LA Forum Reader: From the Archives of the Los Angeles Forum for Architecture and Urban Design

By The Los Angeles Forum for Architecture and Urban Design

The LA Forum Reader brings together three decades of discursive writings and publications on architecture, urbanism, and Los Angeles culled from the archives of the Los Angeles Forum for Architecture and Urban Design. Published under thematic sections: Experiments, Detours, Hunches, and Santa Anas, with interludes dedicated to Art and Architecture, Downtown, and the long-running LA Forum Newsletter, the collected essays and interviews track an uneven and lesser-known history of experimental architecture, postmodern geographies, and alternative urbanism in L.A. as told by the city’s key designers and thinkers.



Today, Los Angeles is a major architectural and urban player, but for decades the city was dismissed suburban and centerless. In republishing three decades of material on architecture and design in Los Angeles, the LA Forum Reader reclaims and reconsiders the city’s architectural and discursive histories. It establishes, or reestablishes, a textual context for critical experimentation and urban investigation. This anthological volume includes essays, interviews, and reproductions of publications that have long been out of print, including pamphlets by Craig Hodgetts and Margaret Crawford, as well as early writings by Aaron Betsky and John Chase.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Actar
• Release date: Apr 1, 2018
• ISBN: 9781638409182

The Los Angeles Forum for Architecture and Urban Design

The Los Angeles Forum for Architecture and Urban Design is an independent nonprofit organization that instigates dialogues on design and the built environment through public programming, exhibitions, and publications. L.A. is a catalytic place for architecture and design, offering lessons that extend globally. Our curatorial stance frames and challenges what architecture means in an evolving city. A critical voice in L.A. since 1987, the Los Angeles Forum for Architecture and Urban Design’s activities bring together architects, artists, designers, urban thinkers, and the public. Through each decade the Forum has vigorously interrogated the culture of architecture and urban design in L.A. A dedicated, working Board of Directors — members of L.A.’s architecture and design communities — produces our public programming and publications. Our events, newsletters, books, and competitions speculate on urbanism and create dialogues around contemporary design. Our programming routinely features the work of emerging and boundary-pushing designers. Ideas fomented include the codification of The LA School and the development of “everyday urbanism.” Over the decades, Forum research has included typological analyses of boulevards, dead malls, and dingbat housing. Influential publications originated with the Forum include Experimental Architecture in Los Angeles (1992), Everyday Urbanism (1999), The Infrastructural City: Networked Ecologies in Los Angeles (2008), and Dingbats 2.0 (2106). With Contributions of Robert Adams Rachel Allen Rob Berry Aaron Betsky Central Office of Architecture Marco Cenzatti John Chase Margaret Crawford Chava Danielson Joe Day Steven Flusty Russell Fortmeyer Todd Gannon Alan Hess Craig Hodgetts Victor Jones Ted Kane Sylvia Lavin Douglas MacLeod Tom Marble Michael Sweeney Christopher Tandon Kazys Varnelis

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