A18 SUNDAY, AUGUST 25, 2019 S LATIMES.COM
OP-ED
I
n 1919, a handfulof architects, design-
ers and craftsmen started the Bauhaus
design school in Germany to change the
world. They wanted to modernize archi-
tecture and product design by stripping
away old-fashioned ornamentation, stream-
lining elegant design, and making it available
for all people. If they could have hopped into a
time machine and traveled 100 years ahead
and visited any Target, IKEA or high-rise of-
fice building, they would have been aston-
ished how thoroughly successful they were.
My Bauhaus-educated parents had a
hand in this transformation, though my
younger self struggled to understand their
passionate opinions about design.
I remember back in 1983, when my archi-
tect father traveled all the way from New York
City to Columbus, Ohio, to visit my first
apartment. The ratty brick house cost less to
rent than my parents’ parking spot. My father
stepped into my beige-carpeted room and
said, “These old places sure do have a lot of
molding.”
I commented, “It’s kind of sweet, isn’t it?”
He turned pale. “If you like molding, you
are a fooland a failure.” The profound disap-
pointment in his voice made the charge sting
even more. He had dedicated his life to
Bauhaus values, and he had evidently raised
a daughter who, tragically, didn’t seem to
share them.
But my life started out with molding.
After they married, my father had moved
into my mother’s apartment, where she was
raising a son from an earlier marriage. I grew
up loving the Venetian blinds, the hissing ra-
diators, the exposed brick ... and the molding.
I still look at photographs of that old apart-
ment sentimentally: the bentwood rocker,
the round dinner table made of curly maple,
the vase of anemones on the windowsill. They
sing to me like an origin story from the old
country.
At my father’s insistence, we moved when
I was 6. My brother was 14 and needed his pri-
vacy. My father was 41 and needed his mod-
ernism. We followed the moving van to a
brand-new apartment building in China-
town, on the day of the New York City black-
out in 1965. There was no molding, no wood,
no brick. The junction of wall to ceiling was
crisp and simple and white. The windows had
nautical rounded edges and no sills. Form
equaled function.
It has taken me most of my life to figure out
what is “good,” design-wise, from the amal-
gam of my parents’ tastes. I remember asking
myself as a kid, over and over inside my head:
“Am I supposed to like this?” I still ponder
that question when I find an object that
pushes the crafty boundaries of art. My par-
ents’ opinions are sometimes surprising.
They loved Shaker furniture. They disliked
Andy Warhol. They loved “Yellow Subma-
rine.” They hated black velvet paintings.
They loved laboratory glassware. Designer
clothes were stupid. It was all so hard to figure
out!
In the second half of my life, I’ve worked to
communicate their fine-tuned aesthetic to
my children and now my wife, Peggy, who
asked, while we were first dating, “Who is this
Mr. Bauhaus?”
Modern design is the family shield, a fam-
ily crest. I was not only born of my mother and
father; I was born of Black Mountain College
and the Institute of Design — two Bauhaus
schools established by artists escaping Ger-
many after Hitler shut down the Bauhaus.Mom went to Black Mountain in North Car-
olina in 1947. Dad went to the Institute of De-
sign in Chicago in 1950. They met when my
mom hired my dad to build her a geodesic
dome studio in the woods of Connecticut. It
became the first residential geodesic dome in
the world. It has been our summer house and
perpetual work project over the last 62 years.
With my childhood came the task of
understanding and distilling their aesthetic.
Learning its contours, its history and its
sense of humor. Why a squashed metal
garbage can found on the street belonged on
our wall. How the shape of a vintage toy top
seemed to bring my dad more joy than some
works of architecture. My parents weren’t
elitist. They liked “outsider art” and childish
drawings more than any art in a frame-store
window.
When I went to private school in Brooklyn,
I had trouble reconciling our aesthetic with
my friends’ homes. “Why can’t we get cur-
tains? Everyone at school has curtains!” I
begged. There were other things my friends
had: peaceful homes, no fighting, salad on the
dinner table, pillows on their couches, every-
one pitching in with the dishes after dinner.
But here’s what my family had: My par-
ents and their friends were creating what
would be the cusp of 20th-century modern
art.
My father gave up almost everything to
catch the golden ring of modernism. He left
his family’s modest apartment in the Bronx,
with its tchotchkes, to go to Cornell Uni-
versity. He lost any chance of his father’s ap-
proval when he majored in ornamental horti-
culture. After a four-year interlude fighting
Germans and freeing Jews in Europe, he re-
turned to Cornell and tried to finish his horti-
culture degree. But he gave that up to start all
over in architecture at the Institute of Design.
He gave up two wives — one sweet, one im-
possible — because he was so devoted to
drafting Platonic-solid-based domes. And
then he found my mother, who seemed to
speak his language, who understood the new
look of this 20th century, who was painting
large abstractions of the horizon, trees, the
moon, and time’s passage, and who wanted a
dome studio. My mom didn’t have to give up
as much; her bohemian family loved that she
went to Black Mountain, even though it
wasn’t accredited. They even sent her to Paris
on a troop ship the summer before college to
study art at the Académie Julian. It was there
that she met her first husband, Bob Rausch-
enberg, and brought him back with her to
Black Mountain.
