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      House, Housing Home : LA’s Domestic Design Challenge By Jennifer Dunlop

On Thursday evening, January 31, 2002, architect John Kaliski moderated the second in the Forum’s “Slippery When Wet” panel discussions, this one focused on housing and held at Woodbury’s downtown facility. It was a riveting and illuminating evening for two … | +

 03.19.2006 |||||||||||||



      The Act Of Dwelling : WM Seeks Pots And Pans By Barbara Lamprecht

To “dwell,” in affordable housing parlance, is an expensive proposition. A few months after it was finished, I returned to the renovated Single-Room-Occupancy, 50-unit complex I worked on. Originally designated as a “motel” of 60 rooms each with a vanity … | +

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  Mission Meridian Model    The Case Against Standardization by Morris Newman

If an architect had designed the human hand, Bill Mitchell told his students at UCLA in the early 1980s, all the fingers would be equally long. Everybody laughs when they hear that joke because they instantly recognize its truth: There … | +

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  FI-7_Marble_1    The Well Traveleds

1. In the hullabaloo surrounding proposed changes to the historic Huntington Hartford Gallery at Two Columbus Circle, Ada Louise Huxtable, longtime architectural critic for the New York Times, famously dismissed the Edward Durrell Stone landmark as possessing “dubious architectural distinction,” … | +

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  FI-5_Culver_1    From Paradise To Parking Lot By Lawrence Culver

The rise of modern Los Angeles since the late nineteenth century has been inextricably connected to its reputation as a place of recreation. It might seem likely that a city sold as the playground of the world, with an economy … | +

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  FI-5_Loomis_1    Exposition Park, South Los Angeles, Case Study by Alan Loomis

Los Angeles arguably has only two parks of the Beaux-Arts / Olmsted tradition – large, cultivated gardens in urban settings, home to iconic cultural institutions: Hancock Park and Exposition Park. However, both parks are significantly smaller than similar parks nationwide. … | +

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  FI-5_Palmer_1    3 Acres On The Lake : DuSable Park, Chicago By Laurie Palmer

“3 Acres on the Lake” is a public art project that solicited speculative proposals for a tiny piece of land called DuSable Park, on the shore of Lake Michigan at the mouth of the river in downtown Chicago. Plans have … | +

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  FI-6_Eizenberg_1    Whose Turf is This Anyways? Julie Eizenberg, John Given, Roger Sherman, Doug Suisman

On June 17, 2003 the collaborative LAH*UB [Los Angeles H* Urban Bureau] sponsored a panel discussion at Gallery 727 on the subject of public space in downtown Los Angeles, in conjuction with their Civic Park Proposals competition/exhibit (see Issue 5). … | +

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  FI-6_Resse_1    All Shiny and New : Disney Hall and Downtown by Carol Mcmichael Reese

“Disney Hall finally puts Downtown on the map and gives Downtown something of substance that was missing. Still, we have to ask: should the focus Downtown be on creating monuments or connective tissue? Downtown needs walkable streets, green spaces for … | +

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  FI-5_Ehrlich_1    Civic Park Proposals, Downtown Los Angeles : Project by Ken Ehrlich / L=ah*ub

Thomas Guide page 634 F-4 The Los Angeles H* Urban Bureau (LAH*UB), an L.A. based collaborative of artists and architects, actively experiments with modes of research in downtown Los Angeles. In the last year, we have focused almost all of … | +

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  FI-5_Young_1    “It’s Not as Complicated as People Think” : Essay and Case Studies Terence Young

Many of the residents of America’s older central cities want more Greenspace in their own and their families’ lives. They crave the cooling, stress-relieving beauty of street trees, the relaxation and recreation offered by neighborhood parks, and the chance to … | +

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  FI-5_Pincetl_1    Using Parks to Make and Urban Metropolis : Essay by Stephanie Pincetl

Los Angeles is well known as the nation’s capital for air pollution, traffic congestion, and sprawl. It is perhaps less well known as the second densest city in the country, at over 8 persons an acre [1]. Additionally, its lack … | +

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  FI-5_Mogel-1_1    Augustus Hawkins Park, South Los Angeles : Case Study by Lize Mogel

