The Architect and His Wife Dancing

(Judith and Konrad Wachsmann)

Media: photography

Photographer unknown

Date of Exposure: unknown

Film (developed) and Text written: 2019

The first exhibition I ever mounted was a retrospective for the architect and engineer Konrad Wachsmann at the Fisher Museum of Art, University of Southern California (formerly known as the USC Fisher Gallery). At the time, Konrad was the Director of the Institute for Building Research at USC, having been hired by Crombie Taylor.

Konrad started his career by developing a friendship with Albert Einstein whose house he designed in Germany (1929) and who later helped him emigrate to America in 1941. Among his many accomplishments: the design for the Civic Center at California City (unbuilt); his partnership with Walter Gropius in the General Panel Corporation (Gropius famously transformed the Grand-Ducal Saxon School of Arts and Crafts into the Bauhaus); as well as his Location Orientation Manipulator (LOM), a machine that overcame the limitations of the human hand in relation to time, space and motion via geometry. (The LOM was an important and early working example of robotics that has largely gone unnoticed).

As a conversationist Konrad was larger than life regaling listeners with stories of his exploits and experiences in a thick German accent. Physically he was short, shaped like a fire plug, loved cigars and women (both married and unmarried). In his totality, he exuded a mixture of good humor, intellectual accomplishment and earthiness. In sum: he lived a life well lived.

Upon his death I helped his wife Judith sell his camera kit. When she gave me the case and contents, it had inside an odd size 127 Verichrome black and white roll of film (exposed) which didn't match the format of the 4x5 Speed Graphic. I didn't think much of it and threw it in a drawer. I found it recently and had it developed. Only two images were on the roll, one unusable, the other shown below. I'm not sure who the photographer was but the photograph appears to be Judith and Konrad dancing in space.

Judith and Konrad Wachsmann dancing.

The Architect and His Wife Dancing
(Judith and Konrad Wachsmann)