Midcentury Landmarks As Textile Designs

The perfect backdrop, if you will, for tomorrow's show featuring a famous revived theater, are these photos from Alexandra Becket's textile show at DWR, which we told you about last week. Her sister, Alisa Becket, provided us with a recap of the opening night party:

Alexandra created a series of wall hangings based on our grandfather, architect Welton Becket's iconic buildings in Los Angeles. Stunning images of the Capitol Records Building, LAX Theme Building, Cinerama Dome, Santa Monica Civic Center, and the Pan Pacific Auditorium hung in the front windows. The light shimmering through these large scale wall hangings created a surreal and astounding presentation. She displayed them with Charles Hollis Jones furniture, upholstered in her fabric. Also on display were several mid-century pieces outfitted with hand-painted fabric and coordinating lampshades and pillows.

Of the many design stars in attendance that evening were recent documentary subject Julius Shulman, above right, with Becket; and Charles Hollis Jones, middle right. You can see the batik silhouettes of the LAX Theme Building and Cinerama Dome behind Hollis Jones and Becket, and the distinctive windows of the Capitol Records building on the bottom right. On tomorrow's show we'll talk about a Welton Becket building not given the batik treatment by his granddaughter, the Mark Taper Forum, and its new lease on life by the architects at Rios Clementi Hale. Tune in to KCRW at 2:30pm PST tomorrow, podcast DnA and you can now even embed the show on your blog with our fancy new media player.

~Alissa Walker