Design and Architecture
Architecture in Pacific Standard Time
"Pacific Standard Time Presents: Modern Architecture in L.A." does for architecture what the Getty did last year for art. Does LA design still represent the future?
By Frances Anderton • • 28m ListenLast year it was art, now Pacific Standard Time Presents: Modern Architecture in LA. A summer of exhibits explore LA's experimental buildings and ideas about urban living. Does LA still represent the future? With Thomas S. Hines, Wim de Wit, Christopher James Alexander, Chris Nichols, Greg Goldin, Edward Lifson, D.J. Waldie, Erin Cullerton.
Banner image: Dorothy Chandler Pavilion by Welton Becket & Associates, ca. 1960; Watercolor on paper, 50.2 x 94.2 cm (19 3/4 x 37 1/16 in.); The Getty Research Institute © J. Paul Getty Trust
In this episode
5 storiesModern LA
Thomas Hines, research professor of architecture and urban design and history at UCLA, explains what made LA a capital of Modern architecture. Despite "its many problems and faults," he says this region is one of the most "important places in the world in the development of Modern Architecture."
Read the story4 minOverdrive
One of the first shows to open is the Getty's own, called Overdrive: L.A. Constructs the Future, 1940–1990 .
Read the story9 minWindshield Perspective
What you won't find with Pacific Standard Time Presents is a tidy chronology of LA architecture. Museums have had a free range to offer different perspectives on what might count as LA Modern.
Read the story6 minWilshire Boulevard
PSTP has sponsored another exploration of a defining Los Angeles boulevard, but it's one you'll be able to take in outside of the museum space, and not at the speed or kind of mobility it was built for.
Read the story8 minVenice
Part of LA's vigorous architecture culture was the work of the maverick architects who made their mark in Venice in the 1970s and 80s – among them Fred Fisher, Frank Gehry, Stephen Ehrlich and Brian Murphy. These architects were exploring alternatives to stringent Modernism that differed from the post-modern experiments on the East Coast.
Read the story10 min