Podcasts about Reyner Banham

In this episode of the A is for Architecture Podcast, the University of Edinburgh's Richard J. Williams discusses The Expressway World, his brand new book with Polity Press. Richard is an old friend of the podcast, having recorded the first episode in the autumn of 2021. Back then, we spoke about Richard's book on that bearded provocateur Reyner Banham who, among things, was known for his 1971 book, Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies. I guess Expressway World naturally springs from this…While often associated with destruction, severance and car-centric modernity, urban expressways are complex, multifaceted spaces, not merely engineering structures. Richard argues that we would be better served to read expressways as cultural, political, and social landscapes shaped by their design, use and resistance. And rather than demolition of what are increasingly moribund artefacts of a bygone age, he advocates for a nuanced approach to living with these infrastructures. Drawing on global case studies in cities as diverse as New York, London, São Paulo, Madrid, Seoul and Glasgow (and of course, LA), Richard demonstrates how communities, activists and planners have creatively repurposed expressways into public spaces, parks, or cultural hubs. Another banger from a great scholar. Listen, then drive out to buy his book.Richard can be found here at work, on Instagram and on his personal website. The book is linked above.+Music credits: ⁠Bruno Gillick 

From Theory and Design in the First Machine Age, 1960

Louise Sandhaus is a distinguished author, professor and founder of her eponymous design studio. She won the American Institute of Graphic Arts medal in 2022 for her exceptional achievements. Most recently, she founded "The People's Graphic Design Archive," which she describes as a "crowd-sourced virtual archive" to preserve the ephemeral nature of beautiful design. Her book, "Earthquakes, Mudslides, Fires and Riots: California and Graphic Design 1936-1986" received glowing reviews from many publications, including the New York Times and Guardian of London. She taught for years at Cal Arts and was director of their graphic design program from 2004-2006. Sandhaus has designed many museum exhibits, and one of her designs is in the permanent collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. She was also a key exhibition designer in the millennial project of the LA County Museum of Art, "Made in California." Louise talked about growing in a mixed design household: her mother loved older, upholstered furniture and her father sleek, modernist and minimalist design. We also talked about our shared love of the work of writer and critic Reyner Banham, whose influential book on Los Angeles, The Architecture of Four Ecologies, which argued that the oft-maligned city was beautiful in its design and far ahead of its time. We also talked about our shared love of elegant typography, Theosophist history, overlooked designers and how California leads the world of design because of how we are constantly reinventing ourselves. We did not talk about cheese cultures, bauxite refining or the return of mullets to men's hair trends. You can learn more about Louise and her work, https://peoplesgdarchive.org/ or LSD-Studio.net.

This episode features Kate Wolf, one of the founding editors of the Los Angeles Review of Books and a critic whose work has appeared in publications including The Nation, n+1, Art in America, and Frieze. Wolf is currently an Editor at Large of the LARB and a co-host and producer of its weekly radio show and podcast, The LARB Radio Hour. In conversation with Sky Goodden, Wolf discusses Reyner Banham's Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies (1971) and what she took from it for her own writing practice: “There are many pleasures, as there are pains, but I think the pleasure of writing is unwinding an opinion, a point of view that's latent inside of you and can become fully expressed. Especially in criticism,” Wolf adds, “the kind of closing mechanism that your brain sometimes furnishes for you where something becomes a story, both by grammar and by very minute plotting … this turn of the key in the door is immensely satisfying.” Thank you to Jacob Irish, our editor, and to Chris Andrews for assistant production.Many thanks to the National Gallery of Canada and the Sobey Art Foundation for their support.

Gaétan Brunet et Chloé Valadié sont architectes et dirigent le bureau d'architecture et d'urbanisme UR basé à Pantin en France depuis 2019. Invité·e·s dans le cadre de l'exposition Sympoïétique. Arts de faire de la ville écologique dont ils sont commissaires, ils nous racontent leurs parcours et les rencontres fondatrices de leur pratique. Des convictions aux bifurcations, ils fabriquent un certain regard sur l'architecture et la ville, empreint de générosité et d'enthousiasme dans des temps troubles. — Les conseils lecture de Gaétan et Chloé : L'invention du quotidien, Michel de Certeau, 1980 L'architecture de l'environnement bien tempéré, Reyner Banham, 1969 — Nouvelle saison, nouvelle démarche. Derrière chaque architecte, il y a une personne qui ne l'est pas tous les jours. Le podcast Archizoom s'intéresse aux histoires de vies qui influencent nos pratiques et nos choix professionnels. Comment on est arrivé là, pourquoi on fait les choses que l'on fait, qu'est-ce qui nous donne envie d'aller plus loin ? Un podcast en quête de sens où l'on prend le temps d'écouter celles et ceux qui font, pensent et transforment l'architecture. — Propos recueillis par Solène Hoffmann et Roxane Le Grelle. Production : Archizoom / Direction artistique et montage : Marie Geiser / Jingle et musique : Cédric Liardet

