Johnson & Favaro and Guthrie+Buresh called for a
Since the boom of the early 19505 the response to
Two Issues were considered of primary i~portance , First
Increased demand for housing has been to build Qut-
was the need for Increased urban density
or, as the
redislribution of space , transferring unused privat e space
the singl e family Mme dweller to maintain th e status
wards. With Los Angeles and Its adjoining counties
Central Office of Architecture declared, "DENSIFY OR
to the public domain. Ingeniously expanding on Ihis
quo. Revolutionary change runs COunter 10 the oulmoded
~
Synonymous with Ihe nolion of suburbia is the deSire of
spanning hundreds of square miles, planners have been
DIE: Second was the acknowledgement of the single
techniqu e, Mary-Ann Ray's designs used alleys and
fantasies of the average suburbanit e. Whether these
virtually powerless to control the growth on any but a
family residence as the icon of American capitalism, the
other voids between shuctures as the fool prints for her
radical redefinitions would be embraced within their
strictly regional level. From the taxing of resources to thfl
American Dream.
buildings, fold ing them into the crevices of the urban
alloted con texts remains the crucial question, In a panel
mesh ,
discussion on the final weekend of the exh ibition the
dilemma of transporiatiOfl, developers, too, have long
architects themselves agreed that the most effective
recognized Ihe disadvantages of expansion Into the vast
Satisfying urban demands and suburban desires, efforts
desert bul have resp<lnded to consumer demand by
which beller lend themselves to juidaposition than mar-
As if in response to the tract housing of the post-War
continuing to build centrifugally.
riage, required In most schemesa radical reinterpretation
era, most of Ihe projects includ ed several building types
of a suburban aesthetic. All of Ihe projects re<:ognized.
'with in their respective schemes. Unlike the Central Of"
Redefining the American Dream, although a seemingly
the need for re-evaluating existing zoning laws which
fice of Architecture 's uni-dimensional Love-II-or-Leav e-
Orwellian proposal, is presented with such grace and
In recent years development of tract houses in some
test would be to build them and let reality be the judge.
communities has given way to multi-story units. How-
impose set-back requirements and restrict building
It approach, designs such as Ray 's designated housing
clarity In Ihese projects that It is difficult to believe thai
ever, these seemingly obvious ,clutions do not accom -
heights.
types with spe<:ilic occupants in mind, These Included
somewhere, at some time, their precepts couldn't be
housing for Ihe homeless, transients, singles and fami-
successfully appli ed. Still open to question, however, is
modate Ihe desire of many home owners, that of Ihe private space afforded by the single family residence.
The main focus of the designers was to take advantage
lies, and Ihose who work both in and away from Ihe
whether a Los Ang ele s nearing th e millennium Is the
of avai lable space. Janek B ielski and Roger Sherman
home,
proper provin-g ground, But, then, whr!l"e beller? These architects have called allention to the obsolescence of a
In an exhibit that recently closed at the LA Municipal Art
both approached Ihls task by providing a range of op-
Gallery Roger Sherman assembled several architectural
tions for residents, eliminating set-backs and creating
Guthrie+Buresh also recognized the need to build above
desire to keep population densities low. One realizes
firms to address the iss ue of housing in response to
courtyard spaces. Uke their Medltefla nean counter-
and around existing structures to Increase the occu-
looking allhes e elegant and Inventive schemes the need
population growth In Southern California, Challenging
paris, these designs did not require the strict designa-
pancy of single lois. Their strateg ies included construct-
to awake f rom our reverie,to awake 10 the reality of the
standard building types accepted since World War II and
tion of interior and exterior space.
Ing studios over garages and adding commercial space
Dream.
admonishing the f_ recent attempts by deYelopers to
In lieu of front lawns in order 10 take fu ll advantage of
meet the demands of urban dwelling, Ihe archit ects
usable land,
Alison Lynn
altered environ ment. (Residents might as well be told
p.esented projects that acknowledge not only the basic demands of the maturing city but also the intangible deSires of Its inhabitants. To this end was proposed RE; American Dream.
