Charred chimneys are all that’s left of these LA midcentury homes. Inside the quest to save them

A piece of history burned down in the Los Angeles wildfires. Project Chimney is salvaging what's left to honor the architecture - and eventually create a memorial

By mid-morning last Thursday, Evan Hall was standing near the top of Monument Street in Los Angeles's Pacific Palisades, looking out over the Pacific Ocean. He was running out of time.

Hall stood in the charred ruins of a 1953 home designed by the modernist architect Richard Neutra. Beside him, a handful of hard-hat-clad preservationists, masons and construction workers all looked up at the same thing: a chimney.