desperation of people trying to save their household effects during the San Francisco earthquake and fire:

“In the awful scramble for safety the half-crazed survivors disregarded everything but the thought of themselves and their property. In every excavation and hole throughout the north beach householders buried household effects, throwing them into ditches and covering the holes. Attempts were made to mark the graves of the property so that it could be recovered after the flames were appeased.” It is interesting that he has used the word “graves” as if the objects had a life once. Implicitly, Morris has assigned to the households a higher level of importance.

 

3.     Objects from Altadena

 

A shrine that must be in good condition in the aftermath of Altadena wildfire. March 2025. Photo by Myriam Mahiques

Local art among the ruins of Altadena, March 2025. Photo by Myriam Mahiques

 

 

The Installation “Recycled Words” at the Manitoba Museum was the work of KANVA, a group of young architects in Montreal. Curator Maureen Matthews proposed words on the chairs to provoke thoughts. 2015.

The installation shown above reminds us of the single chair “exposed” among the ruins of the wildfire in Altadena. This chair might have been on a porch.  We see it as a gloomy sculpture that carries a memory of the past life in this burnt house. 

A single chair on the new lawn after the rain. Altadena, March 2025. Photo by Myriam Mahiques. 

In Los Angeles wildfires of 2025, lots of individuals grappled with what they wanted to take with them; the difficult selection lasted just a few minutes. From Gillan Telling’s article “What They Grabbed in the L.A. Fires and Why: Tender Stories from Those Who Left Almost Everything Behind (January 12th, 2025), we cite Sloan Pechia’s story who, apart from a letter from her late grandmother, she carried a poem from a book: “I also took the poem “Imagine a Woman,” which was sent to me in a letter from my mom during my freshman year of college. Reading it and reminding myself that I’m strong is why I thought to take it during these incredibly trying times.”

Valuable personal items that Sloan Pechia took with her during the wildfire evacuation.  Photos by Sloan Pechia.

This is not that everyone has the chance to survive a catastrophe. Regarding this, we recommend reading the work of the Lucy Easthope, a British expert and adviser on emergency planning and disaster recovery.  A great part of the management post-catastrophe is the removal of personal effects that may be returned to a bereaved family. “The item may have little or no monetary value but may mean everything to a grieving family; or to a survivor struggling to make sense of terrible events.” (Easthope, 2019). As we have seen in the Los Angeles wildfires, without an “ethic of care” from all responders, the personal effects are indiscriminately removed to landfill or even incinerated.

 “(…) response plans should therefore aim to prioritize personal effects with a principal aim to identify, locate and restore personal property in a timely and accurate manner that allows survivors and bereaved to make as many of their own choices as possible.” (Easthope, 2019).

It is recommended that strategies for devolution and restoration be devised to enable survivors to exercise decision-making authority over their valued possessions, which hold intrinsic and emotional significance. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Baudrillard, Jean. The System of Objects. London, 2020. 

Bohme, Gernot. The theory of atmospheres and its applications. Translated by A. Chr. Engels-Schwarzpaul. In Interstices Journal of Architecture and Related Arts. Issue 15. 2014-03-18

Easthope, Lucy. The meaning of “things”. The evolution of an ethic of care in the return of personal effects after disaster 2001-2019. P. 122-128. In Bereavement Journal.org. 2019.

Howes, David. Sensorial Investigations. A history of the senses in anthropology, psychology, and law. The Pennsylvania State University Press. 2023.

Morris, Charles. The San Francisco Calamity by Earthquake and Fire. Told by Eye Witnesses. Secaucus, N.J.: Citadel Press, ca. 1906.

Telling, Gillian. “What They Grabbed in the L.A. Fires and Why: Tender Stories from Those Who Left Almost Everything Behind”. People.com. January 12^th, 2025.   

NOTE: this post is also published on AIA Los Angeles blog.

https://www.aialosangeles.org/news/news-and-blogs/

Thoughts on "The Wall of Gazes" exhibited at the MOOLA

 

I had the real pleasure of visiting the current exhibition Arteonica at the Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach, CA. There were the works of several artists, from Chile, Argentina, Mexico, Switzerland, Brazil. 

