Index Issue 6

TEXT FARIDA AMAR

From the buildings we drive by daily to the homes we live in to structures designed to reach deep space, Issue 6, titled STRUCTURE, has been an exhaustive adventure of wonder and awe. We have taken a dramatic pause, introducing performance art and motion film to our creative process, in order to see Los Angeles and our relationship to it with fresh eyes. Although impossible to cover everything Los Angeles has done in its constant effort to evolve over the past 200+ years, we have fallen in love with the selection of locations featured within our editorials.

This issue is a testament to what can be achieved when over 60 artists work together on a small budget and tight timeline. The late nights followed by 4 am photoshoots, the scanning and rescanning of negatives, the online tutorials that help us teach ourselves how to do what we want to do on the spot, the constant adjusting and adapting to things not going as planned, the thousands of energy bars we’ve survived on, SOVO// never fails to reassure our faith in the power of community. The process of building a recognizable brand requires that we go the extra mile to earn trust from the individuals and organizations who work with us. In doing so, we have built beautiful friendships along the way. It really takes a village to build a village, and our whole editorial team is so thankful to have experienced the wisdom of property owners, architects, artists, scientists, engineers, designers, city planners, and archivists.

SOVO// challenges what is expected of conventional publications and pushes our learnings through an experimental filter—demanding us to connect with the unknown and experience personal growth. The writers and photographers have found unique approaches to telling the stories you will experience in Issue 6. Vanessa de Horsey moved from Copy Editor to Editor; Andru Perez moved from Creative Assistant to Styling Editor; and Art Director Milana Burdette established an analog film department that brought nine new artists to our editorial team. We also welcomed four new writers and four new photographers with this issue. Thirty-eight individuals stood or danced in front of our cameras; we included 116 film as well as film images from historic archives for the first time. Inspired by stacks of blueprints she ran into in the basement of George Ellery Hale’s Solar Laboratory, Creative Director Farida Amar decided to change the format of the magazine itself, using a clear acrylic tube rather than our signature colored acrylic box. Special thank you to Mount Wilson Observatory Trustee Dan Kohne for the full-color, high-res scan of Hale and Ritchey’s early plans for the 60-inch telescope featured on our cover—an image that has still not yet made it to the Carnegie Libraries. 

Thank you to Irwin Miller for taking on an advising role for Issue 6, squeezing in time between his massive responsibilities at Gensler to meet us for lunch and respond to calls and emails, as well as connect us to his own network and send feedback on our progress. Irwin is a Principal and Design Director at Gensler’s Los Angeles Office. He is also a Firmwide Lifestyle Leader, Global Retail Practice Area Leader, and a Retail Studio Director. His passions include the integration of technology into user environments, frequent and intense collaboration between designers, and the ongoing search for everything outside his profession to find inspiration in his own work. We suspect this is why he agreed to work with us in the first place, and we can only hope we have rewarded him with some morsels of inspiration. 

“Whatever it is that we are experiencing in the world of lifestyle, it has to matter to us. It must be relevant and shareable. We need to have a say in all aspects of what those experiences are—but still welcome the surprise and delight that comes from the unknown.” 

Irwin Miller

Thank you to Owner Dion Neutra and Curator Dulce Stein for allowing us to hold our first museum show at The Neutra Institute Museum. This is the first time we did not have to set up in an hour, host an event, and then break down that same night. The Neutra has really allowed us to exist in their space and temporarily make it our own. Dulce has accommodated every request we presented to her, responding only with excitement for what SOVO// has created and appreciation for being a part of it. She has even allowed us to install a permanent exhibition wall on the history of the Neutra. Special thank you to the Charles E. Young Special Collections archive at UCLA for their help with sourcing all the original documents from the Neutra Silverlake Office, and to Farida Amar, Collette Von, Kate Chiplinsky, and Andru Perez for spending hours filtering through pages and pages of carbon copy papers. Thank you to Dr. Tom Albright from the Salk Institute and physicist Timothy Thompson from Mount Wilson Observatory for coming in to speak on Architecture’s connection with Neuroscience and Astronomy, respectively. We are so lucky to have this incredible experience working with The Neutra Institute Museum presenting the release of this issue. 

The dedication our artists have to the craft is evident in the work. Please find a large, clear surface to enjoy exploring and absorbing the editorials and the stories contained in this tube. Issue 6 includes 116, 35mm, 120, 4×5, and dry plate still photography. Consider spatial relationships and how our built environment defines and influences cultural development and, ultimately, your own self-awareness. With a heavy focus on urban planning, Issue 6 looks at how the purposeful design of built structures gives our lives a sense of “place,” and how we occupy buildings as intimately and as exploratively as we occupy our own bodies.