Yes real architecture does exist in Los Angeles and it's not shopping malls.

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/culture/la-cm-ca-getty-architecture-pacific-standard-time-20130407,01196877.story

Recommended Reading: Esther McCoy: Five California Architects: Los Angeles, California: Hennessey & Ingalls, 1987

Case Study Houses: The Complete CSH Program: isbn-10 3836510219

Barbara Lamprecht:  Neutra: Complete Works: isbn-10 38312440

David Gebhard: A Guide to Architecture In Los Angeles and Southern California: ASIN: B0000E9VNW

After our romantic ride down Wilshire Boulevard, I thought today I might try to enlighten you on the history of architecture in Souther California.  Now, now I know what your thinking, architecture in Southern California? There is such a thing?  Well yes, and quite a rich history that has nothing to do with Hollywood or Disneyland.  In fact, the history of architecture goes back to the days of the Spanish missions and represents some of the most bold experiments in the modern movement.  Once again, Los Angeles Times architecture critic provides with our source.  As with yesterday, I've provided you a recommended reading list.  All the books I've mentioned are available at local bookseller or online.  Check it out, buy it, read it, you'll be enlightened.

About two years ago, The Getty Trust (http://www.getty.edu) helped organize and fund more than five dozen exhibits on twentieth century art in Los Angeles called "Pacific Standard Time."  The focus of the exhibit was the post-World War II period.  The war years, in a number of ways helped fuel both cultural and industrial production.  The Ferus Gallery opened in 1957 and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art was completed in 1965.  Now the attention shifts to architecture.  This new, more modest exhibit, which opened yesterday April 9 and runs until mid-July, is called "Pacific Standard Time Presents: Modern Architecture in L.A.: (PSTP)  The anchor exhibit is "Overdrive: L.A. Constructs the Future 1940-1990.  Timeline-wise: the dates are fuzzy. Architecture, like any other form of art is fluid.

Mr. Hawthorne launches into his article by pointing out significant gaps and contradictions between the titles, the phrase "modern architecture in L.A.," and the years 1940-1990.  What he is alluding to is the supposition that the modern movement did not exist in the city until 1940.  The reality is far from.  He rightly points out that modern architecture in Los Angeles began well before 1940 and continues up to today.  True enough, the work of Charles and Henry Greene, Irving Gill, Rudolph Schindler, Richard Neutra, and the master Frank Lloyd Wright is proof enough.  On a side note, if you're in Southern California I recommend a visit to the Gamble House (1908) in Pasadena and MAK Schindler Center (1921) in West Hollywood.  Thus, the new exhibit is focusing on Southern California architecture's middle age.  Not that it's unexciting in any way but it ignores the history that came before and set the stage.  Another aside, some of the architects who were part of this middle period were alumni of my alma mater the USC School of Architecture (Fight On).  In conjunction, with this new focus on architecture, the Museum of Contemporary Art is mounting a group show opening June 2 called "A New Sculpturalism." (http://www.moca.org)

The choice of time frame, 1940-1990 and the inclusion of the words "modern architecture" suggests that the Getty hopes to uncover how the city was made modern.  The can accomplish these goal all in one fell swoop.  The time period overlaps the PST art shows mounted last year which covered the years 1945-1980.  They can match the mid-century glamour with presentations of the Case Study House and "Jettisons" architecture.  They can even find some space for an examination of the early careers of Frank Gehry, Thom Mayne, and their colleagues in what became know as the L.A. School, which did not emerge until the late 1970s.

While the mid-century period has been examined ad nauseum, the architecture in seventies and eighties remains underestimated not only in the work of the afore mentioned by also in the work of people such as Cesar Pelli, Charles Moore, Craig Ellwood, and Ray Kappe.  Two shows chronicle this period: first the recently opened show at the Southern California Institute of Architecture, "A Confederacy of Heretics" (http://www.sciarc.edu) and "Everything Loose Will Land" curated by Sylvia Lavin at the Schindler House (http://www.makcenter.org).  The title of this last exhibit is an amusing riff on the famous Buckminster Fuller epigram "If you tilt the world on its axis, everything loose with land in Los Angeles."  However, Mr. Hawthorne right wonders what about the period before 1940?

This period begins in the late nineteenth century when midwesterners and east coast natives dazzled by images of perpetual sunshine and orange groves began to flock to Southern California,the ex-patriot German and Austrian architects that fled economic hardship in Europe, or the architects from the midwest and east coast that came here bringing with them inspiration from Europe, Asia (Japan), New York, and Chicago?  The Greene brothers, who settled in Pasadena in 1893, fused their take on Craftsman Architecture with elements of Japanese Buddhist temple architecture they brought with them after a stopover at the Columbian Exposition.  Then there were the years between 1910 and the Depression where the modern movement was propelled by Irving Gill, Richard Neutra, and Rudolph Schindler, outsiders who brought with them European modernism and fused with the locale.  Gill is worthy of an extensive study especially when placed in juxtaposition with Austrian architect Adolf Loos.  Gill's own work makes use of a stripped-down proto-modernism, evident in his work in the San Diego area and much lamented Dodge House in West Hollywood.  Neutra and Schindler have been examined in every which way.  Of course, the textile block houses of Frank Lloyd Wright and the work of his son Lloyd could make up an exhibit onto themselves.

Further, Mr. Hawthorne points that any study of the connections between pre-1940 architecture, urban planning, and politics would have to confront the missed civic opportunities-how Los Angeles failed to take control of the red-car trolley network as it gave way to the freeway system or create a comprehensive parks system.  See William Deverell's book Eden By Design.

Perhaps it would've been nicer to present this new exhibit in more of a historic context so that visitors could see what came before in order to get a better sense of things.  The SCI-Arc exhibit is an attempt to expand on the Getty show.  Even better would be a more historically comprehensive show.