The work that impacted me the most was "Wall of Gazes" by Argentinians Mariano Sardón and (neuroscientist) Mariano Sigman. The videos, depicted as transforming portraits were mesmerizing. 

All portraits are superimposed images in videos, the algorithms keep on changing until the face is formed or partially formed. 

From Ars Electronica:

"The Wall of Gazes consists of one screen in which visitors can see how portrait images are revealed by the eye movements of many persons simultaneously. Gazes were captured by an eye tracker device. Around 100 participants were seated in front of a portrait image and the device recorded their gazes for 15 seconds. The screen is connected to a computer and a special software displays the eye tracks stored in a database. Portraits are ever-changing composition, according the gazes captured and displayed by the software." 

The eye tracking data was generated at the Muntref Centro de Arte y Ciencia. Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero. Buenos Aires.

It immediately came to my mind the relationship between architectural perception and neuroscience. I researched a little more about this project, and I was pleased to see that it was applied to migrants' memories, to movement, from one country to another as well.

From Mariano Sigman's page:

"Hiwa K tells that border officer ask immigrants questions about the map of his hometown. Most immigrants, like anyone who is asked random questions about the geography of their city, fail the test. This story is the inspiration of our project. We live in small, sparse fragments of our city. The road to school, the bus to our grandmother’s house, the square where time passed relentlessly. Each person has her own city. In this work we investigate this distant memory of an individual’s memory of the city in which they lived. We looked a map while we heard stories by people who moved from Mexico to the United States, from Syria to Austria, from Bolivia to Argentina. Then we reconstruct this, cutting the trajectory of the eyes on a paper map. Because of its own lightness, this map bends when it leans on wood and forms bridges that connect places that are distant in the city, but close in memory."

I think that it would be a step forward to "measure" the perceptions on the architecture that is affected by the dwellers' memories and traditions. In other words, to leave the 2 dimension of the map and see what happens when people is confronted with cultural information on the built environment. And which is the perception of people while observing this, depending on their nationalities and or their studies degree, their intellectuality. For example, I was walking in my neighborhood and saw the -following- homage for the Day of the Dead. The neighbors, I assume, must be Mexican or descendants, but living in the USA, and are expressing themselves with their hearts. Regretting the losses of their young relatives. 

These articulations, the fine details, the offerings, have a real impact on architecture, the altar is like becoming part of it. The facade is completely integrated to the force of culture. Definitely, the three dimension would be worth of farther analysis. 

Altar in my neighborhood, Long Beach, CA. From my personal archives, November 2024.

*All pictures by Myriam Mahiques, November 2024. Please do not share without permission.

Contemporary spatiality: experiencing a multitude of cells

The Euclidean display and overall design of a room inside the MIT museum, Cambridge. Personal archives, 2024

Inside the MIT museum, Cambridge. See how the free standing displays have the same conceptual design as the displays on the wall. Note the shape of the benches as well. Personal archives, 2024.

 I have been thinking about current semiology in architectural spatiality. There is a new meaning based in our contemporary digital pre-conceptions, the different options of spatial relationships and representation techniques. We are becoming more skilled at abstracting the external stimuli, hence the qualities of the objects, since we have so much available information and optical devices to select, being the cell phone the most typical example that allows us to see the world filtered through cameras....

Spatial cognition depends on many factors: our culture, our experience, gender, age, social context, etc. I am particularly influenced by long years working on urban morphology with different mathematical software, but this time, I have also felt impressed by my recent visit to MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and Harvard museums. The architectural arrangement of the MIT technological exhibition captured my attention as unusual -due to my unconscious expectation of a typical exhibit- . At least in one room, the objects were enclosed by cubes defined by linear lighting. Every cube or rectangular prism, could be seen as a cell. So I missed the interior object in order to recreate the spatiality of the room, or even the wall, since it became a 3D Euclidean construction at a short distance, so pure and strictly mathematical.

