Los Angeles Architecture - Softcover

Steele, James

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0714837563 ISBN 13: 9780714837567

Publisher: Phaidon Press, 1998

Synopsis

The architecture of Los Angeles seems at first sight to be chaotic - individualism being its only rationale. Los Angeles Architecture: The Contemporary Condition looks beneath the seductive surface to find out why the city's architectural scene is so fascinating. Supported by stunning photography, James Steele considers the historic and geographic elements which are an important part of local sensibilities and weaves them into a narrative about the complex design activity now taking place in the city. Beginning with the pioneering characters of the American Arts and Crafts movement, James Steele traces Los Angeles' architectural energy through the works of Frank Lloyd Wright and Rudolph Schindler to arrive at the buildings of Frank Gehry who is widely acknowledged as a peerless interpreter of his surroundings. This analysis expands to investigate the work of those who have followed Gehry's lead, from the avant-garde institutions such as Sci-Arc, to those who are attempting to complete the Los Angeles myth by at last giving it a downtown. Steele's rigorous examination of Los Angeles' contemporary condition looks at issues as well as influences, providing a timely portrait of a city often said to represent the urban typology of the future.

About this title

Review:

This hip, well-designed, picture-packed book on Los Angeles architecture opens with a chapter called, tellingly, "Confronting Autopia." Author James Steele traces the evolution of the freeway city's notable buildings and styles, from arts-and-crafts bungalows to the Museum of Contemporary Art, "the cultural capital of the West Coast." Steele is tremendously knowledgeable about both individual buildings and their meaning in the larger contexts of the history of design, cultural and economic pressures, and civic life. In this book, he ably discusses such important phases as Arts & Architecture publisher John Entenza's "Case Study House" program, which showcased modern, postwar homes, as well as recent efforts to establish a "downtown" for this far-flung, disparate community. There are strange omissions in his text, however. Nowhere does he mention the "architectural commission of the century," Richard Meier's new Getty Center, for example. His focus is instead on central Los Angeles, but it seems eccentric not to give the Getty even a footnote. And Steele's penchant for long sentences is unchecked by the editors of this volume: "Issues, in this admittedly selective sectional slice through the L.A. corpus civicus at the moment, seem to revolve around the shifting perceptions of the growing multitudes who live there about the character of their city, and the reaction of the established residents among that group (who seem to qualify as such in an amazingly short period of time) about changes that are out of their control," is but one example. That aside, this book offers a particularly thoughtful appreciation of the City of Angels, which has so often been shortchanged by authors of less vision and erudition. --Peggy Moorman

About the Author:

James Steele is Associate Professor of Architecture at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. His books include Architecture Today, Pierre Koenig and Queen Mary, all published by Phaidon.

About this edition

• Publisher: Phaidon Press
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0714837563
• ISBN 13: 9780714837567
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 232