(00:00) Welcome(00:10) Suzy Chase(00:12) Dining Room Table in NYC(00:20) The Brutalists(00:43) Decorating by the Book Podcast(00:50) The Brutalists Book(01:20) Hilton Carter(01:38) Buy the Book(02:16) Owen Hopkins(02:38) DBTB(02:56) Brutalism(03:19) Béton Brut(03:53) The Podcast(04:06) Modernism after WWII(04:11) Color Television(04:26) Owen(04:54) Suzy(05:03) Social Housing(05:13) Le Corbusier(05:27) Brutalists Cover(05:33) Corbusier(05:58) Large Social Housing(06:36) Buy The Book Here (06:46) Hunstanton School(06:57) Reyner Banham(07:03) Ethic or Aesthetic?(07:11) Founder of New Brutalism in the '50's(07:24) The New Brutalism Book(07:36) Steel and Glass(07:38) Ludwig Mies van der Rohe(07:42) IIT Chicago(07:49) Banham(08:02) The Hunstanton School(08:17) Purchase the Book Here(08:32) Aesthetic or Ethic?(08:52) DBTB(09:18) The Big Brutalist Question(09:29) Hopkins(09:41) Zvi Hecker(09:44) Krakow, Poland(09:48) Samarkand, Uzbekistan(09:53) City Hall(10:07) Inverted Ziggurat(10:14) Library of Birmingham(10:18) Boston City Hall(10:23) Repeating Diamond Pattern(11:04) Hecker(11:24) Buy The Book Here(11:43) Agustín Hernández Navarro(11:52) Praxis(12:16) UK Brutalism(12:19) US Brutalism(12:20) Soviet Brutalism(12:24) Japanese Brutalism(12:42) Pre Columbian Architecture(12:49) Praxis House(13:58) Your Host Suzy Chase(14:06) The Barbican(14:19) Medieval Gatehouse(14:29) Three Towers(14:58) Narrow Windows(15:05) Castle Windows(15:23) Concrete Towers(15:46) Romanesque Columns(15:58) Classic Capital(16:15) Old and New (16:32) The Show (16:43) Georges Adilon(16:50) Lycée Sainte Marie-Lyon(17:36) Adilon's Work(18:01) Sainte Marie(18:54) Fernando Menis(19:00) Holy Redeemer Church(19:02) Canary Islands(19:08) Tenerife(19:36) Menis(19:45) Redeemer Church(19:56) Purchase Book (20:13) Trinity Square Car Park(21:09) Owen's Website(21:31) Follow The Show on IG(21:49) Brutalist Interior Example(22:05) Brutalist Social Housing Interior Example(22:11) Balfron Tower(22:16) Ernö Goldfinger(22:25) Balfron(22:38) Wade & Tilly Hemingway(22:56) Balfron Interior(23:10) Balfron National Trust Interior(23:22) Tower(23:39) Suzy Chase Your Host(24:13) Hopkins(24:21) Farrell Center(25:25) Purchase The Book(26:07) Website(26:12) Owen Hopkins on Twitter(26:17) Owen Hopkins on Instagram(26:23) Suzy Chase Podcaster(26:32) The Brutalists Purchase Here(26:37) Thanks For ListeningChapters, images & show notes powered by vizzy.fm.

This week we sit down with Prof. Richard Williams of the Edinburgh College of Art to discuss his recently published book Reyner Banham Revisited

In this, the first episode of A is for Architecture, I speak with Professor Richard Williams about his new book, Reyner Banham Revisited, published by Reaktion Books in May 2021. Here's a link: www.reaktionbooks.co.uk The Professor of Contemporary Visual Cultures at the University of Edinburgh, I first met Richard when he came to give a lecture at the Glasgow School of Art in October 2013, in the Mackintosh Lecture Theatre, before the first fire, after the publication of his book, Sex and Buildings (Reaktion Books 2013). It was a wonderful, rye, candid and witty talk, and the theatre was packed out, the aisles and floor at the front occupied, as well as the awkward, hard benches, with students (mostly) emitting a strange energy, wordlessly: this is what university is supposed to feel like. Richard's on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/rjwilliams44 Enjoy. www.aisforarchitecture.org + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Music credits: Bruno Gillick.

