On an upper-story evening of tasteful elaboration in east Culver City, the smart setting for a fundraiser was a tailored fit for Thomas Small, who has cast himself as a unique visionary candidate for the City Council.
Centered in the sophisticated heart of the Arts District, the perspective, on a Thomas Small evening, offered a stimulatingly fresh view of Culver City on the eve of its 100th birthday.
Glasses clinking out on the open-air patio, a steady stream of tray-riding appetizers being served, upwards of 100 upward ladies and gentlemen of diverse backgrounds came to celebrate a doubleheader:
- The imaginative, development-oriented, problem-solving candidacy of Mr. Small, who exudes joie de vivre, and
- Their first up-close inspection of 10 development projects as they emerge from architectural wombs, portrayed, as they were, on display tables and presentation boards.
Anticipatory electricity sizzled across the free-form second floor. From there, curious visitors could observe, on ground level, multiple rows of generously lighted architectural desks and appropriate apparatus.
Mr. Small’s expression glittered as he glanced at the mingling crowd across the artful expanse of British-born architect Clive Wilkinson’s second-story social quarters.
He spoke of the takeaway feeling he wanted his visitors to carry home from this luminous evening.
“I want them to be intrigued and excited,” Mr. Small said. “We are looking at the future of Culver City.
“We are getting very intense in-depth glances into what particular places in Culver City are going to look like five years from now.
“Many of them are extraordinary,” said the architectural journalist and global consultant.
Aiming a right-hand finger at a presentation board across the room, “you will see what is going to be on Washington Boulevard, between National and Robertson.
“Few people have seen that. It is an extraordinary building,
different from anything in Los Angeles.
“The Platform next to it is already beautiful. We are all looking at that now. But this building, which is going in where the Collision Center is on Washington, is going to be extraordinary.
“That walk,” said Mr. Small, “from National to Robertson, and then onto Downtown, through the center of the city, is going to be beautiful, a much more pleasant place than it is now.”
When Mr. Small steps into candidate mode and knocks on neighborhood doors to talk about the April 12 election, how do prospective voters respond?
“They are worried about the traffic,” he said, “and they are excited about the vitality and the good parts. That is where the rubber meets the road here in Culver City, the excitement over how these projects can make the city even more vital and trepidation about the traffic choking us.”
This was a Small crowd.
In addition to supportive City Councilperson Meghan Sahli-Wells, herself a candidate, and community pillars Paul and Madeine Ehrlich and Mim and Hank Shapiro, the rest of the audience was characterized by Mr. Small:
“The people here are a fantastic mix of Culver City residents, some of whom are quite active in the Culver City political scene, some of whom aren’t, some of whom I have met while walking or they heard about it some other way, or they want to support me. Half of the people are not involved in architecture at all, but interested in how the city is going to look, interested in meeting the architects (representing 10 firms). The other half is the architects themselves, and then the design community, much of that also from Culver City.”
On a world-class occasion, Mr. Small presented a matching entertainment dimension, the renowned jazz musician (and fellow Cultural Affairs Commissioner) John B. Williams and his singer wife Jessica.