Boulevard of Reinvention

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/arts.boulevard/la-ca-wilshire-boulevard-los-angeles-index-dto,04628574.htmlstory

Recommended reading: Richard Longstreth: The Drive-in, The Supermarket, and The Transformation of Commercial Space in Los Angeles: 1914-1941, Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1999

Rayner Banham: Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies, Berkeley and Los Angeles, California: University of California Press, 1971

Wilshire Boulevard or as Richard Longstreth put it, "The fabulous boulevard."  Angelenos tend to see this boulevard which stretches from Downtown Los Angeles to the Ocean as our Main Street.  I chose this article to blog about because this is road I live near and have almost daily contact with.  I actually live near the storied Miracle Mile where the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the La Brea Tar Pits are located.  Thus, I felt compelled to discuss it.  In an ongoing series on memorable streets for the Los Times, architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne goes behind the facade of "the fabulous boulevard" to examine the true story of Los Angeles' Main Street and reveals a completely different side of a street that has been a part of Los Angeles' history.

My own experience traveling down the boulevard in either direction is akin to time travel.  Going east towards downtown is going back to a time when Los Angeles was a fledgling metropolis that attracted the hungry and the hopeful.  The buildings that line the eastern direction are some of the most beautiful you'll ever see.  There no pretense, just a sincere effort make a mundane place more aesthetically pleasing.  Even from the car, the buildings have, what I call an old smell, musty with life occurring within the walls.  In the western direction, going past the Miracle Mile, is the Los Angeles of the post-World War II period and the future.  The buildings are shiny, bright, recalling the sense of optimism that followed soldiers returning from the Pacific and European battlefields and migrant defense workers looking for a better life.  Further west is the Los Angeles of the future, the Los Angeles of the digital revolution on the avante-garde of technology and commerce.  Past, present, future-Los Angeles and Wilshire Boulevard.

Let's start with a brief history of Wilshire Boulevard before diving into Mr. Hawthorne's romantic analysis.  Wilshire Boulevard began it's life as two separate pieces of a whole.  Part of it began in the beach community of Santa Monica, California and the other part near downtown in the nineteenth century, "founded"by Henry Gaylord Wilshire.  The boulevard did not become whole until 1934.  In 1895, Wilshire, along with his father and brother purchased a triangle-shaped parcel of land just west of downtown.  Shortly after the purchase, he filed a plan for a new subdivision for the plot with an east-west road running down the middle he dubbed Wilshire Boulevard.  The first gated community, Fremont Place, was located on the boulevard and was home to  silent screen stars Mary Pickford and Harold Lloyd.  Between 1920 and 1923, the area around Wilshire Boulevard and Rodeo (Ro-dayo) Drive was the site for one of the first dirt auto racing tracks in the United States.  Bullocks Wilshire (1929), designed by architects Frank Donald D. and John Parkinson, was the first department store west of downtown to orient its entry porte-cochere and valet parking to the back to accommodate automobile traffic.  The former department story is now home to Southwestern University of Law.  The Bryson (1913) was one the elegant apartment buildings that began to displace the mansins in the Westlake area.  It was followed by the Talmadge (date unknown) built by United Artists President Joseph Schenk for his wife actor Norma Talmadge.  Today, the Talmadge continues to thrive and the Bryson has been restored and provides low-income rental.  There were about twenty-two high-rise office buildings put in the Wilshire Center between 1968 and 1976.  In the 1980s, scores of high-rise and high-priced condominiums were built along a portion of the boulevard, east of Westwood, the "Golden Mile," to reflect the value of the real estate.http://www.preservela.com/archives/000641.html

Definitely a fabulous history but what today?  What has this de facto Main Street become and come to mean?  Unlike Pico and Olympic Boulevards, which run parallel to Wilshire, the boulevard has distinguished itself as denser, more urbane, vertically oriented road.  Instead of acting as the prefect symbol of the city, it has become a  sixteen mile petri-dish for new ideas about architecture, transportation, commerce, and urbanism in Southern California.  It was on Wilshire Boulevard that civic planners first tried a linear downtown, stretching west toward the ocean, instead of the traditional consolidated plan beginning at the foot of City Hall.  Here was the place where Los Angeles built it's first synchronized traffic lights.  A quick digression, Los Angeles has recently synchronized the traffic lights in an effort to ease gridlock with mixed results.  Back to the topic.  The boulevard is dotted with beautiful and beautifully restored Art Deco apartments that harken back to the city's glamourous past.  Unlike some of the other boulevards profiled in this series which faded in prominence after World War II finding new strength in recent years, Wilshire Boulevard has remained the place where the city has embraced and tested the future.

If Wilshire Boulevard is the test lab for the future, then there have been few failed experiments.  Wilshire has been the site for a proposed subway to the sea, the world's tallest building, and many other big proposals that have stalled.  I'd like to address the proposed downtown to the ocean subway for a minute.  Los Angeles is a city that was built, in part, by transportation.  First the Pacific Electric Railcars then the freeways.  Reyner Banham, in his book Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies, does an excellant job of explaining the history of transportation in Los Angeles.  Los Angeles is a car-culture city and getting people out of their cars and into subways and buses takes a bit of doing.  The high cost of gasoline has prompted many locals to rethink their relationship to the car but overall, we remain committed to the relationship we have with our automobiles.  This partnership is also predicated on the vast sprawl that has been created, ironically, thanks to transportation lines making it possible for someone in the city of Torrence to commute daily to work in Beverly Hills.  This sprawl has also given way to a less dense city, thus less of a need for high-rise buildings.  I believe that as Los Angeles continues to grow into a more urban environment, civic minded people will rethink their hesitation toward the high-rise.  All of this is being acted out on Wilshire Boulevard.

The apparent signs of car culture are not present on Wilshire Boulevard.  As the city continues to grow denser and real estate becomes more expensive, the car and its attendant businesses are being priced out.  I can personally vouch for the Mr. Hawthorne's point about driving for miles along the boulevard and not finding a very necessary gas station or drive through that were central to Wilshire's identity in the first half of the twentieth century.  Now the boulevard is in this limbo state.  The car culture along the boulevard has faded but a rail system and pedestrian culture has yet to take hold.  Their are pockets of a pedestrian culture but not enough to make it interesting.  It gives the whole road a sense of disconnect that are a reminders of it boulevard's early days as a series of disjointed streets.

