Los Angeles is such a messy place

http://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/2013/04/11/l-a-only-looks-ugly/ideas/nexus/

The city of Los Angeles is a city of architects but not public architecture, asserts Greg Goldin in his article "L.A. Only Looks Ugly: We've Got Lousy Public Architecture.  But There's Much To Appreciate."  For over a hundred years, residential architecture has been front and center but public architecture, not so much.  For every Dodge House by Irving Gill or Tadao Ando's Malibu House, there is a dumpy kitschy public building.  Yes you can make the argument that public buildings such as Frank Gehry's Walt Disney Concert Hall or the Bradbury as genuine architectural gems but the list of jewels in the urban treasure chest is not very long given the fact that Los Angeles has been a mecca for some of the greatest architects, so what's there to appreciate.

Mr. Golding states that Los Angeles lacks a thrilling substation or an inspiring modern skyscraper.  I beg to differ, Union Station on the edge of Downtown Los Angeles, is not only thrilling but lovingly recalls the glamourous days when train travel was the way to go.  I agree with his point about Los Angeles lacking a truly inspiring modern skyscraper.  The high-rises that make up the Los Angeles skyline are not exactly the West Coast equivalent of the Empire State Building or The Sears Tower.  Mr. Golding also takes issue with the billions of dollars spent by the Los Angeles Unified School District on new campus construction, producing nothing of real architectural value except a single spiral folly that seem come from nowhere atop the main auditorium of the Ramon C. Cortines School Of Visual and Performing Arts.  Given the seemingly pathetic record of public architecture, is it possible to say that architecture even matters to Los Angeles?  Interesting question.  Let's clarify this by saying does public architecture matter in Los Angeles?  One can go for blocks and see nothing but dull and sometimes bleak swaths of the city.  Not a very pretty picture, it's down right depressing.  Mr. Goldin laments the lack of a consistent architectural motif and much of the urban landscape resembles a stage set, where the buildings serve as billboards.  In the very next breath, Mr. Goldin states that while this vision of contemporary Los Angeles may be true, in the very next breath he claims that this dystopia is a misreading of the city and the nature of it's architecture.  Let's look at what the author offers in support of this claim.

According to the article, Los Angeles is possibly world's first modern and nearly "infrastructural city."  True enough because there was no Daniel Burnham or Robert Moses to master plan Los Angeles like Chicago or New York, respectively, with no official blessing from civic authority.  In fact any effort to create some master plan for the city have ended ignominiously, leaving Los Angeles at the mercy and penny-pinching caprices of developers, hello Rick Caruso.  Thus, all the great public monuments are public works projects such as William Mulholland's Aqueduct (1913), freeways designed by the state Department of Transportation, and more than a dozen bridges that span the Los Angeles River (yes it does exist) built between 1909 and 1944 mainly built by city engineer Merrill Butler.  The river itself was cemented over by the United States Army Corps of Engineers.  Without the outside source of water, easy means of crossing the river, with the freeways (creating sprawl), and without channelized water from the river, this city would never have emerged the way it did.  These engineering marvels would never had existed.  True enough statement.  Water and roads are essential parts of urban growth.

What was the result of all of this and smaller scale infrastructure projects have allowed Los Angeles to move out beyond the center in haphazardly every direction, causing a decline of the center and its importance..  True too, read Reyner Banham's description of the impact of the Pacific Electric Rail Car in Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies (see previous post).  Even during the twenties while Downtown Los Angeles was booming, it was already losing its grip on the city.  In The Day of the Locust by Nathaniel West described the result of this hodge-podge growth, "Mexican ranch houses, Samoan huts, Mediterranean villas, Egyptian and Japanese tempes, Swiss chalets, Tudor cottages, and every possible combination of these styles..." which suggests be dynamited.  Well, okay.  West's peevish description of Los Angeles as a city with a lack of cohesive and coherent architecture motif is true but dynamited? A little extreme.  Instead of blowing them up we remodel them or let them deteriorate.

Out of this free-wheeling state, a vernacular architecture has emerged.  Its design has less to do with an original appearance of the buildings than their occupancy and purposing.  The buildings have become a cacophony of languages, scripts, fonts, colors, and materials.  The effect of this riot of letters and colors has made the facades all but disappear.  What used to be a Zig-Zag Moderne market or an ordinary concrete block repair shop has now morphed into a laundromat, pawn shop, or storefront church.  For proof of this, check out places like the West Adams Historic  District.  West's East Coast conception of architecture was one that was essentially a time capsule not an evolving collection place making where people can engage each other.  Perhaps, the architecture is a metaphor for the people that live here, ever evolving and repurposing themselves.  So back to the question of does architecture matter in Los Angeles?  The answer is yes, from the bottom-up.  Yes, it's messy, noisy, running riot allover the place but, hey, it's L.A.