About this title: 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 posturban future. In a spectacular new foreword, architect and scholar Joe Day explores how the structure ...
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Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Edition: First paperback ed.
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: University of California Press, Berkeley
Date Published: 2001
ISBN-13:9780520219243ISBN:0520219244
Description: Fine with no dust jacket; 125554 2001 Paperbound in orange illustrated cover. No previous owner marks, indexed, black and white photos, maps. How Angelenos relate to the beach, the freeways, the flatlands, and the foothills. 0520219244. 8vo 8"-9" tall; 236 pp. pages. read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Univ of California Pr
Date Published: 2009-03-05
ISBN-13:9780520260153ISBN:0520260155
Description: NEW. Softcover. From an inventory that is 100% brand-new, 100% direct from the publishers' distribution channel. We carry NO pre-owned, NO remaindered. We pack in CARDBOARD to ensure the pristine quality is maintained. (Bubble-wrap alone is NOT sufficient to protect from USPS equipment. ) Guaranteed brand-NEW, protected with CARDBOARD, your satisfaction is guaranteed. BKLUVID: 9780520260153. read more
Edition: First Edition
Binding: Blue hardback cloth cover
Publisher: Allen Lane The Penguin Press, London
Date Published: 1971
ISBN-13:9780713902099ISBN:0713902094
Description: VG: in very good condition with dustwrapper. 256pp: 220mm x 140mm (9" x 6") read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: University Presses of California, Columbia and Pri
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9780520260153ISBN:0520260155
Description: New. Examines the built environment of Los Angeles, looking at its manifestations of popular taste and industrial ingenuity, as well as its traditional modes of residential and commercial building. This title also examines 'four ecologies' in the ways Ange... read more
Description: Good. 0140136606 Good condition. May have some markings & or shelfwear. All pages intact. Used items may not include extras such as infotrac, CD or other web access codes. read more
Edition: 2nd edition
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Univ of California Pr
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9780520260153ISBN:0520260155
Description: New. 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 res... read more
Description: Like New. SHIPS FROM GERMANY. NO EXPEDITED SHIPPING! Allow 10-14 business days for delivery. Please always check the language in the product description section. Few left in stock-order soon. Selling online since 1995. Code: L20091128145106I. read more
Edition: 2nd
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: University of California Press
ISBN-13:9780520260153ISBN:0520260155
Description: New. Please note that deliveries to addresses in the UK and Europe will be in 4-14 business days. Other countries should refer to Alibris standard times. ISBN10: 0520260155. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Date Published: 1973-11-01
ISBN-13:9780140136609ISBN:0140136606
Description: Good. Excellent customer service. May ship from alternate location depending on your zip code and availability. Satisfaction guaranteed! ! read more
"Nicely thought-out, a serious analysis of the non-urban Urban Center without-a-center that is LA. Or was L.A. Necessarily compartmentalized, Banham's study takes an unrelated set of parameters and relates them from an overhead perspective on history, development, design, influences. What are now a deeply tangled set of cultural aspects were a little less so in 1971, when this was published. So something of a time-capsule, but one that looks imaginatively toward the future too.
It's not really fair to look at 2009 Los Angeles and pronounce judgements on Banham's vision; but it's fair to say that his optimistic and buoyant post-urban parsing of the course ahead hasn't evolved quite as he foresaw so long ago. Banham wanted to lay the foundation, it would seem, for the new direction in The American Lifestyle, it's minimum requirements, glories, idiosyncracies, conveniences and goals. But he pictures a world of wonder, a sunny, urban encyclopedia accessible by friendly freeway off-ramp, to each fortunate, smiling everyman of the future.
From the intriguing buildings of RM Schindler to the cartoon / drive-in schlock, Banham seems to have counted it all as fairly benevolent, a wealth of profuse intermingling, leading to an unpredictable if inevitable synthesis that would gel sometime in the future.
His vision of "Autopia", however, must leave the contemporary reader mystified :
"The banks and cuttings of the freeways are often the only topographical features of note in the townscape, and the planting on their slopes can make a contribution to the local environment that outweighs the disturbances caused by their construction..."
Surely, even thirty-eight years ago, the insight of this statement must have been fairly shallow :
"Furthermore, the actual experience of driving on the freeways prints itself deeply on the conscious mind and unthinking reflexes. As you acquire the special skills involved, the Los Angeles freeways become a special way of being alive, which can be duplicated on other systems ... but not with this totality and extremity."
L.A. was always a vast, epicurean Doughnut and Hole experience, though, so Banham can't really be faulted for a smart if otherwise all-doughnut perspective. To his credit, he's a shrewd judge of individual projects and architecture, rendering certain aspects of the city-in-the-making with deft & critical detail. It's on the Urban Planning And Design side where he might've wanted to hedge his bets a little more broadly.
Absolutely pick this up if you live in Los Angeles. It's a hard city to read, maybe not a city at all, and any solid attempt at getting an overall picture is a worthwhile one. Just maybe, the urban-center without-a-center IS a doughnut, after all.
As those post-ironists in Randy Newman's band will tell anyone who asks ---- "L.A. ! We love it !!""
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