I didn’t let them browbeat me out of mold-
ing. I live in a 1906 house with plenty. I’ve spent
much of my life figuring out my own path as
an artist. But the Bauhaus family traditions
persist. I gave birth in my art studio to my
daughter, who just graduated from art
school. I raised a son who repainted his gray
walls white. I reflexively know what Mom and
Dad and the soul of the 20th century would
like.
The Bauhaus turns 100 this year. My fa-
ther, Bernard Kirschenbaum, passed away
three years ago at age 91, leaving his brilliant
life work of minimalist sculptures. My
mother, Susan Weil, is 89 and having a show of
her work in Munich this summer. My brother,
Chris Rauschenberg, who also lives in a house
with molding, has a fantastic photographer’s
eye. I am writing essays about it all. Fools and
failures, none.Sara Kirschenbaumis a writer and artist in
Portland, Ore.SARA KIRSCHENBAUMwith her father, Bernard Kirschenbaum, on top
of a geodesic dome in Stony Creek, Conn., circa late 1960s.My Bauhaus childhood,
when molding was taboo
From my parents, I learned to distill the 20th-century
aesthetic, though it wasn’t always obvious
By Sara KirschenbaumI
n recent years,Los Angeles has
made major strides toward its goal of
decarbonizing a famously unsus-
tainable city. But it is making one se-
rious misstep.
First, the good news. In February, envi-
ronmental justice activists convinced the
city to close three natural gas plants — the
Scattergood, Haynes and Harbor gener-
ating stations — that have operated next
to residential neighborhoods for more
than half a century. Mayor Eric Garcetti
framed that decision as the foundation of
a sweeping municipal Green New Deal
that would accelerate Los Angeles’ transi-
tion toward carbon neutrality, carbon-
free energy and a more livable city.
More recently, the Los Angeles De-
partment of Water and Power finalized its
long-standing plans to close the city’s last
coal-fired power plant, the Intermoun-
tain Power Plant in Delta, Utah. The
elimination of L.A.’s dirtiest source of
power should have been another bit of
great news, but there is a catch: The DWP
plans to replace Intermountain with a
brand-new natural gas plant on the same
site, and city ratepayers will be on the
hook for its power and pollution through
2077.
While natural gas cuts down on coal’s
CO2 pollution, methane leaks in the sup-
ply chain erode its overall climate ben-
efits. Natural gas is definitely not a source
of clean energy, and renewing Los Ange-
les’ commitment to fossil-fuel infrastruc-
ture by building a new natural gas plant is
out of step with the city’s declared focus
on climate solutions. Moreover, the terms
of the Intermountain contract should
raise eyebrows: the DWP has committed
to operate the plant for 50 years — long
past the decarbonization deadlines set by
city policy and state law.
California’s landmark green energy
plan, SB 100, requires utilities like the
DWP to deliver 100% carbon-free electric-
ity by 2045. The California Energy Com-
mission, which is currently reviewing the
utility’s clean energy plans, should ask
how the DWP can reconcile committing to
a new natural gas plant until 2077 with its
transition to entirely carbon-free electric-
ity. Without a convincing answer, the com-
mission should reject the DWP’s ap-
proach.
The DWP argues that it needs natural
gas as a bridge fuel, to fill in during the
dark, windless hours when renewable
technologies can’t produce enough power
and existing energy storage technologies
can’t fill the gap. This so-called intermit-
tency problem is real, but with so many
existing natural gas plants idling in Cali-
fornia and across the West, the DWP has
not justified why it needs yet another.
At the end of the day, though, the In-
termountain contract’s 50-year commit-
ment to new fossil-fuel infrastructure isn’t
a bridge — it’s an anchor. Even if it passes
legal muster for now, the city will eventu-
ally have to contend with the cost of its
stranded investment. Barring a techno-
logical miracle, by 2045 Los Angeles rate-
payers will be left with an unusable power
plant they must continue to pay for.
In the early 20th century, the DWP was
seen as a pioneering utility. Larger-than-
life figures like Ezra F. Scattergood, after
whom the Scattergood Generating Sta-
tion was named nearly 70 years ago,
pushed technological and political limits
in their quest to bring Los Angeles cheap
and reliable electricity.
Later, as the city began to worry about
its infamous pollution, power planners
took the cheap and easy shortcut, build-
ing new plants like Intermountain far
from Los Angeles. But while exporting the
city’s pollution across state lines im-
proved air quality in Los Angeles, it also
degraded vast swaths of the West. The
plants’ emissions obscured views of the
Grand Canyon, while the mines that fed
them brought devastating groundwater
damage to the Hopi and Navajo peoples.
