You might have memorized the trivia: When you passed the red tiles, you were halfway down the corridor. \u201cRed means halfway\u201d was shorthand for locals in the know, just like \u201cE Ticket\u201d<\/a> or \u201cthe #19 sandwich.\u201d<\/a> <\/p>\n \u201cIt just says L.A. in so many ways,\u201d said Janet Marie Smith<\/a>, the Dodgers\u2019 executive vice president of planning and development.<\/p>\n For the clubhouse walkway, Dodgers executive vice president of planning and development Janet Marie Smith and architect Brenda Levin opted for multiple shades of blue tiles.<\/p>\n (Robert Gauthier \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n The Dodgers<\/a> wanted to get in touch with Bennett because they were about to install a similar tile wall at Dodger Stadium. Smith could not find Bennett, but she reached out to someone who had liked an article about Bennett that had been posted on LinkedIn. Same last name, same spelling. Smith crossed her fingers.<\/p>\n Turned out to be a relative of Bennett. The Dodgers sent some sketches of their project and asked Bennett for her thoughts.<\/p>\n \u201cI was a little disappointed I didn\u2019t work the project,\u201d Bennett said over the telephone, chuckling, \u201cbut I don\u2019t think I could have done it at this stage.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOnce we got tile in our head, how could you not think of the LAX walls?\u201d said Janet Marie Smith, the Dodgers\u2019 executive vice president of planning and development.<\/p>\n (Robert Gauthier \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n Bennett is 96, happily living one block from Central Park. The LAX project was completed in 1961 \u2014 the year before Dodger Stadium opened.<\/p>\n What the Dodgers really were offering was the recognition denied to Bennett six decades ago.<\/p>\n \u201cI realized they just wanted my blessing,\u201d Bennett said. \u201cThey wanted the connection. And that was very satisfying.\u201d<\/p>\n And, yes, she had some thoughts for the Dodgers. She wrote them a letter by hand, the old-fashioned way. The letter got lost in the old-fashioned mail, but Bennett\u2019s daughter had thought to take a picture of the letter, and she sent it to the Dodgers via email.<\/p>\n Bennett\u2019s advice for the colors of the tiles?<\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t limit it,\u201d she wrote, \u201cto the Dodger blue.\u201d<\/p>\n On game days, Dodgers players take an elevator to the lowest level of Dodger Stadium. As they exit, they look to their right to see the Dodgers\u2019 World Series championship trophies and most valuable player awards, to their left to see the Gold Glove awards.<\/p>\n When they turn toward the clubhouse, they see Cy Young and Silver Slugger and manager of the year awards on the right, rookie of the year awards and then the Dodgers\u2019 retired numbers on the left.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s meant to be uplifting and motivating, and a reminder to everyone \u2014 our players included, who take that path \u2014 of what a storied franchise this is,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n The fans in the fanciest seats, the ones you see on television right behind home plate, can take that path too \u2014 but only until they reach the double doors, the ones with \u201cDODGERS CLUBHOUSE\u201d painted above them.<\/p>\n Pass through those doors, and you used to see a gray wall decorated with signage pulled from storage \u2014 signs from events held at Dodger Stadium long ago, and others commemorating milestone seasons. As part of the clubhouse renovations last winter, Smith and her team imagined how to freshen up that walkway.<\/p>\n \u201cWe wanted to try to get it out of its funk of just being a concrete wall,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd, once we got tile in our head, how could you not think of the LAX walls?\u201d<\/p>\n Tile mosaic wall designs line departure halls in various LAX terminals. <\/p>\n (Robert Gauthier \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n The Dodgers\u2019 clubhouse features a tile wall \u201cin the hydrotherapy area,\u201d Smith said. The tiles there are all Dodger blue.<\/p>\n For the clubhouse walkway, Smith and architect Brenda Levin opted for multiple shades of blue tiles, interspersed with white tiles \u2014 a decision reinforced when they received Bennett\u2019s suggestion to go beyond Dodger blue. The wall includes more than 714,000 individual tiles, Smith said.<\/p>\n \u201cI think they did an excellent job,\u201d Bennett said. \u201cThey got the rhythm of vertical stripes, which has a very athletic look.\u201d<\/p>\n To Smith, a fierce advocate of sports venues reflecting their host cities, the tile wall reflects home.<\/p>\n \u201cIn many ways, that is a symbol: not just of L.A., but of \u2018Welcome to L.A.\u2019 \u201d she said. \u201cThat felt right to us.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not screaming at you. But, if you know, you know. We\u2019ve always wanted that area to feel like a \u2018Welcome to L.A.\u2019 to our players.