Kendra Atleework's memoir "Miracle Country" is inspired by the work of writers like Mary Hunter Austin and Reyner Banham in capturing the harsh beauty of life in the arid Eastern Sierra. Having grown up in the Owens Valley, she returns amid the 2015 Round Fire to absorb the area's history and celebrate the harsh and majestic environment that lies at the cutting edge of climate change and defines what it means to really appreciate California.

Welcome to Archi-CAST.Louis Kahn.Fulvio Irace.“Kahn and Italy”.1959. A critical date.Vittorio Gregotti.Ernesto N. Rogers.Reyner Banham.“Italian retreat from modern architecture”.Frank Lloyd Wright.Kahn's lesson.New urbanist concept of “order”.Our platform www.oskidaniel.comWrite to me on twitter and MailMy other shows in spanish:iOSki - TechnologySIEMPRE JOVEN - ProductivityMANIFESTO - ArtVOX FUTURA - PhilosophySinnflut Band. Mi new music project.Thank You!www.oskidaniel.com

In our second and final episode on Reyner Banham, we discuss his pivot to Los Angeles, his love affair with Archigram, his theories of Megastructure, and his later projects on American industrial vernacular ('Concrete Atlantis') and his unpublished book about the High-Tech movement.After his support of the Smithsons and the 'New Brutalism' Banham was next renowned for supporting and publicising the work of English paper-architecture utopia-envisioners Archigram. We discuss Archigram, their lack of built fabric and the potentials of ecstatic 1960s techno-optimism. Banham's most iconic work is probably his 1972 documentary 'Reyner Banham Loves Los Angeles' and we discuss the documentary, Banham's idiosyncratic presenting style, as well as his blind spots around race, class, and the un-freedom of bottomless consumption. You will hear a series of clips from the documentary scattered through the episode. We also reflect on Banham's legacy, the revival of his reputation, and the difficulties of techno-optimism in the face of the climate crisis.Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts. Support the show on Patreon to receive bonus content for every show. The next bonus episode will be discussing the ropily-acted Sci-Fi cult classic 'Silent Running' in all its Banham-ite glory.Please rate and review the show on your podcast store to help other people find us! Follow us on twitter // instagram // facebookWe’re on the web at aboutbuildingsandcities.orgThis podcast is powered by Pinecast.

As requested by the listeners, part one of a two parter on Reyner Banham!Banham was an architectural critic, historian, scenester and prophet of the future, with a flair for iconoclastic and pugilistic writing. In this first episode we discuss his background in Norwich and his studies at the Courtauld Institute under Nikolaus Pevsner, where he wrote his PhD on the history of the modern movement. We then consider his involvement with 'The Independent Group' at the Institute of Contemporary Art, his support for the 'New Brutalism' of Alison and Peter Smithson, and his role in British architectural culture.Central to the development of Banham's project was his obsession with technology and his growing fascination with the potentials of American consumerism and the ways it might change architecture. We conclude with his ecstatic vision of the mechanical pudenda of technological architecture, in his first visits to America and his plastic bag homes.Here are the key Banham texts we discussed in this episode:PhD thesis (later to be published as Theory and Design in the First Machine Age)'School at Hunstanton, Norfolk' Architectural Review, September 1954'The Machine Aesthetic' Architectural Review, April 1955'Vehicles of Desire' Art, September 1955'The New Brutalism' Architectural Review, December 1955Theory and Design in the First Machine Age, 1960'The History of the Immediate Future' RIBA Journal, May 1961'What Architecture of Technology?' Architectural Review, February 1962'A Clip-On Architecture' Design Quarterly 63, 1965'A Home is Not a House' Art in America, Vol. 2 1965Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts. Support the show on Patreon to receive bonus content for every show. Please rate and review the show on your podcast store to help other people find us! Follow us on twitter // instagram // facebookWe’re on the web at aboutbuildingsandcities.orgThis podcast is powered by Pinecast.