Bullocks Wilshire, on Wilshire and Westmoreland, pioneered the car-centric features that would become common in the city including a rear-facing entry that was as impressive as the street facade.  Developer A.W. Ross used similar methods in his audacious plan for developing a stretch of Wilshire between La Brea and Fairfax Avenues as the Miracle Mile.  However, as we all know for every successful plan there are several failures such as a series of triumphal arches patterned after the famed Roman arch.  More recently, there was a proposal to build a rapid-bus route along the western corridor, through Beverly Hills, Westwood, and Santa Monica, but these cities did not want to give up a traffic lane.  Typical of Wilshire's luck over the years.

As a place for stand-alone notable architecture, The Ambassador Hotel (1921) by Myron Hunt and Welton Becket's House of Tomorrow (1946, this is, by the way, now a private school) stand out as the boulevard's emblematic failures.  However, efforts to create a more cohesive road would require such a massive effort involving different municipalities that it just seems pointless.  The proposed subway system is the best example of efforts to create a more unified boulevard.  If actually completed, it would demonstrate the city's new commitment to public transit.  However, it faces a powerful and well-funded Westside based opposition.  The current incarnation of this plan is the Purple Line.  Despite the paranoid efforts of the Beverly Hills Unified School District, which continues to oppose a tunnel under the city's high school, the plan seems finally on track (some pun intended) for completion.  As the Wilshire line dealt with one delay after the other, the city was quietly building an expansive business and rail network that brought back to life the boulevards.  The subway as the capstone of Los Angeles' transit revolution has potential to act as potent catalyst.  This transit revolution is fueled by the growth of the bicycle culture.  If anything, the subway to the sea will intensify Wilshire's identity as a boulevard for reinvention.

When the proposed subway reaches Westwood in twenty years, it has the potential to bring UCLA out of its leafy suburban cocoon and let engage with the city.  Could the same happen to USC and other university campuses around Southern California?  Stay tuned.  The Metropolitan Transportation Authority announced plans to build a Purple Line station on a UCLA-owned seven-acre lot on the corner of Wilshire and Gayley (Lot 36).  Since the university is not subject to local zoning or height regulation, it could conceivably build a high-rise to accomodate its growing student population.  A skyscraper would be a dramatic statement and change the image of the university.  The subway could also radically change two cultural landmarks, the Getty Center in Brentwood and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art on the western edge of the Miracle Mile by making them more accessible by means other than the automobile.  I'm sure that museum public relations people, accountants, and marketing people are just salivating at the prospect of more visitors.  To that end, LACMA director Michael Govan is working with Swiss architect Peter Zumthor, in anticipation of a Purple Line Station, to redesign the eastern edge of the museum campus to create a grand arrival space, key to the museum experience.  This type of ambition is just part of Wilshire's history as a place for reinvention.  Hey guess what?  That's what Los Angeles is all about, come here and reinvent yourself.

Ground Zero and the Performing Arts

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/03/arts/music/questions-on-ground-zero-arts-left-unanswered.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130403&_r=0pagew

Hello Everyone and welcome to the Monday edition of the Preservation of Community Assets blog.  I hope you all had a nice weekend and if you notice, I've posted a link to the article we will be discussing today.  Today's topic is a proposed arts center on Ground Zero.  Yes that's right THE GROUND ZERO in New York City.  The site has become a type of sacred site in pantheon of American history.  If you remember a few years ago the outcry over a proposed Islamic community center near the site and controversy it caused.  In a New York Times opinion piece Maureen Dowd rightly pointed out that while an Islamic community center near Ground Zero may not be be appropriate but neither are the off-track-betting parlors.  Now, there are plans for an arts center designed by Southern California based architect Frank Gehry.  Mr. Gehry is the visonary architect behind such cultural landmarks as the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, California and the Guggenheim Bilbao in Bilbao, Spain.  Though, the architect remains committed to the project, questions remain.

First, let's get some background information.  The proposed center began its life as part of former New York Governor George Pataki's redevelopment plan for Lower Manhattan.  Four cultural organizations were chosen to anchor the project: the International Freedom Center, the Drawing Center, the Signature Theater, and the Joyce Theater.  Of the four, only the Joyce Theater remains, for now.  In the meantime, the issue of cost remains.  The price tag for this new center has ranged from $450 million to $700 million.  In an effort to control the cost, the plans have been dramatically scaled, especially since the Joyce Theater cannot serve as the sole anchor venue.  Even still, the center's board is concerned about fund raising because it has no idea how much the whole project is going to cost.  How is this possible?  A nonprofit arts organization commit itself to a grand project with real community development potential and not know the cost or even have a solid estimate?  Who does that?http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/editorial/ground_zero_8uJmwcST1ovDXAVOOUc9M

So now in an article for the arts section of the New York Times, writer Anthony Tommasini raises some basic and important questions: What exactly has Frank Gehry been asked to do?  What is the purpose of this project?  Which institutions, ensembles, or companies will use the venue?  Who will be the artistic director?  These questions have even more resonance since the Joyce Theater will not be the anchor the center.  The Joyce was hoping to be a home for dance performances, the International Dance Theater.  Now it appears that the complex will morph into an multidisciplinary space for theater, music, film, and dance according to Maggie Boepple, the center's president.  The Joyce will have a more modest role.  That doesn't sound too bad.  After all Lincoln Center in New York and the Music Center in Los Angeles are also multidisciplinary spaces.  In this case, it's a euphemism for an arts center that lacks focus and a mission or an art spaces available for rent like a catering hall.  Not very promising.  However, experience has shown that when an arts building is designed to be adaptable to everything, it ends being not good for anything.  That doesn't sound encouraging.