Thomas Guide page 674 F-5 The Augustus F. Hawkins Natural Park is widely touted as an urban greening success story. For almost a century, the site, at the corner of Slauson and Compton Avenues in a heavily industrialized corridor, was … | +

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  FI-5_Price_1    Confluence Park, Los Angeles : Case Study by Jennifer Price

Thomas Guide page 594 J-6 Welcome to one of the ugliest, most devastated spots on the Los Angeles River – that is, if you can find it. The confluence of the river and the Arroyo Seco can take some effort … | +

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  FI-5_Pinto_1    Virginia Avenue Park, Santa Monica : Case Study by Michael Pinto

Thomas Guide page 671 H-1 The narrative of lost public life and public space is prevalent throughout Los Angeles. It may be valid to say that public space has largely been commodified and rarely becomes truly public in that some … | +

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  FI-5_Kelly_1    Baldwin Hills Park, Crenshaw : Case Study by Therese Kelly

Thomas Guide pages 672-673 One afternoon shortly after I first moved to Los Angeles, I took a new way home from LAX and found myself in a strangely surreal, yet somehow perfectly Angelean landscape. Two green hills rose up from … | +

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  FI-5_Kahle_1    Les Parcs & Los Parques : New Parks & New Natures by Chris Kahle

What better place to study parks than Paris? Well, maybe Los Angeles! As an urban geographer, I am lucky enough to research urban open space and parks. My luck was extended when I was invited to Paris as a participant … | +

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  FI-7_Johnson_1    William Pereira by Scott Johnson

Some years after Bill’s death, Allen Temko, the longtime architectural critic of the San Francisco Chronicle and modernist devotee, reminded me of one of his favorite celebrity lines: “Bill Pereira was Hollywood’s idea of an architect.” He was, of course, … | +

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  FI-5_Mogel-2_1    Public Green by Lize Mogel

The “public green”, or town commons, was originally a shared piece of land used for grazing livestock. In 17th and 18th century New England, this type of public space was usually the center of community activity. The public green is … | +

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  FI-2_Bharne_1    Ruins and Reincarnations: the Old and New Cathedrals by Vinayak Bharne

If we liberate ourselves from the myopia that there is a single legitimate sensibility to measure the spirit of our time, we will hear a dialogue between the two cathedrals in Los Angeles. The emerging new cathedral is poised to … | +

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  FI-2_Dale_1    The Battle of Bunker Hill or A Grand Avenue Revisited by John Dale

Terms of Engagement, Urban Design in Los Angeles at the Millennium, on view last winter at the Luckman Gallery, featured several schemes for reinterpreting Grand Avenue as an animated pedestrian precinct in the heart of downtown. One, by a team … | +

  



  FI-2_Lamprecht_1    Continuity of Service : The Cathedral and Concert Hall by Barbara Lamprecht

Thou has ordered all things in measure and number and weight.” (Solomon 11:2) “The entire sanctuary is thus pervaded by a wonderful and continuous light entering through the most sacred windows.” (Abbot Suger, bef. 1150. De consecratione eccesiae sancti Dionysii. … | +

  



  FI-4_Polyzoides_1    Mall Chicken [Oxygen Bars And Other Observations] By Christina Polyzoides

The best chicken on the east side of Los Angeles is at the Glendale Galleria, a dish of the Bulgarian variety that I have come to call “Mall Chicken”. The International Grill is located in the food court in the … | +

 03.18.2006 |



  FI-4_Zeiger_1    Lost In Chinatown By Mimi Zeiger

What happens when the currency of the late twentieth century and now the burgeoning twenty-first, the “real” telescopes back in on itself? When the all the Osbornes and Survivors and Anna Nicole Smiths lose the sardonic smirk and implode in … | +

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  FI-4_Loomis_1    The Once And Future Mall By Alan A Loomis

Near the end of 2001 no fewer than three urban malls opened their doors to the shoppers of greater Los Angeles. These malls – and at least another three are in the final stages of construction or planning – represent … | +

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  FI-4_Bohn_1    Cityplace : The Good, The Bad, And The Monotony By Michael Bohn

As a child, my first experience visiting downtown Long Beach was filled with danger and excitement. My mother was taking me to the YMCA building for my first swimming lesson. This structure, even from a child’s perspective, was a beautiful … | +