Lådor av betong och transparent glas. Hus med insidan utanpå. Hus som inte flyttar på sig och knappt låter sig rivas. Katarina Wikars om den nybrutalistiska arkitekturen. Sextio- och sjuttiotalets brutalistiska byggnader har så smått börjat omvärderas. Tidigare utskällda och föraktade hus i grå betong tycks omfamnas av en ny generation entusiaster. I böcker och på poddar spirar ett nytt intresse. Samtidigt hotar fortfarande rivning många av de här husen och renoveringar har inte sällan gått hårt åt dem. Arkitekturhistorikern Marin Rörby har tillsammans med fotografen Tove Falk Olsson har gjort sin andra studie över denna epok i boken Sverige Brutal, uppföljaren till Sthlm Brutal. Husen med attityd, solitärerna. Om den tidiga modernismen hade idéer om den nya människans historielöshet så var det här en annan tid med andra behov. Brutalismens byggnader var satta att tjäna det allmänna, göra samhällsnytta. Storskaliga statligt finansierade bostadskomplex i England och i USA, offentliga byggnader, stadshus, skolor, sjukhus och bibliotek byggdes gärna i rå betong. Sociala ambitioner låg implicit i stilen. Följ med Katarina Wikars på en nybrutalistisk vandring i Stockholm med poeten och arkitekten Lars Mikael Raattamaa, där vi går igenom det nybrutalistiska manifestet av Reyner Banham från 1955. Ethel Delin berättar om villan i Djursholm hon beställde av arkitekten Leonie Geisendorf som varit elev hos Le Corbusier i Paris. Geisendorf stod också bakom S.t Görans gymnasium på Kungsholmen, som nu blivit studentbostäder. Och så ett besök i LO:s bortglömda betongpalats på en åker i Åkersberga. I Katarina Wikars reportage nämns förstås modernist-ikonen Le Corbusier och han väcker just nu starka känslor i Frankrike, landet där han framför allt verkade. Just nu planeras ett stort Corbusiermuseum i Poissy - en förort till Paris - och den plats där Le Corbusiers kända Villa Savoye finns. Men, Le Corbusier vurmade för totalitära ideologier, detta har diskuterats tidigare i Frankrike, men i med planerna på ett nytt museum har de kritiska rösterna höjts igen. Kulturredaktionens Cecilia Blomberg medverkar i ett samtal om den nu återuppväckta Corbusier-debatten. Dessutom, vår reporter Joakim Silverdal har träffat författaren Eva Lindström som prisats för årets svenska bilderbok för "Kom hem Laila". Programledare: Gunnar Bolin Producent: Maria Götselius

Ciclos de conferencias: Cuatro ciudades. Episodios de la historia cultural del siglo XX en Occidente (IV). Los Ángeles 1968-1989: Disney, Bradbury, Fuller. Luis Fernández-Galiano. Los años de las crisis del petróleo y el despertar de la conciencia ambiental serían también los del espectáculo planetario, y en Los Ángeles se anudarían muchos de los hilos que tejen las dos décadas de los californianos Nixon y Reagan en la Casa Blanca. La ciudad de Hollywood es también la cuna de otra fábrica de sueños, los parques de Disney, que han colonizado la imaginación popular en no menor medida que las propias películas. En el laberinto de autopistas que enmadejan Los Ángeles, los parques ofrecen a la vez un refugio de urbanidad tradicional y la prefiguración de una ciudad futura con infraestructuras colectivas, así que no sorprende que la compañía Disney haya llegado a emprender la promoción urbanística comercial, o que el autor de ciencia-ficción Ray Bradbury propusiera a Disney como alcalde para domesticar la ocupación del territorio por el automóvil y la casa unifamiliar. Sin embargo, son estos los mejores iconos de la ciudad, y así lo han entendido sus mejores intérpretes, ambos británicos, el pintor David Hockney con sus piscinas y casas hedonistas, y el crítico Reyner Banham, que aprendió a conducir "para poder leer Los Ángeles en versión original". Desde las Case Study Houses de los Eames o Craig Ellwood a los geodésicos de Buckminster Fuller –emblema de las comunas rebeldes y ecológicas– y a las residencias de Frank Gehry, el clima estilístico transitó de la modernidad lacónica a la técnica visionaria y a la fragmentación deconstructiva, pero se mantuvo la centralidad de la casa en la construcción de la ciudad. En todo caso, la figuración pop contamina generosamente la arquitectura de Los Ángeles, de manera que las tesis de Venturi y Scott Brown sobre Las Vegas se aplican bien a esta urbe tan figurativa como descompuesta, un paraíso de palmeras que ha ensayado las formas más extremas de individualismo económico y autonomía estética. Explore en www.march.es/conferencias/anteriores el archivo completo de Conferencias en la Fundación Juan March: casi 3.000 conferencias, disponibles en audio, impartidas desde 1975.