Dream on
Architects and city planners don't always see eye to eye
Los Angeles views Itself as a series of small towns and
show that advocate measures such as losing paris of
with the public about the desirability of Increasing the
neighborhoods, Densiflcation represents the death of
backyards for an alley would undoubtedly pmYOke open
thai they
density of existing urban nelghoomoods. A case in polnl
these neighborhoods as their residents know them -
warfare. Why, I wondered as I looked althe show, would
and stop watching TV because it rols their minds,) New
witness the ferocity with which Southern California resi-
any homeowner who likes the way hislher neighborhood
high density housing might be more appropriately intro-
the L.A. Municipal Arl Gallery. The architects whose
dents band logether in protective homeowners groups. I
looks now, be willing to watch It be completely trans·
duced in some olher loning cstegory such as commercial
conceptual projects were on display made little, if any,
found the show's assumption that lower density neigh-
formed?
land use,
acknowledgement that density is the great Bogeyman
borhoods would inevitably become outmoded by some In short, the show had the vices and virtu es of a paper
for many Los Angeles residents. This fundamental flaw
kind of mutually agreeable environmental agenda and go
Districts where these proposals would stand the great-
in Ihe schemes' premis es renders them formalist exer-
the way of leaded gas and styrofoam fast-food contain-
est chance of being adopted would be where more
project. Its idealized program allowed architects to de-
cises rather than real possibi1i\ies for improving the
ers naive and wildly optimistic. This is not a politically
transient rental populalions and noncon forming hou sing
velop ideas that push back the boundaries of existing possibililles , but Ihese ideas were weakened as actual
suburban landscape andlor community. People in
plausible premise, given that most homeowners groups
already exist. In economically deprived sections of the
Southern California generally will do anything possible
have fought tooth and nail to get Iheir neighborhoods
city, smaller allowable lot sizes and great er density cou ld
solullons by the fact that they ignored some very real
to have a physical buffer of space between them and
downzoned to prolect Ihem from the threat of greater
act as a de-facto urban opportunity lOne, (Although
soclo- political considerations.
their neighbors even if that means gelling up at 4;00
density. Some of the proposals in the show call for
some low-incom e neighborhoods may be just as
A,M. to commule from the Moreno Valley to downtown
mandatory reconflguration of property lines, a process
adamantly opposed to the measures as any other
L.A. Lois of human beings in the street are scary to
which would ultimately requ ire government condemna-
single-family neighborhoods,) Some of th e ideas in the
residents of Southern Californ ia. People on the street
tion of privately owned property. The
pr~osals
In the
Jo hn Cha se
show seem more applicable to the development of raw
represent crime, danger, and the suspect condition of
land in Palmdale than well eS lablished nei ghborhoods
being an automobile-less pedestrian,
In Los Angeles; Instituting these proposals there does not require an existing population to accept a totally
fOI' Architecture and Urblrn D. ... n
W Hotlywood, C. llfoml •
· 21;8127141
stop driving cars because they pollule
Is the show "RE; American Dream ", recently on view at
•
.....
SMU~
Forum
State of the Art
th eir findings. Each of these maps an exact pattern of
Appropriated here, 'Out of Sil o. ' is meant to imply the
logic guiding the processes of disenfranchisement in the
; opposite: the preoccupetions of the Western intellectual
fallacy, the 'new' Formalism, as a telltale symptom of
Out 01 Slle: A Social Criticism of
nation's two largest cities. Each then catalogues the
elite ere so out of touch with the built environment that
architecture's moribund stale. In short, archlt&Cts heve
(or, just Out of S"ite?)
their endeavors prove as meaningless as the
job~
Arclliiecture, edited by Diane Glllrarde,
recurring fa ilure of artists, planners and architects to
(SeaWe: Bay Press, 1991),
acknowledge their complicity in systems of impoverish-
' soul-sealching of the TV character made famous by the
sibility in favor of high priced game-playing for the
249 pages, $16.95 essays by Margaret Crawford,
ment. These two pieces alone are among the most
. phrase.
wealthy . To critique this game-playing within its own
Mike Davis, Rosalyn Deutsche, Kenneth Frampton,
important primers for students of design posed in decades. 1
Diane Gllllardo, Vlncen l Pe1:ora, To ny Schuman and Ferrucclo Trabalzi
and
Ghira rdo has opted to pinpoint exactly one contemporary
generally, and increasingly, side-stepped social respon-
terms, or In ierms of 115 most brazen players, only adds But is Obit of SUe not more of the same navel-gazing?
weight to Ihe corpse carried off and bu ried by the other
Though meny pleas are made for a broader dialogue
authors In her collection.