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      Design Criterea for Shopping Malls by Tom Marble

This article is in adobe acrobat .pdf format, also readable by the Mac OS X preview program. download article Back to Forum Issue 4: Consuming the City  

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  FI-4_Southern_1    Anywhere Comes to Hollywood by John Southern

The shopping mall is perhaps one of the most cataclysmic typologies of architecture to evolve in the Twentieth Century. What the skyscraper did for the urban commercial landscape, the mall has done for suburban retail. Malls successfully weaned customers away … | +

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  FI-4_Rivas_1    Shopping on Broadway : Downtown Los Angeles by Sonia Rivas

The street bustles with people; music roars out from the stores; salespeople urge you into their shops and merchandise spills out into the sidewalks. This is Broadway Street in the historic downtown Los Angeles. Once the home to shops like … | +

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      Hope or Hype: A Residential Community Downtown by Tatiana Hegleman

Beyond the concept of buildings containing living space, housing embraces an idea of a community environment in which the streets of the city and the space between the housing become as important as the units themselves. This idea is particularly … | +

 08.22.2005 



  FI-6_Zellner_01    Downtown … Again by Peter Zellner

downtown… again peter zellner Spectacle The future of Downtown Los Angeles is in play again. The Grand Avenue Project is the biggest public re-development spectacle to come to town in a long while. Under the banner “Re-Imagining Grand Avenue, Creating … | +

  



  FI-6_Harris_1    Plans Come and They Go, Or Downtown is Almost OK by Robert S. Harris

plans come and go, or downtown is almost ok robert s. harris Almost a decade ago the Los Angeles City Council unanimously endorsed the Downtown Strategic Plan (DSP). Within a short time, Mayor Bradley completed his final term of office, … | +

  



  FI-7_Herman_01    Victor Gruen Today by Daniel Herman

Though he is better known for his shopping malls of the 1950′s and 60′s, Victor Gruen spent the earlier part of his career designing stores. As M. Jeffrey Hardwick’s recent biography of Gruen, Mall Maker (2004), tells it, Gruen began his … | +

 09.11.2004 



  FI-7_Paul_1    Westward Transitions by Daniel Paul

The Early Development of the Late-Modern Glass Skin in the Collaborative Works of Cesar Pelli and Anthony Lumsden In 1964, the large, multi-service, Los Angeles architectural firm of Daniel Mann Johnson, & Mendenhall (DMJM) hired Cesar Pelli as the first … | +

  



  FI-7_Hess_1    Built by Becket by Alan Hess

The mid decades of the twentieth century were the heyday of Imperial California. The Golden State’s population swelled, its youth revolutionized the nation’s commerce and culture, its entertainment industry colonized the globe, and its aerospace industry ruled the future. Like … | +

  



      Embracing Late Modern by Kazys Varnelis

Situated between the domesticated modernism of the Case Study Houses and the Santa Monica School neo-avant-garde, Los Angeles’s late modern architects, big firms like Victor Gruen Associates, Luckman and Pereira, Albert C. Martin and Associates, and Welton Becket did much … | +

  



      Downtown : Housing LA’s Future by Amy Anderson

Downtown could be Los Angeles’ next suburb. Not in the negative way that suburbs are commonly viewed, with sprawling development and isolated uses, but in the old-fashioned way, as a new residential community suffused with hope for the future. Where … | +

 03.20.2002 ||



  FI-3_Burnett-Stuart-2_1    Wanted By Everyman : Buildings By Smith And Others By Jack Burnett-Stuart

Currently nearing completion in the Little Italy area of downtown San Diego, the forty-unit Essex is Smith and Others’ most ambitious building to date. With its four “funnels” towering over the adjacent 5 freeway, this building is surely a landmark … | +

 03.19.2002 ||



  FI-3_Falletta_1    Same Difference : Baldwin Hills And Aliso Villages By Liz Falletta

In 2001, Baldwin Hills Village, a private garden city development now called Village Green, was given National Historic Landmark status by the federal government while Aliso Village, a public housing project, was declared a slum and torn down in preparation … | +

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      The City’s New Role In Housing : An Informal Chat With The Mayor’s LA Business Team Leader Jonathan Kevles

It’s not often that small architecture events are noted in the calendars of politicians, let alone attended. At L.A. Forum’s recent impassioned panel discussion on housing, (see Jennifer Dunlop’s report), the presence of Jonathan Kevles, the Director of Economic Development … | +

  



  Newsletter_1998-LateSpring-chair    Environmental Design – Art Center, by Patricia Oliver – Late Spring 1998

The Environmental Design department at Art Center was born six years ago when the College was just beginning to recognize the need for cross-pollination of disciplines. What has evolved is a program that lives very comfortably in the gray zone: where disparate elements can exist in harmony.