Harvard Museum of Natural History. See the many reflections on the glass displays. Personal archives. 2024.

Harvard Museum of Natural History. See the many reflections on the glass displays. Personal archives. 2024.

Of course my mind is ready to understand and digest the contemporary exhibit, but when I visited the Harvard Museum of Natural History, I was walking among glass cells, which is quite different from the other Natural Science museums. All of a sudden, the 3D cells were conforming space, and progressively, there was this feeling of being dehumanized, one is immersed in a multitude of reflections (our own and the animals'), like a in mirror maze; the archaeology becomes part of the fantasy. 

Immersive Van Gogh, Los Angeles. Personal archives, 2021.

Immersive Van Gogh and the static experience. Los Angeles, personal archives, 2021.

Somehow, the historical composition in Harvard is a sort of prelude to the imaginary current immersive experiences, like Van Gogh's among so many others, with a substantial difference though, the cells and their contents are tangible, the person walking along the displays is lured by the animals, and the experience is dynamic, interactive, the space is re-created by the circulation towards a point of interest (a window, a staircase, an exit....), while the immersive art is realized with distant projections in an empty building, usually a warehouse, where people stand or sit still and the space is conceived by just one's mind perception of the moving images; the orientation is given by the location of isolated structural elements, like a staircase or columns.

Aerial view of Los Angeles Downtown and suburbs, California. Personal archive, 2024.

The spatial perception becomes completely different when we change the scale or the point of view.

I still remember the first time arriving to Los Angeles by plane, I was wondering where is Downtown? My first impression was the industrial flat areas with so little landscape, all of them rectangles. And a colleague of mine reminded me the great purpose of Los Angeles: the creation of movies in an extended city that sells lots of cars: in consequence, the industrial zoning is quite noticeable. 

This year, I had the chance to enjoy the aerial views that I am sharing here, and finally I have seen Los Angeles from above and afar, all blue filtered by the plane window and the residential low areas with lots of dark green. I made the effort to zoom my cell phone camera as much as I could, but for every capture, my impression was that I was looking at a pixelated city. Without history or social input, I was observing the result of Zoning codes, a map created with pixels, quite monotonous, even in its third dimension, and monochrome. While the plane was flying to destine, the view was still a multitude of little cubes and prisms like a projection on the ground where I was not immersed at all. For me was another version of the museums cells experience.

Aerial view of Los Angeles Downtown on the left and suburbs with a huge industrial area, California. Personal archive, 2024.

Antoine Picon, in his article "Anxious Landscapes: From Ruin to Rust" (2000) * on a similar idea, adds the concept of distance and texture, as explained in the following excerpts:

"...the anxious character of many contemporary landscapes is the indication of profound transformations affecting the definition of the subject who contemplates them,..."

"....this is not the first time that the look that we cast over our surroundings has been modified. Each time, such a transformation proves inseparable from a mutation of the ideal image we project of ourselves."

".... one cannot help by be struck by the extent of the mutations that already affect the category of vision."

".... familiar forms seem to give way to luminous effects -scintillations, iridescence, reflections- as well as to textures often based upon contradictory impressions like smoothness, glossiness or graininess. Configurations, both immediately perceptible by the senses and more abstract, substitute themselves for the contours of the world that is familiar. Seen by satellite, Los Angeles doesn't look much different from a section of matter observed in a microscope. The importance of the dominion of lights and textures in the contemporary technological landscape could well originate from this transformation in the categories of vision . Such a transformation leads us to suspend, if only provisionally, questions such as those of "far" and "near." Who tells us that it's Los Angeles we're contemplating, instead of a piece of sidewalk?.... the contemporary urban landscape is organized according to textures that owe more to woven design than to form in a traditional sense."

* From Architectural Theory. Volume II. An Anthology from 1871-2005. Page 595. Massachusetts, 2010.

A partial detail of a tapestry exhibited at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. It is similar to an aerial view of a residential neighborhood and a central district. Personal archives, 2024.

Orange County Museum of Art. From the mass model to the building

 

Approaching OCMA, Costa Mesa, CA.

