From around 1870 to 1920 Los Angeles enthusiastically embraced the aspiration to be like Chicago and New York. It was going to be a world class city rising spontaneously from the dust. It was at first held back by the lack of water and industry and then, curiously, not long after Mulholland had engineered the delivery of water and industry had delivered prosperity, the city paused.
Read MoreFrom Avant Garde to Against the Grain /
What was once the enemy, the city, is now our friend, even though most of us now would not know how or even where to begin to build what was once the norm.
Read MoreWas Abraham Lincoln Gay? /
HOW INDEED we might ask does gender identity and/or sexuality confine or direct our sensibilities as architects toward an outcome that only those within our supposedly self-contained identity group could ever perceive or appreciate?
Read MoreThe Super Stupendous Marvelously Magnificent Architectural Achievements of 16th Century Italy: What We Can Learn and Why We Don't /
Among the prohibitions within schools of architecture in southern California (and elsewhere) are----except for only superficially erudite reasons, or some sense of covering one’s bases so as not to be seen as unsophisticated, or simply for personal entertainment purposes ----references to and examples of architecture not of our time and place from which students of architecture might learn something. Sure, there’s history class, but no one is sure why.
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