Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies
by Reyner Banham
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Description
Reyner Banham examined the built environment of Los Angeles in a way no architectural historian before him had done, looking with fresh eyes at its manifestations of popular taste and industrial ingenuity, as well as its more traditional modes of residential and commercial building. His construct of "four ecologies" examined the ways Angelenos relate to the beach, the freeways, the flatlands, and the foothills. Banham delighted in this mobile city and identified it as an exemplar of the show more posturban future. In a spectacular new foreword, architect and scholar Joe Day explores how the structure of Los Angeles, the concept of "ecology," and the relevance of Banham's ideas have changed over the past thirty-five years. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
This is how to write criticism. The writing was so good I even read the bibliography.
This is a beautiful celebration of Southern California and its architecture. It was published around 1980. It’s certainly not up to date, but it’s rare in that it “gets” Los Angeles. This is the city of unique style that I grew up in and not the plastic dystopia that is often portrayed.
A classical book on architectural theory and Los Angeles by one of the forefathers of 'green design' updated by a young, exciting Los Angeles architect and professor.
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Catalog
41 works; 2 members
Author Information
29 Works 1,481 Members
Awards and Honors
Series
Belongs to Publisher Series
Common Knowledge
- Original publication date
- 1971
- People/Characters
- Frank Lloyd Wright; Sam Yorty; Brock Yates; George Wyman; Lloyd Wright; Tom Wolfe (show all 21); Robert Winter; Benjamin Wilson; Nathanael West; Kem Weber; J.J. Warner; Anton Wagner; Francis Ventre; Ludwig Mies van der Rohe; Clarence Stein; Robert Stacy-Judd; Raphael Soriano; Richard Austin Smith; George Washington Smith; Nathan Silver; Lee Shippey
- Important places
- Los Angeles, California, USA; Miracle Mile, Los Angeles, California, USA; Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, California, USA; Westwood Village, Los Angeles, California, USA; Westlake, Los Angeles, California, USA; Wayfarers Chapel, Ranchos Palos Verdes, California, USA (show all 15); Watts Towers, Watts, Los Angeles, California, USA; Watts, Los Angeles, California, USA; Venice, California, USA; Universal City, Los Angeles, California, USA; University of California, Los Angeles, California, USA; Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles, California, USA; Strathmore Arms Apartments, Los Angeles, California, USA; Silverlake, Los Angeles, California, USA; Ships Coffee Shop, Westwood, Los Angeles, California, USA
- Dedication
- To Cedric Price who first called upon me to testify in public on L.A.
- First words
- A city seventy miles square but rarely seventy years deep apart from a small downtown net yet two centuries old and a few other pockets of ancientry, Los Angeles is instant architecture in an instant townscape. (I. In the R... (show all)ear-view Mirror)
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)The common reflexes of hostility are not a defence of architectural values, but a negation of them, at least in so far as architecture has any part in the thoughts and aspirations of the human race beyung the little private world of their profession. (13, An Ecology for Architecture)
- Blurbers
- French, Philip
- Canonical DDC/MDS
- 720.470979494
- Canonical LCC
- NA735.L55
Classifications
Statistics
- Members
- 411
- Popularity
- 74,595
- Reviews
- 4
- Rating
- (4.03)
- Languages
- English, French, Italian, Spanish
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 9
- ASINs
- 8
