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Los
Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies, by
Reyner Banham.
The four ecologies that Banham refers
to in the title of his "light-hearted and affectionate
tribute to Los Angles" (New York Review of Books)
are the beach (what he calls Surfurbia), the foothills,
the plains, and the freeways. This last part is definitely
an attraction for the author who famously proclaimed, "like...English
intellectuals who taught themselves Italian in order to
read Dante in the original, I learned to drive in order
to read Los Angeles in the original." But Banham doesn't
rest on any conviction that the automobile created and defined
the sprawling, centerless metropolis; rather he concludes
that the Pacific Electric Railway laid the groundwork, the
automobile merely following its lead (sometimes literally
on top or next to old tracks). Along the way he investigates
not only buildings by famous architects like Frank Lloyd
Wright, R. M. Schindler, and Richard Neutra, but the infrastructure
of the place and the "throw-away architecture"
of restaurants, shopping malls, and the like. Published
in 1971, this book was one of the first to take a serious
look at LA's built environment in its totality, giving it
credit where others were apt to dismiss it. This highly
enjoyable read proves that Banham ranks as one of the best
architecture critics in history, not only for his fresh
and readable prose but for his broad definition and coverage
of architecture and the urban landscape.
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