A-Z West, Joshua Tree
Andrea Zittel’s testing ground for living experiments and design solutions.
This past weekend, I made the trek from Los Angeles out to one of my favorite places, Joshua Tree, in the California’s Mojave Desert, to tour the former live-work residence of Andrea Zittel known as A-Z West.
A-Z West is an artwork located on over eighty acres in the California high desert next to Joshua Tree National Park. Since its inception A-Z West has functioned as an evolving testing ground for living—a place in which spaces, objects, and acts of living all intertwine into a single ongoing investigation into what it means to exist and participate in our culture today. “How to live?” and “What gives life meaning?” are core issues in both Zittel’s personal life and artistic practice. Answering these questions has entailed exploring complex relationships between our need for freedom, security, autonomy, authority, and control—observing how structure and limitations have the capacity to generate feelings of freedom beyond open-ended choices.
This is my 3rd time touring Andrea’s decades long art experiment which is now stewarded by HDTS (High Desert Test Sites). My 1st visit was back in 2005 when I lead a creative field trip with the Patagonia design studio to meet with Andrea and learn more about her philosophy and practice of designing everything based on need.
Andrea generously welcomed us into her home and showed us examples of her essential design ethos throughout her living space. I remember her entry room being furnished with a massive piece of black foam with an electric turkey carver laying near by, used to reshape and form the mound as she contemplated it’s daily use for sitting, lounging and working. For Andrea, home and the necessities for living within it, are a verb - constantly changing and evolving. Raw and infinitely adaptable.
The idea of furniture prototypes and experimental living for optimal functionality was further exemplified in the kitchen where Andrea constructed a dining table that had large utilitarian bowl shapes carved out of the tabletop, eliminating the need for the excess of actual bowls or plates. Examples of this kind of thinking and prototyping are endless throughout A-Z West.
In 2019, I visited A-Z West a second time. As suspected, much had changed in the 14 years since my 1st visit. The house had grown significantly to accommodate new living experiments and the foam living room “furniture” had since been replaced by the modular, Planar Configuration, far more resolved in appearance and use. Graphic tile-work designed by Andrea, now adorned the kitchen walls and earthenware bowls, made onsite in the ceramic studio, replace the carved out kitchen table from years before. And yet, true to form, the use of “dishes” has been simplified to just “bowl.” No plates, no cups. The bowl, perfect in its singularity and use, displayed like a work of art on the kitchen shelves.
A-Z West, has expanded from a five-acre parcel of land and a homestead cabin to now almost 80 acres of land and includes the expanded version of the main cabin and home, a guest cabin, the Wagon Station Encampment, that share an outdoor communal kitchen, a Shipping Container Compound, with two small apartments and a large chicken coop centered on a lovely courtyard; and a generous indoor studio with spaces dedicated to weaving, pottery, and the various forms of fabrication that go into making the sculptures and furniture that largely constitute her commercial artwork.
On my 3rd and most recent visit to A-Z West, our host showcased all the familiar spots I’d seen years before, some of which had grown in scale, while others had been replaced with new experimental projects. I also learned that Andrea’s original primary homestead cabin is no longer open to tours as it had been during my last visit pre-covid. Amazingly however, you can now rent the main house through one of my favorite rental companies Homestead Modern It would be incredible to stay in her home and experience first hand, her prototypes for living. One day.
I’ve included a few links below if you’re interested in learning more about Andrea Zittel’s work or visiting A-Z West. And I HIGHLY recommend visiting. Your creative mind and spirit will thank you.
Tours for the rest of the property are open to the public one Saturday a month and reservations are required.
Now I just want to use bowls only... and the al fresco bed. Incredible!
Absolutely beautiful. Your description of the property and its creator make me want to get in my car and start driving toward Joshua Tree!