NOTE: All pictures belong to my personal archives, please do not reproduce-share without my permission.

I have been a visitor of the Orange County Museum of Art since it was in Newport Beach, then it was moved to a provisory building in Costa Mesa, right in front of the Segerstrom Concert Hall.

Back in March 2019, I took some quick pictures of the mass model of the upcoming building, designed by Thom Mayne's studio Morphosis. I am happy to say I had the chance to talk to him in person long years ago, during an architectural exhibition in our FADU Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism of Buenos Aires. We briefly discussed a post graduate project designed by architect Luis Makianich and me. And he left us a very good impression, at least speaking about theory of architecture.

And once I emigrated to California, I had the opportunity to visit his building for Caltrans in Los Angeles and now the OCMA, which was inaugurated a few months ago. 

My impression of the Caltrans building is barely mentioned in my post about Trees that Conform Social Space. I remember very well the lack of human scale while walking around the building, the heat in the cement plaza and the emptiness of the bar in the shadows, an intermediate space of multiple height were people did not want to stay (I questioned the employees). That imprinted in my mind that maybe our beloved Thom Mayne designed his buildings as objects, the morphology prevailing over the human scale and sensorial, human perception necessities. 

My two pictures below are from 2009. The bar is in the dark left corner. People preferred stay in the plaza across the street, drinking a juice sold at the mobile stands, under the shadow of the welcoming trees.

An empty plaza with benches like sculptures, under 100F degree or more...

This picture shows how the side street offers a solid wall as a basement, see the scale compared to the men in the corner. Well, this is part of the main problem I see in Los Angeles, a city that has evolved for and with the cars. It is not pedestrian friendly.

The next pictures are cell phone snapshots of the OCMA building mass model, from 2009. Yesterday, I was wondering what was so "off" from the mass model to the final product. 

Approaching OCMA. On the right side, the Renee and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, designed by Cesar Pelli studio. 

Basically, the resolution of spaces is the same, but in a closer analysis, I have seen that the intersecting planes, have become undulating surfaces on which the straight lines in the massive model are materialized with thick rigid ceramics (!!), what is worse, the ceramics are installed in diagonals, in consequence, there are a lot of unsolved triangular cuts.

The upper undulating surface, I have taken this picture standing on the terrace. The red building behind is not part of OCMA.

A corner view, which looks OK. See how the ceramics change direction on the left and compare the photo with the mass model above.

Now, let us take a closer look at the joints. So obviously wrong and without care, to the expert eye. Besides, the joints have different thickness, due to them being forced to adapt to the shape.

A macro shot of the tile next to the Aluminum

The problem of the materials intersection is seen inside as well (precisely, the curve on the left), though I truly like how the light and volumes play at the entry hall. 

This one is my favorite interior view, the dark ceiling extends above the longitudinal bar.

I believe the use of brick would have been better for this morphology, a prefab brick with the same or similar color. Because the continuity with the neighboring Pelli's Segerstrom building is kept without a doubt.

OCMA on the left and the Segerstrom Concert Hall on the right. Alike colors, and an impeccable resolution for the Segerstrom curved surfaces.

I took this picture for a colleague and friend at the University, so he can show it to the students, to learn that even the minor details should be solved.

I have had long conversations about this building with some colleagues today. Should we worry about minor details or should we enjoy the overall display of technology? Can we still praise the functional resolution, regardless the morphology, which a friend of mine calls "totally whimsical" ?.

I am in favor of "whimsical" new shapes that are allowed due to the advance of technology, but most of all due to us being accustomed to new images and sensorial spaces, for exampl, all those immersive "out of this world" experiences inside buildings like warehouses. I still remember when our students played with Zaha Hadid designs, and we warned them "remember, we need to build it!", the first GA magazine with Zaha Hadid projects that had no chance to be materialized, at the time, of course. So now, I feel like the architects have a sort of victory, while, of course, these "liberties" are allowed by the City planners, who are not architects but expert on zoning codes where politics are also at play. But this is another story.