Of course it's easy to say that art, all its forms, is liquid and can adapt to all types of spaces, but here we have a case of form not following function.  This is lesson one in architecture school and something Mr. Gehry has been diligent about during his long and storied career.  Mr. Gehry's greatest triumphs have come by meeting the programmatic needs of the institutions that commissioned his firm such as the Walt Disney Concert Hall, the home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, which opened in 2003.  Here, the architect designed a modern 2,265-seat hall that feels both warm and intimate.  As a side note, the building was designed and built using computational architecture-on a computer.  Recently, the New World Center in Miami, Florida, which opened in 2011, seats 756 concert goers in an airy auditorium.  Outside the hall is a park designed by the Dutch firm West 8, where people can watch video broadcast of concerts projected on a huge side wall.

In contrast, the New World Center cost $154 million with the projected costs of the Ground Zero Arts Center projected to be anybody's guess.  Arts complexes succeed when they are built for and run by institutions with a clear identity.  It's both sad and revealing to watch the plans for the proposed performing arts center at Ground Zero fall apart.  We can play hypotheticals and try to image what would've been had Paul Kellogg, the artistic director of the New York City Opera realized his dream of moving the company to the development site.  Mr. Kellogg was long convinced that the main problem facing the City Opera was its home in Lincoln Center.  The opera company was forced to perform in the New York State Theater (The David H. Koch Theater), an acoustically dull space built for the needs of the New York City Ballet.  It was also difficult for the opera company to assert itself in the shadow of the Metropolitan Opera House.

Mr. Kellogg proposed moving the City Opera, "the people's opera," to Ground Zero, a bold yet to some, a foolish idea.  The midtown Manhattan site had history of being a cultural destination point.  Mr. Kellogg took into account that he would lose some of his uptown subscribers but would gain a new audience from Brooklyn (what's with Brooklyn? It comes up all the time) and New Jersey.  He argued that the complex needed an institution with a proven track record and mission such as the City Opera.  True enough.  The Walt Disney Concert Hall got the L.A. Philharmonic.  He planned to increase the number of productions, schedule more matinees, and bring in other presenters.  However, it became clear that the space could not accommodate a theater big enough to meet the opera company's needs.  What really undermined the plans was the discouraging attitude of the neighborhood organizations and civic officials that the company was too specialized, i.e. elitist.  Please! give me a break.  Elitist?  Here was an opportunity to make use of a performing arts organization in the spirit of community economic development and it gets dismissed as elitist.  I would be even more surprised but this attitude is a typical American approach to the arts.

Over time, the attitudes of government and city officials over what types of arts institutions were appropriate to the site proved to be the undoing of two of the selected organizations.  The International Freedom Center, a museum dedicated to human rights, was jettisoned over fears of it being too controversial.  The Drawing Center was effectively pushed off the site after some of the presentations were criticized as anti-American.  The Signature Theater was interested in moving but the city decided that the needs of the theater would be too expensive and the company built a new home on Theater Row in Clinton and appears to be thriving.

Paul Kellogg retired in 2007 and the City Opera has undergone several crises.  Under its current artistic director, George Steel, the company did move from Lincoln Center in 2011, not to a new home, but became a roving company.  Would things have been different had the City Opera found a permanent home on Ground Zero?  Linda Shelton, the Executive Director of the Joyce Theater still remains committed to the site in whatever form it is.

Does the Creative Class Help Our Cities?

"Did The Creative Class Really Save Your City? Probably Not"
Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan
Co.design:business+innovation+design
www.fastcodesign.com/1671891/did-the-creative-class-really-save-your-city-probably-not

Hello Everyone:

I'd like to keep going on the subject of the urban design and the creative class.  I think it's a subject worth exploring because it impacts a city in so many different ways.  Today, I want to write about new research that looks at whether or not creative class does really provide benefits for a community.

An article posted on fastcodesign.com argues that the answer to whether or not the creative class really is beneficial to a city is no.  In his book The Rise of the Creative Class (2002), Richard Florida argues that gentrification at the hands of the creative class leads to widespread gains for urbanites.  However, this article suggest that there is a growing body of scientific and ethnographic evidence to dispel this assumption.  In January, a pair of journalists from Crown Heights (in Brooklyn naturally) published an investigation of efforts by new and long-time residents to sustain a sense of community in the face of rapid gentrification.  The story was shared through the social media sites and recently, Grist published a rebuttal to Florida's argument filtered through the lens of the City of Oakland, California where housing prices and upscale amenities have done very little to alleviate poverty and crime.  Writer Susie Cagle raised a secondary issue, that the dissolution of community ties could negatively affect residents in times of natural and man-made crisises.  I would agree here because, part of the idea of community is that you know your neighbor and can depend on him/her in times of emergencies.

Susie Cagle points to crises such as Hurricane Sandy, when grassroots organizations got straight away to the task of digging out New York while agencies such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Red Cross were still trying to get organized.  She also points to Oakland following the Loma Prieta Earthquake in 1989 when the city banded together to rescue the injured.  Presently, the West Oakland neighborhood where the 880 Freeway (??) collapsed is dense with lofts, condominiums, and foreclosed homes of people who could keep up the mortgage.  Many of the homes were bought by investors who either rent them out at inflated prices or leave them empty waiting for the real estate market to it worth the effort to resell or rehabilitate it.  Ms, Cagle concludes that the so-called "urban renaissance" is not the solution for community development in the face of a crisis.

Even Richard Florida published new research refuting the simplistic idea that gentrification "trickles down" to benefit the lower classes.  Sort of an artisanal twist on "trickle down economics."  Repeat after me, trickle down economics, in any form, does not work.  Florida and his team of researchers concluded that while the creative class workers clustered in cities enjoyed increase income, blue-collar workers in the same city, in the same neighborhoods experienced  an inverse effect: rent increases without an increase in income that comes with a creative economy.  Florida's research also mentions the "well-being inequality" which is defined as what happens when the creative class workers are willing to pay more to live in neighborhoods with better food, entertainment, and jobs.  Really?  So how does this concept explain the attraction to former economically depressed neighborhoods like Downtown Los Angeles or Harlem in New York?  Lower-income workers can't afford to live in these suddenly upscale neighborhoods and move farther away from the city.  Oh, then how do you explain the phenomena of creative economy workers fleeing Brooklyn, New York for the suburbs they swore they'd never, ever live in?