Lådor av betong och transparent glas. Hus med insidan utanpå. Hus som inte flyttar på sig och knappt låter sig rivas. Katarina Wikars om den nybrutalistiska arkitekturen. Sextio- och sjuttiotalets brutalistiska byggnader har så smått börjat omvärderas. Tidigare utskällda och föraktade hus i grå betong tycks omfamnas av en ny generation entusiaster. I böcker och på poddar spirar ett nytt intresse. Samtidigt hotar fortfarande rivning många av de här husen och renoveringar har inte sällan gått hårt åt dem. Arkitekturhistorikern Marin Rörby har tillsammans med fotografen Tove Falk Olsson har gjort sin andra studie över denna epok i boken Sverige Brutal, uppföljaren till Sthlm Brutal. Husen med attityd, solitärerna. Om den tidiga modernismen hade idéer om den nya människans historielöshet så var det här en annan tid med andra behov. Brutalismens byggnader var satta att tjäna det allmänna, göra samhällsnytta. Storskaliga statligt finansierade bostadskomplex i England och i USA, offentliga byggnader, stadshus, skolor, sjukhus och bibliotek byggdes gärna i rå betong. Sociala ambitioner låg implicit i stilen. Följ med på en nybrutalistisk vandring i Stockholm med poeten och arkitekten Lars Mikael Raattamaa, där vi går igenom det nybrutalistiska manifestet av Reyner Banham från 1955. Ethel Delin berättar om villan i Djursholm hon beställde av arkitekten Leonie Geisendorf som varit elev hos Le Corbusier i Paris. Geisendorf stod också bakom S.t Görans gymnasium på Kungsholmen, som nu blivit studentbostäder. Och så ett besök i LO:s bortglömda betongpalats på en åker i Åkerberga.

Lådor av betong och transparent glas. Hus med insidan utanpå. Hus som inte flyttar på sig och knappt låter sig rivas. Katarina Wikars om den nybrutalistiska arkitekturen. Sextio- och sjuttiotalets brutalistiska byggnader har så smått börjat omvärderas. Tidigare utskällda och föraktade hus i grå betong tycks omfamnas av en ny generation entusiaster. I böcker och bloggar spirar ett nytt intresse. Samtidigt hotar fortfarande rivning många av de här husen och renoveringar har inte sällan gått hårt åt dem. Arkitekturhistorikern Marin Rörby har tillsammans med fotografen Tove Falk Olsson har gjort sin andra studie över denna epok i boken Sverige Brutal, uppföljaren till Sthlm Brutal. Husen med attityd, solitärerna. Om den tidiga modernismen hade idéer om den nya människans historielöshet så var det här en annan tid med andra behov. Brutalismens byggnader var satta att tjäna det allmänna, göra samhällsnytta. Storskaliga statligt finansierade bostadskomplex i England och i USA, offentliga byggnader, stadshus, skolor, sjukhus och bibliotek byggdes gärna i rå betong. Sociala ambitioner låg implicit i stilen. Följ med på en nybrutalistisk vandring i Stockholm med poeten och arkitekten Lars Mikael Raattamaa, där vi går igenom det nybrutalistiska manifestet av Reyner Banham från 1955. Etel Delin berättar om villan i Djursholm hon beställde av arkitekten Leonie Geisendorf som varit elev hos Le Corbusier i Paris. Geisendorf stod också bakom S.t Görans gymnasium på Kungsholmen, som nu blivit studentbostäder. Och så ett besök i LO:s bortglömda betongpalats på en åker i Åkerberga.

Having just been to Los Angeles for the first time in the two years since I moved from there to Seoul, I ask what these ever-changing cities can learn from one another. How much does Los Angeles remain a metropolis that "makes nonsense of history and breaks all the rules," in the words of architectural historian Reyner Banham, and to what extent has it moved past what Los Angeles Times architectural critic Christopher Hawthorne calls the "building blocks" of its postwar self, "the private car, the freeway, the single-family house, and the lawn"? Does Seoul's constant construction of more and denser — but blander — forms of housing offer a solution to Los Angeles' worsening cost-of-living (and, increasingly, homelessness) crisis? Can both cities meet their separate challenges of finding a built form and aesthetic commensurate with their formidable status in the 21st century?