 05.30.1998 |||||



  NL_1998-LateSpring-Allen(1)    Lesbian Domesticity: An Interview with Catherine Opie, by Rachel Allen – Late Spring 1998

While her portraits of queers in the 1995 Whitney Biennial established Opie’s international reputation, she has a pointedly photographed architectural subject. Recently, she participated in the LA Forum’s “Fake Esta Te” lectures series, which investigated uses of architecture by LA artists.

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  NL_1998-LateSpring-Frey(1)    Pilgrimage .01 Albert Frey + His Aluminum Houses – Late Spring 1998

A few hours out of LA is the holy grail of mid-century modern architecture, a town relatively untouched since the late sixties. Albert Frey, architect of many of Palm Springs’ best modern structures, is alive and well and looks benevolently down on his city from an aluminum and steel house on the mountain.

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  NL_1998-LateSpring-Burnett-Stuart(1)    Players in Search of a Game: The River Through Downtown Conference, by Jack Burnett-Stuart – Late Spring 1998

The River Through Downtown Conference, which took place on Saturday, February 28th, 1998 in the Central Library, was organized by the Friends of the Los Angeles River to discuss visionary proposals for the revitalization of the Los Angeles River at four sites: Taylor Yard, the confluence of the Arroyo Seco and the River, the Chinatown Yards and the Downtown/Pico Aliso section of the river.

04.30.1998 |||||



  Newsletter_1997-Fall-Cover    Upcoming [Book] Releases, by Andrew Liang – Late Fall 1997

An overview of 7 upcoming book releases including: Polychromie Architecturale: Le Corbusier’s Color Keyboard, Sverre Fehn: Warhs and Projects, Writings 1949-1996, Frank O. Gehry: The Complete Works, Three Concepts, The Situationist City, Ballers + Wilson: New Buildings and Projects, Architecture Principe 1966 and 1996.

 11.01.1997 |||



  Newsletter_1997-Fall-SSR(4)    School Status Report: Cal Poly Pomona, OTIS, SCI-Arc, UCLA, USC, Woodbury Interior Design, Woodbury Architecture, by Sigrid Miller, Mary-Ann Ray, Niel Denari, Sylivia Lavin, Robert Timme, Linda Pollari, Louis Naidorf – Late Fall 1997

The Forum spoke with the heads of seven local architecture and design programs to inquire how the schools are rethinking design education in the face of accelerated cultural production, changes necessitated by new technologies, and altered societal relations between the design community, the producing/constructing sector and the lay public.

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  Newsletter_1997-Summer.pdf    Postscript, After 7 Years, by Grahame Shane – Summer 1997: Urban Assault Issue

Introduction Krzysztof Wodiczko and the Homeless Vehicle Project. Krzysztof Wodiczko, one of the creators of the Homeless Vehicle Project in 1988, recently spoke in New York.  He explored the instability of public space in this age of corporate downsizing and … | +

 07.01.1997 ||||||



  Newsletter_1997-Summer.pdf    Steven Flusty on Skid Row, by Steven Flusty – Summer 1997: Urban Assault Issue

Deep in the catacombs of the old cathedral, where an aborted subway line once ran, a congregation of berobed redevelopment officials and real estate financiers stands before an altar decorated with the jewel-encrusted likeness of a high-rise skyline. Behind the altar stands … | +

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  Newsletter_1997-Summer.pdf    The Shower Truck, by Li Wien – Summer 1997: Urban Assault Issue

Space Speed Form This Project uses the desire to provide showers for the homeless as a generator for creating architecture and a series of urban moments. SPECIFICATIONS 14 shower stalls powered by 1000 sf of solar panels mounted on the … | +

