Los Angeles didn't seem like a city to be understood all at once. It's made up of distant neighborhoods, very long streets, sudden changes of scale, and atmospheres that seem to belong to different places.
During this trip, Vicode didn't yet have a precise form. However, our attraction to extraordinary objects, curiosity about interiors, and the desire to connect art, craftsmanship, and daily life already existed.
The images and video in the article were taken during our trip to California.
California notebook
A city observed through four elements: light, color, scale, and movement.
Venice Beach and Abbot Kinney: the first rhythm of Los Angeles
We started the trip near Venice Beach. In the morning, the ocean, surfers, and bicycles created a constantly moving landscape; a few streets inland, the atmosphere changed completely.
Abbot Kinney impressed us with its succession of small boutiques, galleries, cafes, and independent spaces. It wasn't the individual shop that caught our attention, but the way each environment sought to convey a precise identity through signs, materials, objects, and graphics.
Here we began to observe something that would often recur in the Vicode vision: a space can be informal and, at the same time, extremely refined. Identity doesn't necessarily arise from abundance, but from the quality of choices.
Note 01
In Venice, we understood that color can be energetic without becoming childish, when supported by simple forms and authentic materials.
Downtown Los Angeles: art, metal, and urban scale
Leaving the coast, we entered a more vertical city. Downtown Los Angeles appeared to us through large volumes, reflective surfaces, metallic facades, and murals capable of occupying entire buildings.
A visit to The Broad allowed us to observe contemporary works within an architecture that constantly changes the light. Not far away, the metallic forms of the Walt Disney Concert Hall transformed the facade into a sequence of curves, reflections, and shadows.
We were particularly interested in the contrast between these monumental architectures and the street art encountered along the streets. Two very different languages, but both capable of changing how the city is perceived.
Scale
Buildings capable of changing the perception of the body and movement in space.
Surface
Metal, concrete, glass, and urban paint react differently to the California light.
Image
Murals, signs, and architectures transform the city into a continuous graphic composition.
Griffith Observatory: observing Los Angeles from above
From the Griffith Observatory, we finally saw the geographical structure of the city. The distances, almost impossible to perceive when traversing the streets, became legible from above.
On one side, the hills and the Hollywood Sign; on the other, an urban expanse that seemed to have no precise limit. It was a completely different image from the compact, pedestrian-friendly Los Angeles we encountered in Venice.
This continuous variation in scale is perhaps one of the aspects we remember most: Los Angeles transitions from the detail of a small sign to an immense landscape without a true transition.
Note 02
From above, Los Angeles stops being a succession of neighborhoods for a moment and becomes a single, enormous design.
Santa Monica: the everyday design of the coast
In Santa Monica, the rhythm returned to that of the ocean. The pier, the signs, the amusement park structures, and the people on the beach created an immediate and popular image of California.
More than the attractions, we were interested in the relationship between simplicity and recognizability. A Ferris wheel, a surfboard, or painted lettering can become powerful symbols because they truly belong to the life of the place.
This ability to transform everyday elements into memorable images would also influence how we observed objects: something doesn't need to be complex to possess character.
Beverly Hills and Rodeo Drive: precision and theatricality
Beverly Hills showed us another Los Angeles. The streets appeared more controlled, the shop windows built like small stage sets, and every detail contributed to conveying a sense of order and luxury.
On Rodeo Drive, we primarily observed how architecture, fashion, and visual identity worked together. Clear colors, recognizable facades, glossy materials, and studied proportions transformed each building into an image.
It wasn't an aesthetic to be literally reproduced, but an interesting principle: perceived quality arises from the coherence between space, object, light, and presentation.
Los Angeles palette
Sky blue, saturated pink, graphic yellow, silver metal, green palm trees, and black signs: an apparently dissonant palette that light manages to hold together.
California Dreaming: the journey in motion
The photographs tell some fragments of the trip. The video, on the other hand, preserves the movement: the streets, the ocean, the surf, the palm trees, and the transitions between one neighborhood and another.
From Los Angeles to the Vicode vision
During that trip, Vicode did not yet exist as a defined project. However, many of the elements that would become part of its identity already existed: the attraction to color, the dialogue between art and objects, the interest in independent spaces, and the search for presences capable of telling a story.
Los Angeles taught us not to fear unexpected juxtapositions. A handcrafted object can coexist with a pop artwork, a textured surface with an intense color, an ancient form with a contemporary interior.
This energy continues in the Color & Fantasy collection, where ceramics, artworks, and sculptures are selected for their graphic and chromatic strength.
The project
Discover how travels, encounters, and research on objects gave rise to Vicode.
The selection
Objects, ceramics, and artworks chosen to bring energy, rhythm, and personality into interiors.
Looking back at that trip today, we don't just remember the most famous places. We remember the unexpected combinations, the small galleries, the colorful facades, the sound of the ocean, and that particular light capable of making everything clearer.
Los Angeles didn't give us a formula to follow. It left us with the desire to build a free project, where objects distant in origin and era could find a new dialogue.
Lorenzo & Elena — Vicode