Thus not everyone benefits when a neighborhood gentrifies.  The question become how to mitigate the process.  While gentrification may seem like a natural course for the real estate market and interfering with it may seem like an unthinkable task, this misconception is being challenged by grassroots organizations with varying degrees of success.  For example, in Crown Height, new and long-time residents formed the Crown Heights Assembly, an "Occupy-inspired" group to resist predatory housing companies.  Respect Our City in Oakland is planning to the same thing.

What do you think?

Shout out

Quick shout out:  Hello Malaysia and welcome to the blog

Arts and Community Development

Alan Kay; "Art and Community development: the role the arts have in regenerating communities;" Community Development Journal; Oxford University Press, 2000 (http://www.usc.edu/libraries date accessed March 26, 2013)

I want to come back to the subject of Art and community development.  In this case, the role the arts have in regenerating communities.  Often, the arts are considered part of the periphery of the community development process, a minor player in redevelopment areas.  Even in the face of increased globalization, communities are beginning to recognize their cultural identity through traditional art forms and the value of working collaborative.  In a paper authored by Alan Kay and  published by the Oxford University Press and Community Development Journal, based on a study that demonstrated the role the arts play in community regeneration and at the local level, they can be used as tool within a wider scope of community redevelopment.

In the twenty-first century the method of information exchange has greatly shrunk.  Pictures and stories of event occurring around the world are instantaneously beamed into computers, telephones, and televisions immediately.  In the digital information age, there is confusion over what the term "community" means and how we identify it and where we belong.  Hypothetically, a group of people in far flung places who share an interest in the heavy metal band Black Sabbath can call themselves a community, coming together via the social media sites.  Communities are now defined either on the global basis in terms of the information technology (i.e. sms) or on a local basis as areas where people live together in families or in other communal arrangements.  Alternatively, communities can be defined in terms of mutual interest like our hypothetical.

While globalization has led to the world's resources coming under the control of large multi-national corporations, fracturing local communities, there is a residual power in acting locally and giving voice to the powerless through community development.  Many local communities have their culture and history, adding to the quality of people's lives.  In economically and socially depressed areas, community development workers have examined the possible ways to enable the local population to engage, develop social and economic skills, and empower them to determine their own future.  One of these tools is participatory arts projects.  There is evidence to suggest that art, as a medium, can enable individuals and groups to gain job skills, be more involved, more confident and active in contributing to local community development.  People-centered development strategies are increasing in popularity and art at the local level can add to economic and social regeneration.  However, are the arts an effective way to achieve this aim and what is the real and perceived impact on a community?

As a case study, we can look at the study commissioned by the Scottish Executive and the Scottish Arts Council by Blake Stevenson Limited to look into the role of the arts in regeneration.  The study included a literature review followed by an analysis of four very different case studies.  The findings from the case studies were used to comment on the role of the arts in redevelopment in terms of community consultation, involvement and ownership of the project, the measure and links between 'hard' and 'soft' impacts, the strategic use of the arts within wider regeneration politics, and how arts projects are evaluated.  The case studies reviewed the experience in Australia, Ireland, North America, and the United Kingdom.  While the examples do not provide knowledge based information on the role of the arts in community development.  They present evidence that indicates community arts projects are occurring simultaneously around the world helping people to develop skills while allowing them to express themselves through participation.  This type of community empowerment through the arts can mitigate some of the excesses of globalization.

The Australian Council commissioned a study in the long-term social, educational, artistic, and economic benefits coming from community-based arts projects funded by the Council.  The report revealed that arts projects have the potential to create a greater understanding of different cultures, more skill in community leadership and management, and a stronger sense of communal identification.  However, the report noted that there was evaluation mechanism for community cultural development that incorporated all the related outcomes which would inform real financial and economic impact of the projects.

In 1995, the Irish government's Department of Arts, Culture and Gaeltracht, decided to address poverty and area regeneration through the arts.  In evaluating the Arts Awareness Intervention, it was revealed that the participants in arts projects experienced 'a dramatic shift in attitude and appetite for arts education and training.'  See there is something you can do with that arts degree.  Arts projects had an impact on self-expression, communication, feeling good, working hard, pride in the making, having fun, and feeling part of the team as well income generation.  See I told you so, Art pays, just not in the United States.  Segueing into this, in America there is a move to counter the elitist image of the arts and emphasize the need to encourage decision-makers and people to recognize the role the arts in the greater society.  So, it sounds like the arts elite dismiss the art of immigrant and indigenous populations in favor of those with more name recognition.  I could into this whole thing about social capital but we'll set that aside for now.

In the United Kingdom, important work in Glasgow, Scotland focused on the economic importance of the arts.  This study was part of a national program which concluded that investment in the arts can influence the redevelopment of an areas by creating opportunities for training, establishing jobs, attracting arts-related spending power, increasing the attractiveness of an area for business and consumers, and encouraging facilities for commercial and non-arts uses.  Sounds to me that these studies are on to a unique form of community redevelopment.  Move the arts out of museums, galleries, studios, and auditoria and into the communities, invest in training and facilities, and watch positive results happen.  This is something that American community development organizations could implement.  Of course, in the United States we tend to see the arts not only as elitist but also peripheral.  Back to my point

Since the publication of The Economic Importance of the Arts in Glasgow (1988), there have been a number of studies highlighting the social impact of cultural and art-based projects,  mainly through Comedia in the UK, a now loosely structured organization begun by Charles Landry.  There is a recognition that those involved in urban renewal and regeneration programs are becoming increasingly aware of the human potential of a community, and how the arts can be used as an instrument to trigger individual and community development.  Use or Ornament? (1997) highlighted the social benefits of arts-centric development.  The author discovered that group and individual participation in the arts can improve self-confidence and self-identity and the social interaction that grows from active involvement in arts programs can greatly add to the social development within a community.  This was found to be particularly true when the marginalized and disadvantaged are encouraged to participate.  Interesting, there is a question mark in the title, I wonder why.  Is it implying the value of arts-based community development within communities.  From the findings it sounds like there is some merit but the conclusion doesn't seem to discuss the long term benefit.