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  NL_1997-Summer-Castrucci(1)    Andrew Castrucci/Dystopia Deferred, by Joe Day – Summer 1997: Urban Assault Issue

Postered throughout downtown New York last year, the concentric diagram appeared equally an annotated target, enigmatic roadmap, and highly personalized flowchart. Andrew Castrucci composed this spiral of philosophical terms and concrete objects, twining them together in unlikely causal chains that … | +

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  NL_1997-Summer-Shane    Post-Modern Cities and Spaces – Reviewed by Grahame Shane – Summer Reading Issue 1997

REVIEW: Post-Modern Cities and Spaces Edited by Sophie Watson and Katherine Gibson Reviewed by Grahame Shane After a period of drought, there is a welcome flood of good textbooks and readers on the post-modern city. This new literature incorporates theories … | +

 06.01.1997 |||||||



  NL_1997-Summer-Marble    The Architecture of Hollywood, by Tom Marble – Summer Reading Issue 1997

Chapter 5 SCOPE AND GENERAL Section 501. This chapter prescribes general design requirements applicable to all architecture regulated by this code. Section 502. The following definitions give meaning to certain terms related to this code: Architecture. Structures relevant to a … | +

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  NL_1997-Summer_Images-Day(4)    Glass, Beyond the Looking, by Joe Day – Summer Reading Issue 1997

REVIEW: Vision and Visuality Hal Foster, Editor Dia Art Foundation Discussions in Contemporary Culture, no. 2 Bay Press 1988. and Visual Display: Culture Beyond Appearances Lynne Cooke and Peter Wollen, Editors Dia Art Foundation Discussions in Contemporary Culture, no. 10 … | +

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  NL_1997-Summer_Images-Obrien    Moshing in the Surrealist Pit, by Kevin O’Brien – Summer Reading Issue 1997

Review: Compulsive Beauty by Hal Foster Compulsive Beauty Hal Foster MIT Press 1996 (PB) Surrealism has been rediscovered. In the avalanche of this renewed interest arrives Hal Foster’s book Compulsive Beauty. Foster proposes a psychological analysis of Surrealism via Freud, … | +

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  Newsletter_1997-Summer_Edited.pdf    King Residence, Los Angeles, by Arden Yang – Summer Reading Issue 1997

“… Where the Eames House, however, differs from its nearest predecessors, the steel-framed buildings of Soriano , and also its possible successors, the house of Koenig, Craig Ellwood and others in the Los Angeles area, is that its composition is … | +

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  Frank Israel in Paris. Photo Courtesy of Barbara Callas.    In Memoriam: FDI by John Dutton – Summer Reading Issue 1997

We lost Franklin David Israel early in the morning, Monday, June 10th. He turned 50 last fall, and had battled AIDS for twelve years with resolve and courage that became so engrained, so matter-of-fact, that one often took his survival … | +

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  NL_1997-Summer_Cover.Title    Summer Reading Bibliography – Summer Reading Issue 1997

A bibliography of books being read by Forum Board Members and other recommendations.

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  Newsletter_1995-December.pdf    Urban Culture Confronts Urban Design, by John Chase – December 1995

The common theme of the morning is the force, the effect, the primary importance of human actions in shaping the city. Just as urban designers make interventions in the fabric of the city so do the city’s residents’ individual actions … | +

 12.01.1995 ||||



  Newsletter_1995-December.pdf    Urban Theory Challenges Urban Design, by John Kaliski – December 1995

As much as we may want to believe that the city is an autonomous work of art, architecture the mother of urban design, and architects and planners the designers of the urban environment, all who have tried to design an … | +

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  Newsletter_1995-December.pdf    Denaturalized Urbanity, by Mohsen Mostafavi – December 1995

In recent years, American architecture has generally deemphasized it specific and intended relationships with the contexts and situations of new buildings in the city. The term context, when used, has invariably been limited to a sense of describing the physical … | +

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  Newsletter_1995-December.pdf    Infrastructure as Landscape, by Gary Strang – December 1995

The goal of transforming the environment may be ancient, but our ability to realize that goal is unprecedented. In the late 20th century, our technologies less and less resemble tools – discrete objects that can be considered separately from their … | +

