For a time, Banham writes, all this "really made it appear that Los Angeles was about to contribute to the world not merely odd works of architectural genius but a whole consistent style. This "Style that Nearly Its "houses as skinny steel frames infilled with glass" represent, " par excellence , an architecture of elegant omission that takes Mies van der Rohe's dictum about Wenige ist Mehr even further than the Master himself has ever done.
Yet as Banham sees it from his earlys vantage, "the very puritanism and understatement that we admire in the Case Study style make it an unlikely starter in the cultural ambiance of Los Angeles — or rather, make it an unlikely finisher.
The permissive atmosphere means that almost anything can be started; what one doubts is that there was enough flesh on these elegant bones to satisfy local tastes for long. The goal of the Case Study House Program, as Entenza articulated it, was to produce an architectural form "capable of duplication," in no sense "an individual 'performance,'" and suitable for "the average American in search of a home in which he can afford to live.
Nevertheless, images of the Case Study Houses themselves have proven lastingly influential enough to keep no few Angelenos dreaming of their own eventual splendid isolation in steel and glass — "embosked ever deeper," as Banham puts it, "in their tortuous roads and laurel privacies. The story of Los Angeles in the fifty years since has largely been one of densification, and of tragi-comically wishful or incompetent responses to that densification.
Banham records a near-total lack of awareness of the concept itself: before rolling out the "Los Angeles Goals Program" of the mids, "intended to involve the citizens in fundamental decisions about the future of the area," it was necessary first to explain "what town planning was, and exemplify rock-bottom concepts like High and Low Density in words and pictures little above primary school standards of sophistication. Banham's enthusiasm didn't blind him to the inevitable difficulties of a detached-house metropolis hitting its physical limits — nor to the solutions implicit in Los Angeles' unprecedented urban form.
And though personally captivated by Los Angeles' freeway network, he writes in The Architecture of Four Ecologies that "it is inconceivable to Angelenos that it should not be replaced by an even better system nearer to the perfection they are always seeking. That Los Angeles hasn't yet replaced its freeways would probably surprise Banham, but so would the city's current urban rail system. As often as he seems to have heard the idea brought up, he held out little hope for its full implementation: "When the socially necessary branch has been built, to Watts, and the profitable branch, along Wilshire, little more will be done and most Angelenos will be an average of fifteen miles from a rapid-transit station.
Granted, its expansion has been agonizingly slow going, the "profitable branch," for instance, having yet to reach the west side of the city. But the "socially necessary branch" has been in service for 30 years now, with a station dedicated to Banham's favorite work of Los Angeles architecture. Hand-built between and by and in the backyard of a laborer untutored in art or architecture, Watts Towers present to Banham the most eloquent expression of Los Angeles' purpose: "The promise of this affluent, permissive, and free-swinging culture," as he puts it in one radio broadcast, "is that every man, in his own lifetime and to his own complete satisfaction, shall do exactly what he wants to.
Novelty, obsolescence, and replacement — the values of s Detroit carmakers — are key to understanding Banham's view of Los Angeles, and of most everything else.
But never did he parrot the Chamber of Commerce line about Los Angeles' being "the city of the future"; rather, he valued Los Angeles for giving concrete form to the modernity of the moment, entirely adapted to its distinctive environment. On the contrary, he admired the city's ability, willingness, and sheer available space to "swing the proverbial cat, flatten a few card-houses in the process, and clear the ground for improvements that the conventional type of metropolis can no longer contemplate.
Los Angeles' most aggressive architectural conservation efforts strike me as comically apt illustrations of a disorder Banham warned against in an essay of the early s: a loss of ability to "distinguish between the maintenance of the urban texture that supports the good life, and the mere embalming of ancient monuments. For history is about process; the objects the process creates are incidental. What does Los Angeles' built environment reveal about its own civilization?
Disgusted by The Architecture of Four Ecologies and the praise it had received in the press, Plagens took to the pages of Artforum with a thorough — and thoroughly entertaining — denunciation of the book and its author , the quintessential "chic debunker of current anti-L.
To a degree, Plagens sympathizes with Banham's contrarian aesthetics: "England is a country steeped in a tradition of aristocratic, Chippendale quality supplanted by a gently socialist concern for the 'greater good' on an overpopulated island.
Banham thus remained an outsider to his beloved Los Angeles, the position from which most of the lasting writing about the city has been done, sometimes to praise it but more often to bury it not that it ever stays buried. On the whole, Los Angeles has been rather less compellingly depicted by its natives or near-natives, many of whom suffer from a tendency to resignation and defensiveness. Mike Davis , author of the paranoid classic of Los Angeles nonfiction City of Quartz , hails from deep-inland Fontana, which is by some measures close enough.
The Architecture of Four Ecologies ' 50th anniversary offers an occasion for readers more familiar with the city on the level of day-to-day existence — as well as familiar with the city of nearly the past quarter-century, on which Banham never laid eyes — to re-evaluate the book, praising its lasting insights but also pointing out its "blind spots.