In a subsequent study discussing the social impact of Belfast, Northern Ireland's cultural activity, the report indicated that community arts projects can impact positively on the personal development and community regeneration.  In Portsmouth, England local arts development was evaluated in terms of social impact recommending that the arts should be integrated into other services and more attention should be given to the benefits of arts project in the regeneration process.  So far, all these studies are saying the same thing.  Arts-based community redevelopment projects are good for the people and their communities.  I wonder what specific type of art are we talking about?  In Comedia in the UK, it's about using stand-up comedy to regenerate a community.  What about places like Belfast and Portsmouth?  What type of programs are we talking about here?  Performing or studio arts programs?  In 1999 an arts project in the field of economic deprivation in Plymouth, England was assessed using a combination of quantitative and qualitative data, allowing for anecdotal evidence, then comprehensively evaluating the project.  The conclusions revealed some difficulties the process and techniques used in the evaluation of arts projects.

A booklet published by the Scotland Arts Council in 1999 found that art does play an important part in empowering communities, providing jobs, skill and training, regenerating urban and rural areas, and the promotion of health and well-being. (Scottish Arts Council, 1999).  The main conclusion that emerged from these reports were:

1) the arts 'have a serious contribution in addressing contemporary challenges since they create social benefits integral to participation." (Matarasso, 1997)
2) arts projects would benefit from having clear, agreed upon, explicit, and understandable objectives that they can be evaluated against (Popple and Scott, 1999) and that  evaluation methods should be simple, integrated into the projects with clear objectives, requiring partnerships between agencies and on-going commitment. (Matarasso, 1998a)
3) community arts enhance and improves the effectiveness of community development projects and not mutually exclusive (Cullen, date unknown)
4) there is much evidence to suggest that productivity and revenue are increased as a result of greater attention given to the way people work together, build their relationships, and create a stake in their futures. (Williams, 1997)
5) arts activities were viewed as a tool in which people could exert greater control over their lives by exploring and expressing social issues of relevance to individuals and communities. (Bowles, 1989)

Fieldwork was conducted in Scotland in order to test and expand on the findings listed above.  Four very different arts projects were identified and subjected to detailed examination.  Initially, over thirty projects in Scotland were contacted and information was gathered on their relevancy to the aims of the study.  Four were chosen using a criteria which included availability of sufficient data and information on funding, the duration of the project, the geographical and sectoral spread of the project.  They were choses to reflect the range of projects and given insight into the community arts sector in Scotland.  The four projects that took part were:

1) a long established arts project in a peripheral housing estate in Central Scotland.  The project enjoyed widespread support, social and economic goals, initiates, funds, guides, developed a range of projects in drama. video production. music, visual arts and literature;
2) an arts program focusing on providing training for young people on a peripheral housing development, carried out in conjunction with community groups.  This concentrated on training and employment while at the same time generating community arts for local people;
3) traditional music and dance summer school in the Gaelic speaking areas in the Western Isles of Scotland.  The goal of this program was to culturally regenerated a socially and economically depressed rural areas through significant arts activity for one week in the summer;
4) a city wide arts partnership implementing an arts strategy integral to local authority's  overall aim of urban redevelopment.  The strategy was not only about community development in disadvantaged areas but also about capital intensive projects in the city center.

In assessing each of the case studies, several social audit methods were used in order be multi-perspective, reflecting the wide variety of stakeholders; comprehensive, covering all the main activities of the programs; and comparative, which would allow for comparison over time between similar projects.

Each of the programs was profiled and quantitative data was complied on each which contributed to the general evaluation.  Additionally, each program identified their stakeholders and they were consulted through a questionnaire or interviewed.  The consultation covered areas of community involvement in decision-making, ownership, level of participation, social and economic impact, policy and integration with other projects, and issues.  The main stakeholder groups consulted differed slightly between the case studies but typically included funders, management committee, beneficiaries, partner organizations, staff, trainees, and the wider community.  Key issues were identified and synthesized into a report which included the primary findings of the study, highlighting good practices and made a number of policy recommendations with regard to the future support of community arts projects.

The main findings that emerged from the fieldwork were considered in terms of the importance of community consultation, involvement and ownership; the measurement of the links between 'hard' and 'soft' impacts; the use of the arts within regeneration policies; and methods used for evaluation.

Importance of community consultation, involvement and ownership-in arts programs, community consultation is importance because it solicits the opinions of members of the community in terms of needs and interest.  If there isn't a need or interest within the community then it is unlikely that there will be a sufficient number of people involved to make an arts programs an effective vehicle for change.  It also encourages partnership between the arts project and local community who can influence the development of the program.  Also, community involvement is essential in arts-based programs because they tend to focus on personal development and attitudinal change within communities.  Since they are people-centered in their approach, thus change will happen only if there is active involvement by members of the community.  Community ownership is ultimately important within arts programs working in regeneration because it facilitates local control.  If we can accept that the arts can be part of the redevelopment process they they can be a powerful tool for empowerment.  Local communities feel sufficiently empowered to take control of arts programs and guide their development for the benefit of the wider population which can strengthen the capacity for the community.  Skills are developed, responsibility is taken and through the arts local culture can be changed.

Measurement and links between 'hard' and 'soft' impacts-the 'hard' information was used to justify arts activities and included in reports to funders.  The 'soft' data is valued by arts practitioners but not used in a systemic way.  If policymakers and funders gave more value to the 'softer' data then arts programs would more confident to publicize it.  There was evidence in all four examples to demonstrate links in both directions between 'hard' and 'soft' measurements.  Increased confidence and well being enables individuals to apply for work; and people in employment will feel that can contribute to their community through active citizenship.  Arts projects should collect, analyze, and present their data on a regular basis.  It could categorized to the original social, economic, environmental and cultural objectives of the program in order to a holistic evaluation of the project.  The presentation of the whole story of the organization could be independently verified who will attest to the accuracy of the self-evaluation and its reflection of the programs achievements.  This holistic evaluation can be used by the program in publicity and changing policy.