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  Newsletter_1995-December.pdf    Apartment Living is Great, by Lesley Marlene Siegel – December 1995

Names matter. The difference between naming a hapless infant Mortimer or Hercules charts the destiny of that child. The same is true for pets. They have names because they are the object of human affection. The pet’s name subsumes the … | +

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  San Fernando Valley, 1950    Natural Productions, by John Dutton – December 1995

The Forum’s summer lecture series, Natural Productions, featured eight speakers who addressed the issue of nature and landscape in the city. Such an issue is particularly complex in Los Angeles, which more than almost any other American city has promoted … | +

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  Newsletter_1995-May-Samarin-1.jpg    Binary Formations, by Peter Samarin – May 1995

The process by which architectural forms are imagined generally involves deeply imbedded relationships between the mind, the hands and a repertoire of preferred tools that are highly resistant to reexamination. These relationships, more than anything else, define the parameters within … | +

 05.01.1995 ||||||



  Newsletter_1995-May-Shane-4.jpg    Rem Koolhaas and the Post-Modern City, by Grahame Shane – May 1995

“Beautiful as the chance encounter of a sewing-machine and an umbrella on the dissecting-table” -Lautreamont The Rem Koolhaas show at the Museum of Modern Art in New York pointed to one of the key problematics of the post-Modern city, which … | +

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  Newsletter_1995-May-Siegal.jpg    The Alchemy of the Ad Hoc, by Jennifer Siegal and Todd Erlandson, Photographs by Jennifer Siegal – May 1995

Often personal expression and invention will find their architectural place not in the world of economic affluence, bureaucracy and codes, but in Rudofsky’s world of architecture without architects. The beauty of Rudofskys’ observations lies in the natural evolution of built … | +

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  Newsletter_1994-October_FULL    Art and Architecture: A Discussion – October 1994

This conversation took place against the background of a recent redefining of the funding process for public art projects in the local municipality of Culver City.  A great deal of press time and public energy has gone into arguing exactly … | +

 10.01.1994 ||||||



  Newsletter_1994-October-Morton1.jpg    Getting the “Master out of the Master Plan”, by Pat Morton – October 1994

The “Urban Revisions” exhibit at the Los Angeles MoCA presents a broad overview of urban design during the last decade, primarily in North America.  Without fitting the disparate schemes into a particular theme or position, the show provides an extremely … | +

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  Newsletter_1994-October-Kahn1.jpg    Panic in the Year Zero, by Eric Kahn – October 1994

‘Panic in the Year Zero’ Architecture Under Duress: Modernity: The Questions of Revisionism or Recontexualization, by Eric Kahn Life Magazine 1271 Avenue of the Americas New York, New York 10020   To: Editor Fr: Central Office of Architecture Re: LIFE … | +

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  Newsletter_1994-October_FULL    Stereotomic Permutations, by Preston Scott Cohen – October 1994

Architectural form is always paradoxical.  It remains estranged and autonomous because it escapes the cultural categories by which it is assimilated and situated.  The programs that necessitate and the materials that give body to form are also protagonists in the … | +

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  Advertisement for Splinter #8, Virtues of Reality    Architects, Architecture, and Activism? by David Jensen

This article is an attempt to outline some of the current work being produced by architects and activists who are responding to concrete social, political, and economic changes, from Canadian Zine Splinter to local Los Angeles activists.

 05.01.1994 ||||||||||||



  NL_1994-May_Adams(1)    On Broadway: Downtown Los Angeles by Robert Adams

LA Forum Newsletter – May 1994: Ruminations on the places, buildings, shops and people of Downtown Los Angeles, on and off Broadway.