Now, as the world faces the urgent
threat of climate change, the DWP finds
itself at a crossroads. At the same time as
it can’t seem to wean itself from Inter-
mountain, it is also planning to sign
record-breaking deals for clean energy. To
meet the state’s ambitious — and neces-
sary — goals, the DWP needs to stop
building new fossil-fuel infrastructure.
Intermountain and its fellow out-of-
state power plants bought Los Angeles
peace of mind and air quality improve-
ments at a high price for other parts of the
West. The closure of the Scattergood,
Haynes and Harbor plants could mark a
real turning point in Los Angeles’ com-
mitment to environmental justice and cli-
mate progress — but only if Intermoun-
tain goes with them.Josh Lappenis a Marshall Scholar at
Oxford University, where he studies
the history of Western energy and
electrification. He was born and raised
in Los Angeles.L.A. doesn’t need
more dirty energy
By Josh Lappen
The city is at a climate
crossroads, and the DWP is
about to make a wrong turn.
O
n Wednesday, thebipartisan
Congressional Budget Office
updated its estimates for the
federal budget deficit. CBO
now estimates deficits in ex-
cess of $1 trillion for next year, and every
year thereafter for the next decade. Twen-
ty-one cents of every dollar the federal gov-
ernment spends is borrowed, and that will
remain true for the next 10 years (the outer
boundary of the CBO estimate).
These annual deficits add to the total
debt the federal government owes. As a
nation, we owe $22 trillion today, of which
$6 trillion is owed to federal trust funds,
like Social Security. At the end of the next
decade, we’ll have added another $12 tril-
lion. The debt owed to the public is now
79% of our nation’s annual gross domestic
product. In 10 years, CBO estimates, it will
hit 95%, the highest percentage of GDP it
has been since World War II.
Why does the national debt matter?
For one thing, it is increasingly owed to
China. Of the $16-trillion federal govern-
ment debt not owed to the federal trust
funds, China owns $1.2 trillion. China
could crash the U.S. economy if it chose to
dump all $1.2 trillion of U.S. bonds on the
market at one time.
The federal government will need to
find another buyer for the bonds that
China is currently purchasing. Without
such a large buyer, bond prices will have to
fall — and that means the U.S. would have
to pay higher interest on its bonds, caus-
ing higher interest rates throughout our
economy.
This threat is not taken seriously be-
cause China would lose so much in taking
this step. But an autocracy can manage
domestic consequences better than a
democracy. If something vital to China
were at stake — like the status of Taiwan —
there is no reason to doubt they would use
this weapon we have placed in their hands.
The national debt also matters if
America were faced with a national crisis
that required more federal spending. If we
hadn’t sold so many bonds already, there
would be more room to sell bonds, without
pushing up the interest costs that Ameri-
ca has to pay.
There is a moral dimension to Ameri-
ca’s growing debt as well, though it re-
ceives less attention. The debt exists be-
cause we have chosen to consume now and
make our children pay the interest bill for
years to come. The next generation will
have emergencies of their own to pay for —
possibly related to climate change that es-
calated on our watch but will have the
most serious repercussions on theirs.
If the debt were incurred to create
structures of permanent value to the next
generation — great public universities,
better roads and airports, a military to
keep international lines of commerce open
— it could be justified. Instead, the soaring
deficits have come about not from lasting
investments, but from tax cuts, higher en-
titlement payments and military expendi-
tures in Iraq and Afghanistan.
From past and recent behavior, it is un-
realistic to believe that the nation’s lead-
ers will pay any attention to these dangers.
The agreement between President Trump
and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on July
22 was one reason for the higher debt esti-
mate by CBO. That agreement lifted caps
on spending that had been set by formula
in 2011. Over the last eight years, every time
the 2011 caps threatened to come into ef-
fect, Congress voted to waive them.
“Reagan proved that deficits don’t
matter,” Vice President Dick Cheney said
in 2003. From all indications over the inter-
vening 16 years, leaders of both major
parties agree.
There used to be at least some head-
wagging by fiscally conservative Republi-
cans when deficits were reported to have
grown. Now there is not even that. Be-
cause it averted a government shutdown,
the lifting of the expenditure caps in July
was applauded by Trump and Pelosi, as
well as by Senate Majority Leader Mitch
McConnell, Senate Minority Leader
Charles E. Schumer and House Minority
Leader Kevin McCarthy. None of these
politicians has complained about the con-
sequences for America’s debt.
If there’s any bipartisanship left in
Washington, it appears to be a joint will-
ingness to ignore the economic and na-
tional security risk created by growing
deficits and debt as far into the future as
we can see.Tom Campbellis a professor of
economics and law at Chapman
University. He served five terms in
Congress and was finance director of
California. He left the Republican Party
in 2016, and is now active in registering
voters in the Common Sense Party of
California, a new political party that is
socially moderate and advocates for fiscal
responsibility.When soaring deficits
come home to roost
By Tom Campbell
Conservative Republicans
used to complain about
budget deficits and the
rising national debt.
Not anymore.