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Reyner Banham Loves Los Angeles & So Do I

August 17th, 2009

Daniel Pontius

(Sometimes)

Documentary by the English architectural critic and writer.

Some highlights:

17.45 A comparison between Los Angeles and London and how both cities developed based on their inhabitants ability to move through space.

21.00 Quick overview of the California “Spanish Colonial or Mission Style.” Breynen calls it an unpretentious architecture combining domesticity with the fantasies of dreams. He says that it is not as much a style as it is a frame of mind. I think we’ve forgotten this.

23.15 The Gamble House.

25.00 Wonderful shots of the beautiful Case Study House #8 in the Pacific Palisades. Ray & Charles Eames.

I am going to have to read his 1971 book “Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies.” My Google tells me that he categorized the Angelean experience into four ecological models :

Surfurbia
Foothills
The Plains of Id
Autopia

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