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  NL_1994-May_CoveTitler    DMV/AIA, by Joe Day

The American Institute of Architects has a window of opportunity in Los Angeles that it has not enjoyed in the last twenty years. For a variety of reasons, few having much to do with the AIA, young designers in California … | +

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  NL_1994-May_CoveTitler    Cyburbia: L.A. As the New Frontier, or Grave?, by Fred Dewey

L.A. has long been boosterized as a kind of paradise for commerce and fantasy. It has also been lamented for its lack of a sense of community, for cars out of control, people’s retreat into isolation, and the privatization of … | +

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  Editorial Excerpt Splinter #1, Antic Architecture    Excerpt from Splinter #1 Antic Architecture

Antic architecture goes against the grain, only that which embodies power, whether that of the Medicis or of MacDonald’s. Architecture has served power and in return has been head-locked by it. Similarly, the institutions that define and support architecture; the media, … | +

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  Glare & the Antic Architecture Cinema, Splinter #4    Glare & the Antic Architecture Cinema, Splinter #4

Excerpt from the architecture zine Splinter #4: Glare & the Antic Architecture Cinema, Summer 1991, Barry Isenor + Kenneth Hayes, Editors. There was an arresting moment in a film we saw recently. Beyond swirling blue and black images of desolate … | +

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  Newsletter_1994-February    From Bread to Circuses and Beyond: On Good and Bad Public Space in LA, by Fred Dewey – February 1994

Public space is thought to mean any open space that attracts people. Yet most would agree Los Angeles, even with its crowds and parks, is not a very favorable environment. Indeed, and frankly as a shock, it is becoming almost … | +

 02.01.1994 ||||||||||||



  Newsletter_1994-February    Returning to LA, by Chava Danielson – February 1994

Ignored for so long as aberrant, idiosyncratic, or bizarrely exceptional, Los Angeles, in another paradoxical twist, has more than any other place, become the paradigmatic window through which to see the last half of the twentieth century (Edward Soja, Postmodern … | +

  



  Newsletter_1994-February    Los Angeles Urbanism: New Public Realms, by John Dutton – February 1994

It is increasingly common to hear Los Angeles invoked as the model city of the emerging post-industrial world. Although such a claim may have wide acceptance, there is little agreement as to whether it is an honor, dishonor, or merely … | +

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  Newsletter_1993-August-Betsky-1-395x287    Doctors Bury Their Mistakes, by Aaron Betsky – August 1993

Doctors Bury Their Mistakes Some Notes on Hospitals Nowhere is our pact with the technological devil more clear than in hospitals. They represent our enslavement to a technology that promises survival, on both a personal and a professional level, but … | +

 08.01.1993 |||||||



  Newsletter_1993-August.pdf    Nostalgia and Technology, by Rachel Allen – August 1993

Nostalgia and Technology Re: Shin Takamatsu at Sfmoma 1. To talk about technology without anticipating the future is as difficult as talking about the future without involving technology. Since Frankenstein was published in 1816, science and technology have been the … | +

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  Newsletter_1993-August.pdf    Cyberspace and Architecture, by Stephen Perrella – August 1993

Cyberspace and Architecture Interview with Christian Hubert by Stephen Perrella SP: As an architect, how are you engaged in virtual reality and how do you consider this work in relation to “built projects”? CH: I think it is important to … | +

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  Newsletter_1993-August-Kipping-1.jpg    Information as Discipline, by Gordon Kipping – August 1993

The continued pervasiveness of existent and emerging information technologies is certain to contribute significantly to the reconfiguration of the social relations that organize productive activity. Early signs of such a change can already be witnessed. The rapid growth of information … | +

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  Newsletter_1993-February    Gehry: In His Own Theme – Interview with Frank O. Gehry, by Sylvia Lavin – February 1993

SL: Do you agree with most of the architectural press’s assertion that only your Entertainment Center escaped Disney-itis because it is the only un-themed building at EuroDisneyland? FOG: In before-the-opening views, the building seems to have escaped, but in after-the-opening … | +

 02.01.1993 ||||||



  Newsletter_1993-February    Patronizing Disney, by Nina B. Lesser and Jonathan Massey – February 1993

The Disney Corporation has become a prestigious client among architects. The attention being paid by the architectural press to Disney’s recent commission of several prominent architects has made much of the participation of high-profile architecture in this major cultural enterprise. … | +

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  Newsletter_1993-February    On the Outside Looking In (or, Some Unthemed Thoughts on EuroDisney), by Andrea Kahn – February 1993

SEPTEMBER 20, 1992; A FRIEND’S APARTMENT, PARIS: “Agriculture, c’est pas Disneyland” states a farmer in the studio of France Tele 2, during a broadcast of the ECC referendum returns. (Agriculture, c’est pas Disneyland-well, maybe, or maybe not. Both are big … | +

