No one can straddle the good taste / bad taste line and pull it off quite like homosexuals. Case in point is this photo spread I found in the May 1987 issue of Architectural Digest while I was doing research for my 80s art tumblr. It’s a spotlight on designer Anthony Machado’s Los Angeles studio apartment, which the accompanying article describes as “the ultimate phantasmagoria of California style” and is now my model for the ultimate late-80s gay fantasy lair. “The space serves as a glamorous and eccentric set,” The article continues. “French fashion designer Thierry Mugler and interior designer Andree Putman came to see it when they visited Los Angeles, and Madonna, Michael Jackson and Andy Warhol have also paid visits.” I feel this is a good aesthetic to revive for 2011, since as we acquire more and more things, having a decor scheme that actually thrives on overkill just makes sense. Apparently, Machado went on to decorate palaces for the Saudi Arabian royal family before dying of AIDS related complications in 1995 . . .
your 80s art tumblr is great – just feel-good!
I made that huge blue glass mirror and matching credenza from Mr. Machado’s drawings. It was so big that his ceiling wouldn’t permit the mirror to be mounted above the credenza as he’d have liked. Those tiles were made of pearlescent ’50s plastic and then upholstered in 18th & 19th Century Chineses brocades. We shuddered as we cut the pristine 200 year-old bolts of antique fabrics into little squares and hand stitched them around the tiles.
The 1987 Architectural Digest photos don’t show the incredible detailing and finishes that we appled to each piece we made. The bowling ball lamps and much of the upholstery are also my handiwork. This space was not an apartment but a commercial store on Melrose that he illegally inhabited. I didn’t quite get it at the time, but my contribuions to Mr. Machado’s projects were the most important and prestigious work I’ve ever done.
One of Machado’s cooolest works is the Fat City restaurant in San Diego. It closed today and the family of the late chef Tom Fat is selling and razing the property.
I was designing for a local San Diego neon company at the time Mr. Fat hired Anthony, who subsequently hired me and I went off to El Lay to assist and design for his coolness on Melrose Avenue.
The Fat City connection to Anthony Machado adds even more urgency to the effort to save this building and I need to be sure that his genius and his spectacular work is remembered. He was so attentive to the history and glamor of Top’s and his mind was always on respectful permanence.
In the interior design world, one’s work is a like a transitory slow-motion chalk drawing disappearing over time and it’s scary to know how easily government and development can be so callous as to wash away this treasure.
Wow,nice that there’s something about the great art of machado and j.J.Morin’s comment after googling him one more time.
I remember his work and was furtunate enough to eat at the Palette restaurant,now a hamburger Mary’s,for heaven’s sake.My memory was one of great elegance,incl.the famous bowling ball,and arriving in a ash rain,from fires going on then.I moved away and was sad to see that it waasn’t preserved.Wonderful to read this repor and i guess,patience pays off sometimes.