I
With Out gf Sjte, Ghirardo has posed an alternative - not
uniling architectural thought with the 'outer' world, all
As an anthology of voices speaking ou l on the current
to sayan antithesis - to the overt commercial ity she has
, eight aulOOrs teach at architecture schools, five at SCI-
state of archileclurallhOl.Jght, Qui of Site delivers more
faulled rapeatedly In the wo~ of others over the last two
,Arc. Though Mike Davis and Barbara Deutsche often
Joe Cay
than promised. Diane Gllifardo has assembled a slellar
decades. In piece of splashy color graphics and glossy
i step far beyond their call of duty as academics , the brief
1. For further reading along the lines of these last two
line-up of the left Coasl Lell, balanced by diverse leKts
finish, Ghlrardo has opted in bold-face for the ascendency
'biographies of the contributors make note only of where
essays, try :
from New York and European theorists. Ironically. Ihe
of the printed word over the reproducible image. Hers is
each teaches , thus 'leg itimating " and homogenizing these
FjfJ In the Hearth路 The Radical Ppljllcs gf p lace In
essays that make up the book, taken as a whole, are
a carefully-tailored asceticism, meeting HYPE with type .
voices at a single stroke.
~,
edlled by Mike DaYls and others, (London:
New Yo~: Verso, 1990):
more insightful than Gllirardo's summary of Ihe Ideas In wo~
If YQu
Llyed Here路 The
Cit~
the book. Although Ghlfardo sels 00110 castigate archi-
Ghirardo has been quick to sum up the
01 others as
Though pertlaps less intentional, the sub-t itle, 'A Social
tects for their societal irresponsibility, she fails to ana-
'reactionary, ' yet feils to note th e nostalgia of her own
ICriticism of Architecture,' has similar ambiguities. Much
lyze their motivations. The other writers examine the
method. If most architectural publication reduces the
iof the criticism is indeed social . Ghirardo opens both her
by Rosalyn Deutsche, (Seattle: Bay Press, 010.
culturallorces that have cordoned off architecture from
buill en~ronment to consumable image for the media(ted)
introduction and her essay with pathetically Insensitive
Foundation, 1991): and,
other disciplines and from Ihose areas most In need of
classes, Obit gf SUe retreats to an even more ethereal
words from Peter Eisenman - no doubt fairly and easi ly
Relmaglnlng America: The Acts gf Social CbangO
environmental Imp rovements.
plane. As presented, th is is a book by and for scholars,
sampled from many other equally thoughtless comments .
edited by Mark O'Brien and Craig Uttle, (Phllft{jelphla,
written and promoted by same . Though ostensibly in-
To tak e Eisenman to task for attitudes held more Insidi-
Santa Cruz: New Society Publishers, 1990) .
~,
In Act Thegll' Ind Social
a project by Martha Rosier - Includes essay
Thoug h posed as 'a broad-basad critique thai directly
tended to criticise 'Arch itecture,' few of the autoors
ous ly by many men practicing architecture has the ring -
challenges the formalist assumptions currently dominat-
chose to illustrate their pieces - perhaps because when
and the effect - of critiquing Andrew Dice Clay for the
For a radically 'fJcoded ' anthologlcal antidote to
ing both teaching and practice,' the essays collected
reduced, half-toned, and printed on grey-beige stock,
failings of modern mankind. By assaulting the singular
male-dominated formalism In architectural discourse,
here - except for the ft{jitor's - generally assume the
images require litlle critique to undermine their value . II
figure of Eisenman, Ghirardo simply reconfirms the station
try:
failure of architecture's purely aesthetic debate as given.
one doesn't come to t hese teds with an understanding
of th e artist as solitary and male, white and embatt!ed.
Drawing Blillding Telct, edited by Andlea Kahn,
Many of them go far in mapping out the his to ry of that
01 i he published and buill works under discussion, little
failure and postulating new more responsive and respon-
of the profound commentary will regis ter. Even so , there
Oddly enough, Ghirardo passes up the opportunity to
sible paths for future architectural discourse.
Is poetl}' to the title of Itlis collection and satire to its
lambaste Richard Meier in the second of her two treat-
(Princeton: Princeton Architectural Press, 1991).
byline. 'Out of Site" both sums up the locale of most
ments. She deplores t he Getty Foundation for Its inat-
The breadth of scholarship and deplh of understanding
architectural thought in Ihe eighties, and plays sa ...... y,
tention t o the art of this century and its t hinly-disguised
that each author has brought 10 bear on his or her chosen
erudite games with a happycalch-all of seventies enthu-
intention to keep its collection free of traffic too pedes-
topic makes it dilficult 10 describe Ihe complexity of
siasm. '01,11 of Sightl " Jimmy Walker used to say deily on
trian. But she leaves the designs for their ma lign acropo-
their ideas in the context of a brief review. Frampton,
Good Tjmes, letting the mostly white audience of the
l is more Of less untouched. Meier, far more than
Crawford and Pecora place the current practlce(s) of
showknowthalthe faltering economic status of America's
Eisenman, appears open to the critique put forth by
architecture with philosophical and historical precision.
black, urban families wasn't cause for them to worry.
Ghirardo. On count!ess occasions and with silent, sel/-
Schuman and Trabalzi offer leading examples of mlcro-
assured arrogance, Meier has colonized fore ign soil with
and macro-political analysis turned on the European city
a universalizing formal ism divorced from any and all
and highlight the ethically suspecl role of Architecture
路context. He, after all, is the last architect to see all hues
that emerges flom such analyses. Davis and Deutsche
,In White, his White.
virtually invent new disciplines to contain Ihe range of
Home on the Range
Olive down ihe lillie cul-de-sacs thai snake through
10 the outside. Secure in their paranOia, the~ leave a few
not bring jobs or sense to this community . It exists by
each of these developments, and you find yourself in
narrow gates into the ir curving labyrinths, where all
virtue of its far-flung quality, its separation from the
Spielberg land - thai surreally normal anyplace whe re
sense of direction is soon lost as you curve around the
perceived urban wasteland 01 crime and smog, and by
see nothing but the clQsed compounds of suburban trect
single family homes have been transformed into ab-
bright green patches of lawn (wasn't there a desert here
the re lative worthlessness of its land. ArChitecture cannot
developments spread ing out over the high desert, eating
stracted fragments of Orange County derivatives of the
somewhere?) . There are no corner stores , no par ks, no
make a place In the dese~ except as a solitary oas is or
myth of Spanish Colonial living -
places to go except Into the vast emptiness of the
a nomadic settlement. It must accept the unsettled ,
desert.
ephemeral and isolated nature of human habltallon in
At the edge of Ihe city, the forms of the future rise in front of you like an apocalyptic nigh tmare of normatcy. Co ming over the crest of the San Gabriel moun tains, you
up its emptiness with the boxed-in forms of our city. The
here spliced together
Antelope Valley is the fastest growing part of Los Angeles
so merCilessly that only the sloping roof and rough
County, with well over 15,000 housing starts a year.
stucco coat remain. Pack ed together, sometimes even
this fork of the Mojave. II must confront the carpet-like
turned into rowh ouses, they are reminiscentof the dense
The Antelope Valley poses the question to architecture:
mesh of infrastructure and habitation that Is the naked
stucco rows huddled togeth er against the winds whipping
lin es of homes that formed the vemacular of Ihe first
what Is 10 be done? Sooner or later, so me enlightened
truth of exurban development. That would seem to deny
down from the Tehachapls is now a thriving city of over
suburbs of the Midwest. But these neighbortloods haye
city father or mother wil l ask an architect to create a
t he traditional notion of an idenllfiable architecture and
100,000 Inhabitants. Downtown Is a strip several miles
freed themselves completely from the city. Th ey sit back
place somewhere ou t the re , to give th e community an
t hus poses the question: If Palmdale-lancaster Is the
long, where the fore courts of pa~ing lots set off the
from the major arteries, each isolated and identified only
identity, hound it and locus il. But can it be done? A good
future of los Angeles, what is the future of architecture
by real estate signs. They are walled In , allowing no view
Poslmodernlsl wi ll tell you that any place can be like
in Los Angeles? As the prophets knew, only by facing the
of the city Is a perennial construction zone. Th e only
home. All iltakes is tight urbanism, easily legible graph-
desert can we define ourselves.
industry is Plant 14, home of the B-1 bomber. The
ics, a few references to the natural elements, and a
largest forms are stili those of the desert and the moun-
careful choreography of spaces . But will that solve the
tain . There is no locus, no core, no place like home In
fundamental alienation of this place? Architecture can-
What only a few years ago was a collection of a lew
Post modern graphics of co mmercial seduction. The edge
Aeron Bebky
Palmdale-Lancaster. But there is a lot of building, connected by the umbilical cord of the Freeway to the jobs, am enities and life of Los Angeles.