Strategic use of the arts within wider regeneration policies-it is important that arts projects be an integral part of an overall redevelopment policy otherwise they remain on the periphery of the development process.  During the study, it was frequently suggested by stakeholders that some community developers were leery of arts projects, thinking that they're a less serious addition to an overall program.  Thus it's vital that arts projects demonstrate why, how, and to what degree they are an effective tool for redevelopment.  Honest, accurate, integrated self-evaluation is the key to this.  Once the belief that arts have a crucial role to play in community development, then there are a number of elements that have to be looked in order to embed them into a policy-led framework.  This can be accomplished by integrating arts programs with existing local heritage or culture to concentrate on creating product-final product and process-at the same time making it accessible to as many people as possible while at the same time targeting excluded groups such as the young, elderly, unemployed, and disable.  Arts projects have to operate at different levels.  There should be a national arts strategy, which establishes a nation-wide framework.  At the regional and local level, it should be adapted to the specific situation and build on an already existing structure.  It is also important that an arts-based strategy fit into long-term plans for the area and not exist as a separate document to the wider regional strategy.  Further, a local arts-based program should fit into local development plans so that duplication can be avoided and the creative community can be used in many elements and local economic development.

Arts Projects and Evaluations

The evaluation of arts programs is critical and there are a number crucial considerations:

1) questionnaires-not popular are often not completed by the participants.  Other methods of consultation need to be developed.
2) evaluations should not be entirely dependent on outside evaluators.  Instead they could be done through self-assessment subject to verification by outside 'social auditors.'
3) every project is different.  Each project has its own set of objective and values.  A possible method of evaluation would assess the performance of each based on its merits.
4) evaluations should consider the main views of the stakeholder groups.  The benefits are that a range of views are gathered and enables the project to be receptive, and change in response to those views.
5) an effective evaluation methodology has to account for quantitative outputs and tangible outcomes.  Recordation has to be simple, relevant and be seen as relevant by staff and volunteers; one that relates directly back to the overall objectives of the project.

Based on the evidence from the case studies, the evaluations systems used are only effective and appropriate to a degree.  Generally, they are not entirely useful because they relate to funders' criteria not to the original objectives of the projects.  Also, the collected information was not always analyzed and presented as a complete picture of the project and how it performed.  Additionally, the evaluation methods were not fully comprehensive, since they did not take into account the opinions of the main stakeholders.  Evaluation methods are crucial for demonstrating the efficacy of a projects.  Thus it is vital for all the stakeholders to know if a project is worth the effort.  If it does not perform well against its objective then it should be changed.  If it does function well, then its success should be advertised.

Understanding the role of arts in regeneration

In order to fully understand the role the arts have in community development, it is necessary to the meanings of these terms.  "Arts" is a confusing and very broad term that means different things to different people.  It can refer to 'fine arts' or 'high arts,' exposure to which can refine the sensibilities of the local population.  I would even posit that the terms 'fine or high arts' have a broad and diffuse meaning.  Even though Alan Kay of this article from which I'm basing this blog attempts to give a quick summary, he still cannot really pinpoint a definition.  Suffice it to say that art can be expression of creativity and skill.  Question, why was this not presented at the beginning of the article?  Similarly, the word 'regeneration' has a range of meanings which have been broken down into four aspects:

1) Economic: regeneration through the creation of employment, reducing unemployment, bring revenue to the area through investment and employment, and providing outlets to spend money in the area and invigorate the local economy
2) Social: encouraging social connections through facilities, organizations, and clubs that can enhance the quality of life through human contact between individuals, families, and sections of society.
3) Environmental: improvements in the surrounding areas and buildings to improve the quality of life
4) Cultural: this word is used often in regeneration policy but not discussed in depth.  It has to do with how people collectively see themselves.  It is about the image and the self-image of an area, its heritage, history, traditions, and skills within a society.

The arts hinge on all of the above.  Active involvement in the development of arts projects can have an effect on all for and can assist in the redevelopment of an area.  However, the real question is the degree of influence the art can have on the overall process.  The arts can have a pivotal role in the regeneration of areas of social exclusion.  The research established that arts programs can:

1) be versatile, flexible, and wide ranging in the activities they offer
2) used for training and employment
3) be attractive to young people
4) be good in encouraging investment
5) be used for the development of communities through active citizen participation and increased involve ment in other community-based projects

In terms of individual regeneration, the arts can:

1) increase personal development by helping their confidence, skills, and motivation
2) assist in social development-participants can make new friends and become interested in new topics
3) improve the local image with people feeling more positive about where they live
4) help participants feel better and healthier from their involvement in the arts

The arts can have a significant role in changing the culture of an area.  The culture in areas of the disadvantaged are often complex but in the same way that schools and companies operate.  Peripheral housing developments often have a prevailing culture typified by unemployment, negative peer pressure, despair, disillusion, and overall negativity.  There is often a "ghettoization" of poverty and economic disenfranchisement that has left people and their with fewer choices.  Therefore it is possible that the arts and cultural activity can change the culture of an area and make it a more creative and vibrant place for all.

The arts cannot operate independently in the regeneration for a declining area.  They have to work together with a wider program of community development in a holistic approach to a people-centered development, one of the challenges facing the arts and community development specialists.  Finally, the realization of the how the arts function within regeneration may require an attitudinal changes among local people, development specialists and those working within the arts.

Conclusion

The arts have an important function in the regeneration of socially and economically depressed.  They can encourage job skills training and employment, support volunteers and participants in personal development, improve the image of an area, social cohesion and active citizenship, local recognition of cultural identity, enhancement of the quality of life and collective creativity.  This significance should be recognized and valued by policy makers and practitioners of community development.  This recognition is achieved through appropriate and relevant evaluation.  Arts programs are only effective when the community takes ownership of it.  If they are viewed as a tool of empowerment, they can have a dramatice effect on regeneration.  As globalization continues to increase, affecting personal and professional lives, the quality of life where we live will become increasingly important as members of the community.  Collective artistic expression by communities can assist local people in asserting and empowering themselves thereby countering the negative aspects of globalization.  Through the arts we can promote a vision of community development based on tolerance and dignity; one based on need and creative inter-dependence.

