Never Built Los Angeles

The wave of nostalgia that has recently infiltrated Los Angeles with The Getty’s Pacific Standard Time programming continues in a new exhibit at the A+D Museum titled “Never Built: Los Angeles”.

As its name suggests, the exhibition examines a survey of unrealised architectural and urban projects from the early 1900s to the present-day that were never built in the city of Los Angeles. Organized and curated by architectural journalists Sam Lubell and Greg Goldin, “Never Built” provides a discursive platform through and by which to discuss and evaluate architecture and urban planning projects and their respective effects on the surrounding city and its inhabitants.

While Los Angeles has been a fertile breeding ground and home to some of the most talented and visionary thinkers and makers in the fields of architecture and design from Austrian imports Richard Neutra and Rudolf Schindler to more recently Frank Gehry and Thom Mayne, the civic architecture and built landscape of the city does not reflect this experimental culture and pervasive spirit that exists here. The exhibit, in contrast to the “Pacific Standard Time Presents: Modern Architecture in L.A.” programming series procured by the Getty, highlights the city’s missed opportunities in contemporary architecture and planning in addition to its lack of support to local architectural talent for large-scale commissioned work, albeit a few.

Featuring civic projects in contrast to the iconic mid-century residential homes Los Angeles is most known for, the show includes public commissions that would have had a significant impact on the city if only realized. “Civic architecture has an impact on everybody,” says Lubell, and this exhibition features some of the most lofty schemes and groundbreaking proposals for projects in the city of Los Angeles. Yet the question remains, why hasn’t public architecture and planning projects had the level of innovation privatized individual dwellings have historically had in Los Angeles? Through “Never Built” Lubell and Goldin are able to speak to a broader public outside of the narrow discourse of architecture and design, engaging the varied audience with plans by some of the most visionary architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright and John Lautner, and more importantly ideas about architecture and planning within the city of LA.

Positing these visionary works as “what if” scenarios that had the potential to change the way the city was developed, experienced, and perceived, the debate Lubell and Goldin put forth is just as much about the future of the built environment in LA as it is about its past.

Projects such as the Olmstead Brothers and Bartholomew’s Plan for the Los Angeles Region of 1930 would have successfully integrated parkland into the urban fabric of the ever-expanding structure of the city in both residential and commercial areas in addition to leaving the entire coastline from Malibu to Long Beach publicly owned and largely undeveloped. Other proposed projects such as the 1920s plan for mass transit that called for a comprehensive elevated railway and subway system would have without a doubt played a significant role and had a huge impact on the development and culture of the city. Both these plans resonate with Angelinos today, who have recently experienced planning by the Mayor’s office to extend the Metro Line to the sea and efforts by planners, urbanists and citizens alike to increase green space in the city in myriad ways, from small parklets to the recent opening of Grand Park in Downtown LA and reopening of Echo Park Lake.

The exhibit itself, along with the accompany text is divided into distinct sections that examine unbuilt buildings, master plans, parks, follies and transportation schemes through architectural drawings, models, video and various other media including lenticular prints and an 11-foot Lego tower. The exhibited projects provide an encyclopedic survey of building in Los Angeles during the past hundred plus years. The work is presented rather democratically, with the curators’ particular preferences for one project over another seemingly vague. By presenting the work in this way, the Lubell and Goldin enable conversation to develop about a particular planning project and/or building and its potential effect on the city without bias. According to Lubell the intent of the exhibition is to “get people talking about what should and shouldn’t have been built” rather than provide mere opinion.

The question as to why these so-called visionary projects were never built yields various answers. In some cases, the money just ran out, in others plans were abandoned for other schemes or the site was left barren. While some of these projects would have significantly altered the landscape of Southern California in an adverse way, others offer redeemable qualities that leave viewers wondering how a particular project might have changed the way the city looked and ultimately how it thought about contemporary architecture. For Lubell, one of the lessons learned is that “the city needs to change in order to enable visionary projects like these presented to happen.” “Never Built” effectively starts the discussion as to how this process can begin. By bringing architecture to a visible realm like an exhibition and making it accessible to the public so they can understand the benefits of what they could miss, they might start to fight for it. “Never Built: Los Angeles” is currently on view through October 13, 2013 at the A+D Museum on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles.