When an Exhibition Resonates (Almost) Like a Book

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Art & Design

When an Exhibition Resonates (Almost) Like a Book Exhibition Review: Overdrive: L.A. Constructs the Future, 1940–1990 9 April–21 July 2013 The Getty Center, Los Angeles, USA Text by Shirley Surya Images courtesy of the J. Paul Getty Trust

The ephemerality of exhibitions, in particular

its all-encompassing curatorial methodology

those on the subject of architecture and the

that could reframe how we study, display, and

city—whose reality exists outside the gallery

perceive architecture and the city.

space—often

A swee ping su r vey of Los Ang eles ’ a rchitec tu re a n d u rba n pla n ning ove r the span of 50 years, Overdrive is an ambitious ef for t to document L . A .’s g row th into on e of th e m os t p op ulo u s a n d influ e ntial cities in th e world .

Shi rley Su r ya p rese nt s a n ove r view of th e exhibition org a nised by th e G et t y Resea rch In s titute a n d th e J . Pa ul G et t y M u se u m .

in

terms

renders

of

knowledge

impactful than

There was something exhilarating when the title of Getty’s long-anticipated exhibition

experienced

on

than

production

meticulously

“read.”

Yet

modern

architecture

in

Los

Angeles

there have been exhibitions that curators

(L.A.) was announced more than a year

and

ago.

historians

revisited A

for

re ce n t

their

lasting

is

G ra h a m

one

of

Charged

with

mechanical

an

drive

overriding

behind

an

sense actively

Foundation’s commemoration of the “ground-

developing urban phenomenon, free from

breaking” exhibition Italy: The New Domestic

the predictable affectations of mid-century

Landscape, curated by Emilio Ambasz in 1972

California

for challenging established notions of product

exhibition could not be more appropriate.

design

Presented

in

everyday

life

and

introducing

modernism, with

the

materials

title on

of

the

the city’s

new social and political dimensions to the

architectural

discussion. Considering how Ambasz achieved

scale and breadth, one’s general experience

this by organising the show according to

through the gallery was akin to being on

polemical

excessively

interiors

categories by

and

high-profile

newly

designed

high

in

a

gear—though

sweeping

with

less

risk of feeling spent if one kept in mind the

more

challenge of exhibiting (not just researching)

seek

architecture and the city. The exhibition’s

materials,

curators—Wim de Wit and Christopher J.

be as disruptive as the likes of Ambasz’s

Alexander—were clear about benchmarking

spectacular

scholarly

Overdrive to an exhibition like Architecture

texts? From a curatorial-research point of

in California, 1868–1968 (UCSB Art Gallery,

view, the exhibition Overdrive: L.A. Constructs

1968), which they claimed to be the only

the

comprehensive survey of the region’s diverse

historical to

and

faithfully

Future,

architects,

production

can

collections-based

158

less

say, a book. Exhibitions, after all, are more

s i g n i f i c a n ce.

1 Department of Water and Power Building by A.C. Martin & Associates.

Photo by Julius Shulman, 1965.

Gelatin silver print. 20.2 x 25.2 cm (7 15/16 x 9 15/16 in.). © J. Paul Getty Trust Used with permission. Julius Shulman Photography Archive, Research Library at the Getty Research Institute.

them

exhibitions

inductive present

dioramas

1940–1990

with

bent, archival

or

a

which

other

presented

such

a

possibility (though not without its limits) for

architecture and infrastructure since 1968.

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The exhibition revealed the multiple and complex factors behind the layers that made up L.A., so as to consider anew a region that has generally been written off as either a superficial faceless sprawl, where commercialism seems to take “design” out of architecture; or whose design legacy, on the other extreme, was just about the works of Schindler and Neutra, and Case Study Houses.

Art & Design

Unlike other exhibitions such as California

psychedelic night lights—at the entrance of

Design, 1930–1965: Living in a Modern Way

the exhibition’s gallery, as though to remind

(LACMA, 2012) or Birth of the Cool: California

the visitor how the city had been perceived,

Art,

and its vastness in which architecture would be

Design

and

Culture

at

M i d ce n t u r y 2007),

contextualised in the show. Here, architecture

Overdrive prioritised all-inclusiveness, diversity,

was embedded in L.A.’s urbanism and shaped

processes,

architectural

by its multiple actors, and this notion was

production in the representation of archit-

doubly emphasised by a quote, also at the

ecture

entrance,

(Orange

County and

and

Museum networks

modernism

of of in

Art,

L.A.,

beyond

the commonly mediated style of postwar

by

Los Angeles Times journalist

Norris Leap in 1958:

Californian modernism. It insisted on a longer historical view of addressing both historic

“This is the day supersonic flight, of the

and contemporary urbanism. According to

one-man helicopter and the moon rocket, of

De Wit, 1940 marked the beginning of L.A.’s

the miracles of chemistry and physics and

expansion

its

engineering. It also is the day when dreamers

freeways, while 1990 signalled its end when

include the architect and the builder and the

many plans were scraped and the city turned

hard-headed banker. And this day’s dreamers

inward. In terms of architectural development,

say it’s well past the dawn’s twilight of a new

De Wit thought that the risk of burdening

Los Angeles era.”

with

the

masterplanning

of

the viewer with the 50-year span was worth

2 Entrance Tower on Vermont Boulevard to the 1984 Olympics, Los Angeles, 1983.

Colour pencil, crayon, and ink on tracing paper. 46.2 x 40.3 cm.

Collection of John Spohrer, Los Angeles.

3 Dave Packwood Santa Monica Freeway (Interstate 10) and Harbor Freeway (Interstate 110) Interchange, May 1962.

Photograph. 25.4 x 20.3 cm (10 x 8 in.).

Automobile Club of Southern California Archives.

4 Julian Wasser, Tower Records, Sunset Strip, Los Angeles, CA, 1973. Gelatin silver print. 19.1 x 23.4 (7 1/2 x 9 3/16 in.).

Courtesy of Julian Wasser and Craig Krull Gallery, Santa Monica. © Julian Wasser

160

it as “ending around 1980 would have left

Th e

out a whole younger generation of Gehry,

would take no centre-stage but as innovative

q u o te

Mayne, Rotondi, and Moss,” which he said was

designers, were key agents among multiple

important to show that modern architecture

forces

in L.A. was “not just about the highlights of

patrons, financial flows, powerful alliances,

Schindler, Neutra, or Ain.” 1

and vested interests that resulted in a built

of

e n c a p s u l ate d

change

h ow

driven

by

architects

enlightened

environment shaped not by an aesthetic norm Comprehensiveness

was,

therefore,

more

a

revisionist, than an encyclopaedic attempt. The

but by factors of industry and commerce, diversity of cultures, and disciplines.

exhibition revealed the multiple and complex factors behind the layers that made up L.A., so

This was evident upon entering the first

as to consider anew a region that has generally

gallery

been written off as either a superficial faceless

inundated

sprawl, where commercialism seems to take

visual artefacts—drawings of Googie coffee

“design” out of architecture; or whose design

shops, car showrooms, as well as renderings

legacy, on the other extreme, was just about

and

the works of Schindler and Neutra, and the

which could come as a surprise to one with

Case Study Houses. The gesture of bringing

certain

to mind (and dismantling) preconceptions of

show, until noticing that it was the “Car

the city was clear from the start with Peter

Culture”

Alexander’s

opening chapter showed how L.A.’s urbanism

painting

PA

and

PE

(1990)—

an aerial view of L.A. reduced to a sea of

and

as

the by

videos

v i s i to r a

of

Ford’s

expectations section

architectural

wa s

i m mediately

floor-to-ceiling

of

automobile

of

an

the

identity

sea

of

design,

“architecture”

exhibition. in

the

This 1950s,

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particularly in

with

typology,

was

its

w i d e s p re a d

inextricably

d r i ve to

had reviewed of the exhibition, “the quality of

motorised living, as well as industrial forms

the drawings, photographs and models (was)

and materials of automobile culture. The

remarkably high,” with a special mention of

non-hierarchical

curbside

the Tillman Plant whose design was considered

landmarks in the form of Armet and Davis’

to have fundamentally changed the way the

rendering of Rome’s Times Square drive-in

Department of Water and Power viewed its

restaurant (1955), photographs of billboards

architectural legacy since the 1980s.

display

of

linked

representations. 2 As Christopher Hawthorne

these

and signage on Sunset Boulevard, as well

5 View of gallery in between “Car Culture” and “Urban Networks” section.

6 View of “Engines of Innovation” section of the gallery.

7 Romeo’s Times Square Restaurant by Armet & Davis, 1955. Pencil on paper.

55.9 x 160 cm (22 x 63 in.). Collection of Armet Davis Newlove Architects.

as artist Ed Ruscha’s maquette for Every

An exhibit in the next section of “Engines of

Building on the Sunset Strip (1966), set the

Innovation,” however, would serve to remind

tone for the rest of the exhibition marked

that twenty years earlier, the Department was

by the display of both the pedestrian and

already the first to embrace the modernist

commercial,

vocabulary

alongside

the

authored

and

of

steel-and-glass

as

emblems

iconic. Such a curatorial st rate g y o f b re a k i n g

of efficiency and good business, as seen in

d ow n

“high”

Julius Shulman’s night photograph of the

and “low” reflected the approach historians

u n d e rc u r re nt

categories

Los Angeles Department of Water and Power

and critics like Reyner Banham, Mike Davis,

Building (1964) designed by A.C. Martin &

and Kevin Starr have taken in expounding

Associates. It was an example of the section’s

on Los Angeles’ vibrant built legacy and

emphasis on the ecology—the actors and

potential

forces—that shaped the urban environment

opportunities

of

through

a

socio-

economic and material-cultural reading of

and architectural manifestations.

urbanism, in which transportation networks and power infrastructures were as significant

From

in shaping the city as its signature residential

d eve l o p e d by a e ro s p a ce i n d u st r i es in the

designs. It led to a natural transition into

design of Howard Hughes’ hangar, to Franklin

the neighbouring section of the exhibition

D. Israel’s and Eric Owen Moss’s adaptive

8 Corbin Palms Development by Palmer and Krisel, 1953. Pencil on vellum.

45.6 x 127.8 cm (17 15/16 x 50 5/16 in.).

Gift of Wiliam and Corinne Krisel, William Krisel Architectural Archive.

The Getty Research Institute.

entitled “Urban Networks.”

reuse of old warehouses into film studios for

9 KTLA Studios by Thornton M. Abell, 1948. Ink and pencil on tracing paper.

Unframed: 52.7 x 102.6 cm (20 3/4 x 40 3/8 in.). Thornton Abell Papers, Architecture and Design Collection. Art, Design & Architecture Museum, UC Santa Barbara.

162

the

use

of

new

building

materials

the media and entertainment clients, as well From

photographs

transmission

as the commissioning of higher education

towers and freeways, which conveyed how

facilities like the beautifully sited Art Center

Banham once likened these arteries’ sweeping

College of Design “bridge building” (1968)

arcs elegantly permeating the grid system

presented in a 198-centimetre-long sketch

of municipal districts as “a work of art,” to

by Craig Ellwood—the exhibits demonstrated

the impeccable model of Anthony Lumsden’s

the avenues of creativity provided by likely

Tillman

and

Water

of

electric

Reclamation

Plant

(1984),

unlikely

visionary

architectural

clients,

whom

not without their formal qualities as built

array of building types wo u l d remain on

projects, enhanced by the nature of their

p a p e r.

“Urban

experiments

without

these utilitarian infrastructural facilities were

N etwo r k s ”

and

for

an

“Engines

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of

I n n ovat i o n ”

re p re s e nt i n g of

capital

ra i s e d

the

of

n e ce ss i ty

i n d u st r y,

while driving through L.A.; the boulevards became less dreadful while considering the

well

as

less-known

rise and fall of Googie buildings upon seeing

In the introduction of the book Curating

that represented their complex form-making

the new and dying storefronts. Outside of

Architecture

production, especially when the architect-

experiments and precursor to the built High

Los Angeles, perhaps one need not have read

Chaplin and Alexandra Stara reminded readers

auteur and the finished form had often been

School No. 9 in L.A.. There was, thus, a thread

Cody’s article to realise the influence of L.A.’s

that any reading of the contemporary city is

elevated above the commercial or utilitarian.

running through the exhibition, of paying

architecture in Asia if one started noticing

like that of a “layered parchment”—far from

tribute, through equally engaging artefacts,

the

glass-

complete and having to go through constant

to

under-

clad corporate towers, and shopping malls in

rewriting. 5 Curating architecture and the city

represented, with a balanced appreciation of

Singapore or Jakarta. Depending on the type

should thus be “messy and contingent, full

the formal and social.

of visitor, an exhibition in the end could only

of

hit a few nodes—it is not an exposition but a

most importantly, present opportunities to

Presenting beyond

the

the

pioneering

diversity

of

canonical

building

continued

types

in

the

second last section of the exhibition entitled

both

the

celebrated

and

the

“Community Magnets.” While the section had Art & Design

drive-in

restaurants,

insulating

and

endless

the

questions,

City,

editors

contradictions,

Sarah

and,

the noble goal of exploring structures including

While Overdrive succeeded in doing justice

lead-in, and at best, it could present objects

engage directly with spaces, places, people

malls, synagogues, and performing arts centres

to t h e m o d e r n i t y o f L o s A n g e l e s ’ archi-

and subjects that merit further scrutiny and

and their ideas.” Overdrive had achieved

that become destinations for residents and

te c t u ra l

opened new lines of inquiry and research.

this

tourists, there was a sense that its broad

addressing its diversity and interconnections

criteria could also include buildings in other

between various agents, yet without some

While

sections. There remained, however, significant

effort of sieving out the details or reading

of

there

curators had not cowed from tackling the

examples:

the

the

could not be enough emphasis on how the

comprehensive picture without the trappings

model of Disney Concert Hall, made more-or-

exhibition could well be a dizzying frenzied

production of an exhibition is also far from

of totalising narratives. It represented the

less of stacked cuboids, presented the reality

plenty to the layman. The scholar-expert,

the production of a text. It is precisely due

complexity of the region’s modernity without

of

expectations

on the other hand, may also be frustrated

to the exhibition’s many publics that the

losing

and advances in digital design technology

at having only a glimpse of each project

success of an exhibition would lie in its ability

through

had drastically transformed its initial design;

through an artefact and a short label, and

to

objects, archives, and historical documents

while Jerde Partneship’s axonometric of the

may consider the exhibition short of being

sources of an architecture exhibition, which

related

to

the

processes

of

entrance tower and life-size construction of

able to prove its “thesis” of L.A.’s role in

Mirko Zardini, Director of C a n a d i a n C e n t re

production

that

indicated,

reinforced,

sonotube columns for the 1984 Olympics was a

constructing the future—especially when the

for

confirmed new directions in research. More

reminder of how an architectural practice (now

“future” seems to be a moving target within

‘transdisciplinary

shunned as being overly “commercial”) had

the span of 50 years.

“a combination of architecture, theatre and

historiographical

scenery, visual art and electronic media.” 4 For

in the tricky business of curating architecture

how

Frank

much

Gehry’s

finance,

1988

public

competition

p ro d u c t i o n

catalogue,

and

one’s

urbanism

impression

of

by

once proposed a brilliantly bold and pragmatic kit-of-parts

type

of

eve n t

a rc h i te c t u re

A ss e ss i n g

the

i m p a ct

of

a

one

an

could

compare

exhibition

communicate

versus

through

A rc h i t e c t u re ,

aptly space’

the a

reception

book,

tangible

primary

described created

as

a

through

of Los Angeles’ commercial skyscrapers in

shows,

exhibition

the shaping of the central business districts in Asia. 3 But such a reading would not be

average

like a room of “dollhouses,” with a number of 1:200 scale models of the city’s signature

clear through the display of an advertisement

led to the amassing and dissemination of

housing

by

Overdrive call

of

demonstrating

had

gone

beyond

architecture in-depth

the

exhibitions

research

that

of PPG Solarban Insulating Glass published

ideas embedded i n ex i s t i n g , u n d e r u t i l i s e d ,

familiar residential projects were deliberately

in

(Nov,

or unknown archives by creatively displaying

left to the last, in De Wit’s words, “to keep

1974).