More to follow

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The First Day of the 2013 Baseball Season

Hello All:

First, I'm excited that pageviews for this blog have gone up into the triple digits.  Thanks for your support and keep reading.  I enjoy sharing with you my thoughts on Historic Preservation, Urban Planning, and Design.

Today, this being the first day of the 2013 Baseball season,  I thought I'd take a look at venerable Los Angeles institution, Dodger Stadium.  For those of you who live in Los Angeles you know the place, just north of Downtown Los Angeles in Chavez Ravine.  Dodger Stadium is the third oldest continuously used baseball park in the United States.  The stadium began its life when Dodger President  Walter O'Malley lobbied the City of Brooklyn, where the team originated, for a new stadium.  When a deal couldn't be reached, he moved the team to Los Angeles.  The Dodgers first home was the Los Angeles Coliseum, where they played between 1957 and 1961.  The stadium project was controversial because it caused the forced displacement of the Latino residents of Chavez, in a rather racist application of Takings and Eminent Domain.  Opening Day took place on April 10, 1962.  Since then, Dodger Stadium has hosted 147 million fans, All-Star Games, Olympic Baseball competition, the World Series, Papal Mass in 1987, The Beatles, Michael Jackson, and U2 (losangeles.dodgers.mlb.com/la/ballpark/information/index.jsp?content=history).  Since 1962, the stadium has undergone renovations in order to enhance the fans' experience and address the most pressing issue, parking.  Hey it's L.A.

The most recent renovations took place under the new owners, Guggenheim Baseball Management, carried out during the offseason.  The budget was $100 million and you would think that it would've produced some significant architectural transformation.  Not really, at least not obviously.  The outfield scoreboard is bigger and show high-definition images.  There have been upgrades to the locker rooms, batting cages, and to the wireless system.  According to Janet Marie Smith, the Dodger Director of Planning and Development, the goal of the upgrades was to improve the infrastructure in order to change how the fans think about and interact with the stadium.  The aim of Smith and her associates was to make Dodger Stadium more public.  O.k. I always thought it was a pretty public place.

I guess the real question is how much more public ballpark the stadium will become under the new owners, that is its engagement with Downtown Los Angeles.  Truth be told, the stadium isn't as public as one would think.  News to me.  The stadium was designed by engineer/architect Emil Praeger and Walter O'Malley to produce a private individualized experience as humanly possible in place that seats 56,000.  To that end, there's no main entrance or central plaza.  The stadium was designed for the Los Angeles car culture-fans could drive just about drive up to the place, park in a massive circular lot near their section, and enter through one of eleven portals.  Yeah right, I can't begin to tell you how many times I've gone to game and one really killer Bowie concert, parked a mile away from my seat.  Inside, you experience cheering for the home team with thousands of your new best friends in an almost tribal rite that takes place between April and September (October, please??).  However, circulating from one level to another is an adventure since the stairs and escalators are hidden.

The relationship between Dodger Stadium has been, for lack of a better word, a paradox.  It is in the middle of Los Angeles but apart from it.  While you can see the magnificent downtown skyline, you can't see the stadium from the downtown.  The ballpark is sunk into the hillside giving it a shy quality, unusual for something this big and well-known.  The detachment seems to be part of the attraction.  It was intended to make the visitor feel as though he/she were leaving the city to go to this idyllic place-Elysian Park.  Paradox-part of the Los Angeles character.  However, the city in 2013 is a far cry from the city in 1962.  It's bigger more diverse and embracing non-automobile transportation.

Janet Marie Smith was hired by team President Stan Kasten after spending time with the Atlanta Braves, Boston Red Sox, and Baltimore Orioles.  Smith brought on board noted architect Brenda Levin, landscape architect Mia Lehrer and Thomas Quirk of the Massachusetts firm D'Agostino Izzo Quirk Architects.  Previous changes were limited to the lower bowl of the stadium during the much hated reign of Frank McCourt.  Most of the new work is centered around the outside of the stadium, particularly redesigning the sequence that moves fans from their cars to their seats.  There's still no single entry point but the exterior walkways have been push outward, about thirty-five feet, into the parking lot.  Play areas, planters, and souvenir shops were inserted into the spaces carved out by the walkways.  Inside the stadium, the last few rows of seats from section on four levels were removed and replaced with drink rails so fans could stop and watch the game standing up.  The effect of removing the seats was a widening of the concourses and made it easier to see the game.  Quirk and his firm also redesigned two sections of field level seats to improve the sightlines.

Reconfiguring some of the parking lots, the team said they've kept the same number of spaces.  The seating capacity is down, but the team thinks it could make up the difference by selling standing-room seats.  Really?  who wants to stand for three hours?  The new signage pays better attention to Dodger history, especially the Brooklyn years.  The motivating factor behind making the stadium more public is the bottom line.  Get the fans to spend more money.  Of course, Guggenheim Baseball Management didn't buy the team out of any sense of altruism.  Further, by making this most private stadium more public minded, it retains its original architectural character defining features, which is could for any potential historic designation.

The goal of the new owners is huge and the step being taken are hesitant.  A shuttle from Union Station, a cooperative effort between the Metro Transit Authority and the Dodgers beginning this year, will use a dedicated lane on Sunset Boulevard.  The long term plans for the excess land on the periphery of the parking remain unclear.  The stadium sits on 260 acres and only some of it is used for cars.  The unused land holds a great deal for potential for some really big ideas and a rethink the team's relationship with city.  Some ideas include, a solar array, housing, tie itself to the city's transit network.  How about something really radical, razing Dodger Stadium and building a ballpark downtown, freeing up Chavez Ravine for new uses.  NO WAY SACRILEGIOUS.  These are just some of the questions as the new baseball season gets underway in Los Angeles.  These questions have implications for other sports venues across the United States as cities expand and become more regional.