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The Infrastructural City: Networked Ecologies in Los Angeles,
edited by Kazys
Varnelis
Actar, 2008
Hardcover, 240 pages
The outcome of four years research
on the changing conditions of infrastructure in Los Angeles,
this book is a fascinating excavation of the unique workings
of the largest city on the West Coast, but one that illuminates
conditions found elsewhere, regardless of the title's specificity.
A prodcut of the Los
Angeles Forum for Architecture and Urban Design and
the Network
Architecture Lab at Columbia University (where editor
Kazys Varnelis was president from 2004-2006 and what he
now directs, respectively), the collection of essays comes
at a time when the term infrastructure is making headlines
from coast to coast, with President Obama's efforts at fixing
and updating the nation's infrastructure. This book will
not only help clarify what his initiatives may be geared
towards, it will make one question such efforts.
Varnelis and the contributing authors
contend that LA's infrastructure is in a constant state
of crisis, that its infrastructure is being pushed to its
limits without any possible easy fix. Even pumping hundreds
of billions of dollars into the area, should the opportunity
present itself, would affect less than people imagine. For
example, could any measure of money, jobs and construction
replenish the aquifers and groundwater the metropolis drained?
Could improved oil drilling techniques come close to satiating
the increasing demand of a, well, demanding public, on the
West Coast and beyond? These aren't questions that the authors
tackle, but their deep and highly specific research describes
the conditions that exist and how those conditions arose,
questioning the direction of future infrastructural internventions.
The outlook isn't gloomy per se, but the effect is close
to being hit across the face with a brick, or two. Nevertheless,
from cover to cover it's an engaging read and one that people
interested and concerned with the future of cities shouldn't
miss.
The essays are grouped into three
sections (Landscape, Fabric, Objects), with three of the
14 by photographer Lane
Barden, who contributes aerial photography and text
on three linear systems: the Los Angeles River, Wilshire
Boulevard and the Alameda Corridor. These present what most
people think of when they hear the word infrastructure:
water (supply and/or sewer), roads and railroads; all that's
missing is power. Even though the rest of the book has abundant
imagery, Barden's pieces and their points-of-view paint
the clearest picture of the impact of infrastructure on
LA's fabric, especially since the first and last are many
times non-exist on the ground, testament to the city's attempts
at burying what enables it.
Other essays delve into the equally
hidden oil drilling operations in the city and on the coast,
LA's water connection to Owens
Lake, aggregate extraction pits in Irwindale, electronic
traffic and telecommunication systems, distribution centers,
Hollywood prop houses, and even the conjoining of neighbors'
properties towards the construction of a regulation wiffle
ball court. It's easy to imagine what applies to other contexts
more directly than others, but considerations of property
and means of consumption alongside traditional definitions
of infrastructure are important for painting a thorough
portrait of infrastructure in Los Angeles as a mircocosm
of the greater (American) urban condition.
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