question

original and wide-ranging models, photographs,

people’s suspense.” Yet the range of projects

of how much could an exhibition format

artworks, drawings, and footages of impeccable

presented remained consistent with the rest

explicate complexity, but also the fact on

quality. These included the screening of the

of

diversity.

the exhibition’s many publics—the by-passer,

marketing clip of Capital Records Building or

form

of

the reflector, or the investigator—as opposed

Jack Laxer ’s photographs of Amet & Davis’s

Pierre F. Koenig’s drawing of Stahl House

to a book’s keen reader, such that it would

coffee shops viewed through stereograms,

and Julius Shulman’s iconic photos of them,

have been sufficient for an exhibition to

but also producing new representations with

though

a

communicate to any of these audience, at any

archival sources: a visual mapping of L.A.’s

fraction of the range of housing projects

degree. Perhaps it was sufficient for Overdrive

physical, civic, social, and economic landscape

exhibited. Others included a site plan of the

to open up any narrow preconceptions of

in the first section of the exhibition using

revolutionary

uniquely

L.A., either by making visitors aware of how

statistics related to landscape infrastructure,

sited Corbin Palms tract housing development

the city had come to be the way it is, or by

networks

(1953)

re-examining

they

conflict; and a 3D flythrough of Welton Becket

signifier of the mid-century modern middle-

found too familiar. Personally, the exhibition

& Associates’ Capitol Records Building that

class

according

prodded one to notice the substations and

revealed details of the world’s first circular

to the philosophy of the Case Study House

offices of the Department of Water and Power

tower in the setting of 1956 LA downtown,

the

The

exhibition

Case

Study

in

houses,

prominently

by

showcasing in

placed,

mass-produced Palmer

housing

dream

and

the

were

yet

only

Krisel—the

designed

real

Asian It

Building raised

ideas

and

Construction

the

perennial

behind

architectural

the

methodological

and

necessary approach

non-canonical objects and subjects have not

videos, and models, the last section of the

these

questions

wide-ranging

patterns of urban development, and where

which are usually present in most architecture

curators,

provided

key

of

the centrifugal does not necessarily exist in

of the prototypical structures and materials

the

it

use

that has “altered the visitors’ gaze.”

surprising projects in the form of prints,

For

importantly,

raising

and urbanism, especially that of Asia, where

Despite the lack of 1:1 mock-ups of projects,

projects.

by

strategic

important due to the “culture of experience”

Cody’s article could expound on the influence

almost

clarity,

Zardini, this medium has become even more

And after encountering all of the rather

felt

immersive and thesis-proving exhibition, the

was

certainly more of a task of the catalogue

Fabric”

Even

built

most profitable Olympic Games.

“Residential

postulation.

c i ty’s

ex p e r i m e nt s

p ro g re ss i ve

theoretical

d esign

produced with the lowest budget for one of the

and

beyond

with its inability to hit all the nodes of an

than the exhibition. In the catalogue, Jeffrey

164

modelled by the UCLA Urban Simulation Team.

Coop Himmelblau’s Rehak Residence (1990)

of

te c h n o l o g y

and

unrealised projects through models such as

programme—as

in

n a r rat i ve

m ate r i a l s

of

i nf l u x

a rc h i te ct u ra l

the

and

the

ro l e

projects

and

settlements,

economy

been systematically studied to date.

Overdrive: LA Constructs the Future, 1940–1990 is now presented at the National Building Museum (Washington D.C.) from 20 October 2013 to 10 March 2014. For more information, visit www.nbm.org.

1 Email interview with Wim De Wit, 8 August 2013.

2 Reyner Baham, Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2009), 203.

3 Jeffrey W. Cody, “Across the Pacific: Los Angeles as Catalyst for Architectural Change in East Asia,” Overdrive: L.A. Constructs the Future, 1940–1990 (Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2013) eds, Wim de Wit and Christopher James Alexander, 97–107.

4 Mirko Zardini, “Exhibiting and Collecting Ideas: A Montreal Perspective,” Log 20, Fall 2010, 81.

5 Sarah Chaplin and Alexandra Stara, “Introduction,” Curating Architecture and the City (Oxon: Routledge, 2009) eds., Sarah Chaplin and Alexandra Stara, 1–5.

and

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