OCMA galleries are an example of a revised Museum concept. The galleries are open to a common corridor and we can take a quick look at what is going on from afar, or turn around and be tempted to enter the gift shop, which is open as well, like at the Broad Museum in Los Angeles.

We can also have a preview from the upper galleries, through narrow openings on the white walls. Of course, it depends on your height. As I'm short, then I could take the following pictures, if your height is 6' or so, the narrow opening is below your line of sight, unless the staircase down is taken. The minor details: you will also see the dust accumulated on the free standing partition walls and the horizontal part of the wall beyond the columns, as no human arm can reach there to clean. Needless to say, the white walls next to the gallery stairs are stained already. A colleague's opinion was they should have been painted another color where the dust can't be noticed. I proposed a change of material, but the Minimalist white would have been lost. 

Where you see the line of the glass, on the walking side it is clean, on the other side, there is dust.

If this picture is zoomed, there is a visible line of cleanliness vs dust. I extended my own arm to see how far I could reach to clean without an extended dust brush.

The sort of white Minimalism is extended to the bathroom stalls, and there it was where I had my surprise. I felt this weird sensation that I was inside a closet. The feeling of uneasiness made me choose the pull knob for handicap. I wanted to get out of this bathroom space as soon as possible. In the back of my brain, I recalled the horror movies with labs and dead frozen bodies. Too much of my imagination I suppose :)

The uneasiness is repeated outside, in the (empty again) terrace, when I reached the stairs or sort of theatre wide hemicycle where one can seat and view a narrow circulation to the side entry door, or just the street beyond. I expected a space to enjoy a performance, more like in the Getty Museum style, but not. And there is lack of middle handrails (of course, it is not a formal stair), so I stayed a while observing what people would do: 

just take pictures facing the flat sculpture which is nonsense to be "walked around", sit for a few minutes on the upper stairs or close to the handrails on the sides. I had to avoid a couple in order to reach the handrail. I think nobody would venture to go downstairs taking the middle part of the it.

If we compare this pictures with the mass models, we'll notice the side guardrail which was meant to be glass was replaced by a solid high guardrail. The sculpture is meant to be seen from below, and the back has the just the braces painted alike. It is more a scenography than a 3D sculpture.

The empty terrace and the back of the flat sculpture.

The planter on the terrace. The row of trees on the side looks very good but sculptural. The planter seems to be like "we need a planter somewhere, given it's a barren terrace". Some people were sitting there, but there is no hope of future good shadow, just to see the species. A reminder of the Caltrans plaza?

Looking up from the ground plaza. The building on the left does not belong to the museum. What makes me think maybe complex morphology buildings should be erected on open spaces without any other building around. One may guess at first sight which building is which or part of.

The gift shop has this interesting "sculpture" which reflects the building and on the back contains glass cabinets for art products. I was astonished to see, a few rubber bands for hair pony tails, hardened in free standing curly shapes, were 45$ each one (!!). 

A colleague that visited the museum with me found this tempered glass railing over the steps pretty funny and out of sense. We were doubting if this sculptural construction was finished or not. A climber would grow and cover all of it, I will have to come back to see if the climber would hide the guardrail, and then give an answer to my friend who asked, how much would you think it was the cost of the diagonal tempered glass? While I was looking at the climber trying to reach it. 

A final consideration about the landscape. If the climber was meant to add some green area to the barren open space, then it is not significative.  The plaza has a few trees, and the palm trees are part of the buildings across the street. 

The row of trees, as seen in the massive model, are not to enjoy them from a practical and useful point of view. They are just like sculptures, one cannot step on the planters. There is also a physical barrier to the side garden, as seen from the terrace. I am against this design decision, since any architect can use the landscape as a mean of relax and healing. This decorative landscape is reinforcing the idea of the architecture as an object, pretty far form the  users natural need of being in close contact with nature. Which is the consequence? People taking their beverages outside the building, looking for a plaza with canopy trees. 

Regardless my personal opinion, the OCMA is worth the visit.

A row of trees dividing two buildings. No matter the effort, this space will be always empty, it is just a service corridor. The trees are planted where some space was left.