I Like X
I like 'x ' - the x of 'let x be the unknown' - \t1e unsung
It Isn't. There Is nothing like bad comp ute r graphics 10
Or we could use x to creale rooms with numerous
hero of endless algebra problems. While it 's true that 'x'
ruin anyone's reality and these graphics are slill very
dimensions - in four dimensions a three dimensional
firmly rooted In existing realities. Most systems use
usually turns out to be something like 14 oranges or 22
crud e. In fact, the graphics are necessarily crude sioce
room would need no doors because you could pick
simple Computer Aid ed Design (CAD) systems to create
cen ts, there Is a brief period before the final equals sign,
more sophisticated images would take too long to redraw
yourself ou l 01 that room just as easily as In three
environments. This seems to be a very real straitjacket
during which 'x' could be anything at all. Such an 'x'
every time you moved your head. There is still a long way
dimensions you can pick a shape off a piece of two
on creallvity as even computer drawing 15 very much
offers unlimited possibilities for the imagination.
to go before virtual reality poses any threat to the real
dimensional paper. But I think that what x
thing . But thai's not the point.
this case is expose time and space for the charlatans
reall~
does in
Unfortunately, the tools for creating ~rtual realities are
constrained by our laws of physics and our drafting conventions.
they really are. In this case, let x be an environment
We don't often get x's In architecture. In the Middle Ages the 'x ' in architecture equalled the gothic caihedral
Far more Important, and this is where x comes in, is the
and in the Industrial revolution it equalled Ihe sky-
design environment that Is suggested by virtual real ity . II
scraper , but these are rare events In our hlstOl)'. Now,
Is quite simply an environment where you can build
where time and space don't exist.
Nonethetess ills interesting to Imagine Ihe day when the
Next, x would be helpful in breaking down the con-
look bet1er than the real ones . Remember, in a virtual
equipment improves and the virtual buildings begin to
however, it appears that the twentieth century has one
anyth ing you can possibly imagine. There are no con-
straints imposed by language. The wOOle problem of
bui lding there is no value eng ineering and no budget
big, final x in store for architecture: virtual reality.
strainls and no restricti ons and In th is sense It repre-
' you throwing the ball across the room' Is that you (ttle
cuts, every wall can be marble, and exposft{j steel doesn't
sents an architect's every dream, and every nightmare,
subj ect) are distinct flom the ball (the obj ect). So lei x be
have to be fi reproofed. The problem is, If I can go home
Virtual reality is the art of making people think \t1ey' re in
come true.
the sltuallon where you are the ball and you th row
to a cardboard box, snap on my goggles and be In
yourself across the room. In such a situation verbs such
Versailles: why would I want to spend good money on a stucco bungalow In Sllveriake?
environments that don't really exist, and computers are the toys of choice for creating this illusion. Most ~rtual
Let x be these environments . X could become an envi-
as throw are woefully Inadequate and a whole new set of
reality systems consist of goggles, a helmet and a glove.
ronment where everything was built of silver and gold,
subject/object merged verbs would be required. There is
When you put on the goggles, small TV monitors in each
but that is far too simplistic. Far better to let x be an
no doubt that such environments would quickly drive you
eyepiece give your left and right eyes slightly different
environment where gravity no longer exists. Far more
mad, but viewed from the relative safety of this side of x
pictures of a compu ter-generated space, hence creallng
Interesting to let x be an environment with its own new
they are merely provocative.
the illusion of three dimensions. When you put on the
and unique laws of physics. tmag ine a room in which
helmet. a tracking device follows the movements of your
different locations were in different tim e zones only
Virtual reality is often t outed as a boon to architects in
head. When you turn your head to the left, the graphics
seconds apart. Throwi ng a ball across that room would
that it allows them to walk cli ents through bui ldings
on the monitors are readjusted to reflect that change in
mean that it might appear f irst in the cent er of the room,
wh ich are designed bul not buill. But this is bit like
viewpoint. When you put on the glove, YOll have a tool for
then one foot flom the thrower, then 2 inch es from the
driving the space shutt le to the corner to get a quart 01
moving through the space. Somellmes Just polnllng will
far wall - all depending on what t ime it was .
milk - you can do ii, but it misses the potential of t he
allow you to move in that direction. When you put them
medium. The challenge is not to recreate existing /eall-
all on at the same time, the effect Is supposed to be
ties but rather to create new on es.
mind-bogg ling.
Douglaa Macleod