But could he have written from any other point of view? It is Los Angeles' primary source of both fascination and frustration that the city, enormous in size and diverse in every sense, can't be apprehended whole.
Intellectual or artistic attempts to do so usually end in embarrassment or in at least one case, embarrassment and an Academy Award for Best Picture. The best one can do is to engage with Los Angeles through one's own, inevitably "restricted" point of view, then hope for the unlikely outcome that the result proves as appealing as The Architecture of Four Ecologies.
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A walled courtyard will lead guests into the home and inside is a modernist space with high ceilings that gives an illusion of a wider space. The homeowners wanted their new home to be more connected to the outdoors so a south-oriented deck and rear garden serve as focal points and it also brings natural light into the home.
Bringing sustainable architecture to Southern California has been the primary goal of Dan Brunn Architecture for the past nine years. Founder Dan Brunn has worked on high profile projects that have garnered much attention within the architectural industry. His firm, Dan Brunn Architecture, implements modern architectural principles that create a functional relationship between a project and its environment.
A visionary architectural exploration born in the heart of Hancock Park, Bridge House LA has reached completion after 2 years of construction. Edward Ogosta established his own firm in after working for more than a decade for many architectural firms in Los Angeles. Edward Ogosta Architecture specializes in designing custom residences and cultural establishments. While maintaining deep ties with the local architecture community, the firm has earned recognition from AIA and Residential Architect Magazine.
Whether creating a high-end single-family home or designing for a large-scale institution, the firm keeps an eye on the details of how a space can be more functional for the client. Alison and Jeff Goad used to live in a cramped bungalow built in the s.
Instead of buying another home, her brother Edward offered her a cost-saving design strategy that will increase the value of their family home.
The result is a contemporary pocket house designed to withstand street noise. It was a very economical renovation because Ogosta only demolished the front of the house and retained the three bedrooms and the garage. Instead, a 1, square foot addition was installed in the living area to create large openings between the rooms.
Award-winning firm Ehrlich Yanai Rhee Chaney Architects is an internationally renowned architecture company that promotes multicultural modernism.
Its designs are determined by the environmental impact and cultural relevance of the project. Ehrlich encourages his firm to design sustainable plans that can benefit the environment. Located in Beverly Hills, The Coldwater Canyon home is a gorgeous oasis that is surrounded by trees and secluded from its neighborhood. The firm designed a home that had a long composition with a sense of graciousness. A guest house that also served as a project studio was found on the north end and a pool courtyard was found in between the property.
From the entryway, an entry foyer leads guests to the main home. Once guests take north, the home becomes bigger and it will lead to the open dining and living space that captures the stunning landscape of the hillside. The full-service architectural firm is established by two seasoned principals who have more than years of experience. Griffin is an AIA Fellow who has studied the relationship between urban spaces and architectural design.
Together, they have upheld a technically-complex firm that values collaboration and sustainability. This award-winning Hollywood Hills Residence is a 2, square foot house that was created with simple materials.
Stone and metals are the most utilized elements in the home. These elements are mostly found in the minimalist front exterior. One of its focal points is a ladder found on the second story that leads to the secret roof garden which has a gorgeous view of Hollywood and the Pacific Ocean.
When founder Grant Kirkpatrick established the firm 31 years ago, it focused on mostly retail and cultural projects. It was important to create a private home that had a relaxing aura for the veteran tennis player. Sharapova gave Architectural Digest a tour of the home and mentioned that she always wanted a Japanese-inspired home by the beach.
When guests enter the home a beautiful courtyard with Japanese pine and a custom fountain welcomes them into a beautiful entryway made entirely of overlooking windows and a double-triple height ceiling.
Several variants of Spanish-style architecture make a contribution to the unique flavor of our local landscape. Notable practitioners: John C. Austin; Stiles O.
Clements; Arthur and Nina Zwebell. Monterey Colonial Revival: A mixture of Mexican, New England Colonial, and Spanish styles, Monterey Revival homes are two stories, and feature second-floor verandas with wood railings, plaster or thick stucco walls, and louvered shutters though these are often fixed.
Meant to inspire awe in the observer, the intensely detailed and textural stucco work of Churrigueresque buildings often feature broken pediments, inverted columns, scrolls, garlands, and layer upon layer of curved surfaces. Notable practitioners: Albert C.
Martin; Stiles O. While Southern California is rich in architectural variation, Googie —exemplifying the collision of car culture and the Jet Age futurism that bloomed after World War II—is arguably the signature style of the region.
Cantilevered roofs, starbursts, and hard angles are all themes in Googie architecture. Googie designs were geared toward catching eyes of drivers, enticing them to slow down and come in. Googie captured the post-war high that made people feel that the future was now and they were living in it. This form of multifamily rental housing in which a group of small detached structures are clustered around a central communal courtyard was introduced in by Pasadena architect Sylvanus Marston, and soon replicated all over the Southland in a wide range of architectural styles.
Their heyday was cut short by World War II, after which higher density apartment buildings became the preferred model. Nowadays, only about vintage bungalow courts remain, with these holdouts increasingly threatened by rising property values.
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