\u201d<\/p>\n If you know, you know, but the players may not know. Dave Roberts<\/a>, the Dodgers\u2019 manager, said he did not know the story behind the wall until Smith explained it to him.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a great little touch,\u201d Roberts said.<\/p>\n Smith said players and team executives have asked about the wall. Many of them did not know about the LAX walls, but she understood why.<\/p>\n \u201cThey don\u2019t fly commercial,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n If you merit an obituary in the newspaper, the first sentence generally includes your claim to fame. In 2007, The Times published an obituary<\/a> with this first sentence: \u201cCharles D. Kratka, an interior designer and graphic artist whose Modernist projects included the mosaic walls in tunnels at Los Angeles International Airport, has died.\u201d<\/p>\n Said Bennett: \u201cI just about freaked out.\u201d<\/p>\n After Bennett had finished the LAX mosaics, she left town. By the time the airport unveiled them, she said, she was in Latin America. Until she saw that Times obituary, it had not occurred to her that anyone else might have gotten the credit for the LAX project.<\/p>\n In the obituary, the airport historian credited Kratka with the design, and so did the director of volunteers at the airport museum. In 2017, so did an official LAX document: \u201cCompleted in 1961, Charles Kratka\u2019s mosaic murals have become iconic symbols of Los Angeles International Airport.\u201d<\/p>\n At the start of the Jet Age, when airplane travel was a glamorous affair and even passengers in the cheaper seats enjoyed in-flight meals served with silverware, Bennett said the murals were designed to evoke the wonder of a cross-country trip: blue for the ocean at each end of the corridor, and in between green for the forests, and yellows, oranges and browns for farmland, prairies and deserts.<\/p>\n Tile mosaic wall designs line departure halls in various LAX terminals. <\/p>\n (Robert Gauthier \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n Bennett freely admits that Kratka was involved in the project. The city hired Pereira and Luckman as architects for the LAX expansion<\/a>, and Kratka was the firm\u2019s head of interior design.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was my boss,\u201d Bennett said.<\/p>\n Bennett said the mosaic design was hers, although she said she did not recall whether she had chosen to use glass for the tiles.<\/p>\n \u201cEverything from that point on was mine,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Bennett and her family have pushed for LAX to recognize her as the designer. Airport officials acknowledge Bennett\u2019s participation in the project but, amid a search for records from six decades ago and without Kratka to provide his version of events, they believe a conclusive determination would be difficult. And, back in the day, credit was more commonly attributed to a firm rather than to an individual designer.<\/p>\n When I asked for a statement saying whom LAX currently credits with the design, an airport spokeswoman said, \u201cLAX has no official comment.\u201d<\/p>\n In 2017, Design Observer investigated and ultimately supported Bennett\u2019s claims<\/a>, citing two primary findings: one, an acclaimed designer of the same era \u201cvividly recalls Bennett doing the murals,\u201d and, two, Bennett installed similar tile murals for two Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) stations<\/a> in San Francisco.<\/p>\n That was good enough for Smith and the Dodgers.<\/p>\n At LAX, there is no sign crediting anyone \u2014 not Bennett, not Kratka, not Pereira and Luckman, not anyone else \u2014 for the murals. However, the Dodgers have given Bennett her due at Dodger Stadium, on a sign directly across from their tile wall.<\/p>\n \u201cThis mosaic wall draws inspiration from architect Janet Bennett\u2019s iconic mosaic murals at Los Angeles International Airport,\u201d the text begins, \u201cthat transformed a transit space into a work of art.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What would a baseball team in Los Angeles want from a retired artist and designer in New York?…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":46139,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[35937,35931,1582,276,18517,35936,5494,2442,35935,35932,2961,35930,224,35934,5337,9323,8744,35933,4157,8786],"class_list":{"0":"post-46138","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-baggage-claim","9":"tag-bennett","10":"tag-ca","11":"tag-california","12":"tag-concrete-wall","13":"tag-designer","14":"tag-dodger-stadium","15":"tag-dodgers","16":"tag-iconic-mural","17":"tag-kratka","18":"tag-la","19":"tag-lax","20":"tag-los-angeles","21":"tag-los-angeles-international-airport","22":"tag-losangeles","23":"tag-player","24":"tag-project","25":"tag-similar-tile-wall","26":"tag-smith","27":"tag-tile"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114812344875813587","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46138"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46138\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} <\/p>\n
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