Concrete structures across Los Angeles are charted in a new map that documents the best of the city’s brutalist buildings to visit. Deane Masden, architecture critic and former associate editor of design at Architect Magazine, has curated a selection of architectural highlights from the likes of William L. Pereira, Edward Durell Stone, SOM and Minoru Yamasaki amongst many more.
Los Angeles’ sprawl of concrete constructions is followed for the first time from the driving seat of an automobile, instead of on foot as with other maps from the concrete series – critic Reyner Banham described LA a ‘uniquely mobile metropolis’ in 1971, and it remains so way today.
The cover of the Concrete Map Los Angeles from Blue Crow Media
Ground is covered from the heart of Hollywood, with the Cinerama Dome on Sunset to the First United Methodist Church of Glendale in the north, and other less explored areas of the city – even an interchange designed by Marilyn Jorgenson Reece.
Liberty Savings and Loan building designed by Kurt Meyer, 1966.
The map shows how concrete architecture has developed across the modern era – how architects have used it to express a multitude of philosophies and building techniques. Plotted on the map, we see the whole range of its uses; from Frank Lloyd Wright’s early modernist concrete block mansions of the mid-20th century, to contemporary concrete structures such as The Broad by Diller Scofidio + Renfro that reveals boundary-pushing engineering techniques.
Rudolph Schindler’s tilt-up houses and John Lautner’s exuberent rooflines show how concrete led the way in defining Los Angeles as a city of ‘case study houses’, allowing architects to experiment with the domestic architectural form.
CSUDH University Theatre Los Angeles designed by A. Quincy Jones in 1973.
The map’s design follows the format of the previous maps of the series, with red type on grey and black and white photography by Jason Woods, creatively bringing together discovery, travel and architecture into a neat guide through concrete, architectural philosophies, urbanisation and city life.
The map is the 18th in the series from Blue Crow Media exploring concrete and brutalist architecture from Boston to Berlin
The Broad, opened in 2015
Sheats Goldstein house, completed in 1963
INFORMATION
For more information, visit the Blue Crow Media website
-
First look: Western Mongolia meets Kew Gardens in John Pawson and Oyuna Tserendorj’s cashmere throwsArchitectural designer John Pawson and cashmere designer Oyuna Tserendor have collaborated on a cashmere throw collection inspired by Pawson’s 70m Lake Crossing in the Royal Botanical Gardens
-
How to buy art: the accessible new marketThanks to a growing pool of art advisers, digital intelligence and collector groups, buyers are better equipped than ever
-
The coolest design-led coffee shops in SeoulSeoul counts more coffee shops per capita than any other city in the world – cut straight to our six must-visit spots
-
Paul Rudolph at The Met: ‘from Christmas lights to megastructures’‘Materialized Space: The Architecture of Paul Rudolph’ opens at the Met in New York, exploring the modernist master's work through a feast of an exhibition
-
Jewel Box is a Californian project of small scale and big impactJewel Box by Red Dot Studio is the reimagining of a Californian 20th-century gem through a creative addition
-
Germane Barnes exhibition explores notions of classical architecture and identityGermane Barnes exhibition 'Columnar Disorder' opens at the Art Institute of Chicago
-
Omaha’s Joslyn Art Museum's newest addition effortlessly complements the institution’s existing complexThe third addition to Joslyn Art Museum is designed by Snøhetta, which opted for voluminous common spaces and illuminating atriums
-
Morning Dove in Twentynine Palms combines earth construction and otherworldly desert viewsMorning Dove by Homestead Modern in Twentynine Palms offers a striking landscape and rammed-earth construction for idyllic desert escapes
-
Larry Booth's 'House of Light' showcases an impeccable slice of postmodernist heritageA 1980s Larry Booth-designed Chicago townhouse on a narrow plot is a striking example of his author's work, set alongside the city’s postmodernist archive
-
In a hidden Beverly Hills garden courtyard, fashion, art and architecture meetJohnston Marklee transforms a Beverly Hills storefront into a shared space for the Michael Werner art gallery and fashion institution Mameg, connected through a leafy courtyard
-
Transamerica Pyramid: a San Francisco icon, remasteredThe Transamerica Pyramid, a landmark in the San Francisco cityscape, has been redesigned to 21st-century standards by Foster + Partners