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  Newsletter_1993-February    Where is Architecture in the “New World Order?”, by Dana L. Webber – February 1993

Of the many different ideas implied by the phrase “New World Order,” a central theme is the paradoxical breaking down of individual political and economic barriers, on the one hand, and the formation of “blocks” of several independent nations on … | +

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  Newsletter_1993-February    Nature vs Real Estate, or Los Angeles’ Folly, by Nicholas Lowie – February 1993

Every yard is a Sod Frontier. “Land without population is a wilderness, and population without land is a mob.” The fence-object allows nature to become the land subject. The commodification of nature is a product and producer of complacency. Sooner … | +

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  Newsletter_1993-February    Nomadic Thoughts: NJ, by Aarden Hank – February 1993

UNSIGHTLY SITES: Heading North, looking west, riding Amtrak, Philadelphia-New York. Why succumb to frontal vision? What is there, off to the side? Despite the abstract discipline of underlying grids and the overt authority of regulatory actions, the built environment rarely conforms … | +

  



  Newsletter_1993-February    Photo Essay by Kristine Larsen – February 1993

Back to February 1993 Newsletter

  



  Newsletter_1992-September-Chase-2.jpg    Whose Beach Party is this Anyway? Architecture and its Audience, by John Chase – September 1992

In the Los Angeles of the 1990s, limited views of the architect’s role, and a limited view of the region’s architectural and urban context, have dangerously narrowed both the public and critical understanding of architecture’s nature as a social art. … | +

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  Newsletter_1992-September-Riley1.jpg    Letter from Vienna, by Terence Riley – September 1992

While I suspect that I was asked to review Experimental Architecture in Los Angeles and its essays by Aaron Betsky, John Chase, and Leon Whiteson in order to provide an “East Coast” point of view, these comments are being written … | +

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  Newsletter_1992-September-Lesser    Experimental Architecture in Los Angeles, by Nina Lesser – September 1992

What makes architecture “experimental?” According to this publication, it appears to be popularity, fashion, and linkage to Frank Gehry and the Morphosis crowd. This definition is useful in that it provides important insight into the values of the current architecture … | +

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  Newsletter_1992-September-Day-J.-1.jpg    Nomadic Thoughts, by Aarden Hank – September 1992

Downtown LA in the distance.  Building and highway, remotely proximate. What to do with leftovers – with outdated visions of enduring urban form? Criteria used to evaluate cities, urban values, are predicated on the spatial structure of traditional urban form: cities built … | +

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  Newsletter_1992-September-Betsky-1.jpg    James Stirling: Full Frontal Up View, by Aaron Betsky – September 1992

I have always felt slightly guilty about admiring James Stirling. The pleasure I took in his architecture always seemed somewhat perverse. How could I explain to a rational person the delight I took in a floor plan, like that of … | +

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  Spring_1992-Title    UCLA, Graduate School of Architecture and Urban Planning, by Jurg Lang – Spring 1992

Future Directions: Architecture and Urban Design Jurg Lang, Head of A/UD Program Design is the central focus of architectural practice as well as education. Strength and distinction in design is thus an indispensable attribute for any leading school of architecture. … | +

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  Spring_1992-Title    New Directions and Priorties in the Urban Planning Program, by Ed Soja – Spring 1992

New Directions and Priorities In the Urban Planning Program Ed Soja, Assistant Dean I have decided to use the broad title of Critical Studies in Architecture and Urban Planning to encompass what has recently been called Critical Urbanism or Critical … | +

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  Spring_1992-Title    USC School of Architecture, by Diane Ghirardo – Spring 1992

On the Search for a New Dean Dianne Ghirrardo, Associate Professor Through some strange sequence of events, an astonishing number of schools are seeking new deans this year. Not surprisingly, one of the first questions asked by faculty members is … | +

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  Spring_1992-Title    UC, San Diego – Spring 1992

An Architecture School in the Making Under the leadership of founding dean Adele Naudé Santos, the UCSD School of Architecture is absorbed in its first research project rethinking the nature of architectural education. With just nine months until the arrival … | +

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