Today, although its monuments are vanishing, Brutalism enjoys a ghostly afterlife. Following decades of official and public contempt, its rehabilitation began when concrete tower blocks featured prominently in 1990s music videos by Britpop groups such as Blur and Suede. This revival continued in mid-2000s blogs by writers such as Owen Hatherley, and today it flourishes in Instagram accounts, soft furnishings, art galleries and coffee-table books. Meanwhile the buildings themselves have become hot property, changing hands for sums that are far beyond the means of their intended inhabitants. What are the causes of this strange resurgence in Brutalism’s popularity? Is it simply nostalgia, or does it represent a form of opposition to the politics that caused the demolition of so many of its exemplars? Why does Brutalism seem so at home in new media that are the very opposite of its material ideals? Are its fans interested in the ethic or just the aesthetic, to appropriate the terms that Reyner Banham used to interrogate Brutalism in the 1950s? If it’s the latter, what does this fetishism tell us about our current situation?

This 32-minute episode takes a look back at a few of this year's best stories and reflections.  In the following order, we have:  Shelly Spiegel-Coleman on the need for a dignified and humane approach to the treatment of illegal immigrants and their families;  Sabrina Fendrick of Berkeley Patients Group on the domination of women in the cannabis industry;  Emily Burns of Save the Redwoods Alliance on how carbon is measured in giant Sequoia and Redwood trees. Alan Hess on William Pereira's reputation among the East Coast elite and how he was “Hollywood's version of an architect”;  Magnus Torén of the Henry Miller Library on the development challenges of Big Sur - “it's being loved to death”;  multi-instrumentalist Louise Goffin on why the piano is her favourite instrument.  Daniel Ostroff on how he inadvertently started collecting Charles and Ray Eames; Jon Christensen on Reyner Banham and why living in LA is actually better than visiting it.  Justin Akers Chacon on the irony of how drastic immigration legislation had a dramatic economic effect in some towns;  Samantha Schoech of Independent Bookstore Day comparing books with the vinyl revival and the staying power of paper books. Grant Lee Phillips recounting his salad days as a 13-year old magician in bars and clubs off of Route 99;  Mary Colwell on John Muir's theory of glaciers as to the real reason why Yosemite is so spectacular;  Tom Williams on “catching a glimpse” of his subject when reading a series of unreleased letters from Raymond Chandler to his childhood friends; Kevin Break on the peace, quiet and bustling nature of the LA River at 2am.  Next episodes include US parking guru Donald Shoup and Reb Kennedy of Wild Records.  Thanks for listening to the show this year. Please don't forget to leave a review.  Have a good holiday and a great new year. Feed your soul. Keep listening.   

As California enters the 21st Century, it is in real need of a “Re-Coding” - making it ready to maintain its Top 10 global economic position. UCLA Institute for the Environment and Sustainability's Jon Christensen discusses this "Re-Coding", the importance of not only financial muscle and political will, but also cultural adjustment, particularly in light of climate change. With an ageing hardware/infrastructure, software in the form of new policies and a change in behaviour are required. Jon also reflects on how Governor Jerry Brown has changed, leading the charge on climate change and also reveals which piece of infrastructure should be done away (hint - it's several hundred miles long). In this 41-minutes podcast, we also discuss the lasting power of the UK's Reyner Banham, the guru of architecture critics, and his seminal book, Los Angeles - The Architecture of Four Ecologies (min. 21). Jon also touches on the Friends of the LA River and Frank Gehry's proposal for the river (min. 27). The interview concludes with the challenges of gentrification (min. 31), how LA can learn from San Francisco about creating and maintaining networks (min. 35) and Jon's favourite place in and book about California. Thanks for listening, subscribing and sharing.  In July's podcast, modern design duo Charles and Ray Eames with scholar Daniel Ostroff.   

Colin Marshall sits down in Silver Lake, Los Angeles with Vincent Brook, teacher at UCLA, USC, Cal State Los Angeles, and Pierce College, and author of books on Jewish émigré directors and the Jewish sitcom as well as the new Land of Smoke and Mirrors: A Cultural History of Los Angeles. They discuss the difference between Los Angeles obsession and Los Angeles chauvinism; his time in Berkeley, when Los Angeles became the enemy; the Christopher Dorner incident and the old racial wounds it has re-opened; Gangster Squad and the cinematic abuse of Los Angeles history; the city's tendency to repurpose rhetoric about it, no matter how negative, and Reyner Banham's role in that; Los Angeles as Sodom, Gomorrah, and whipping boy; what the German word Stadtbild means, and how Los Angeles lacks it; the great power ascribed to the city by its criticism; whether or not we only use twenty percent of brains, or of cities; hidden places, including but not limited to Barnsdall Park; the work Los Angeles requires from you to master it, and whether that counts as a desirable quality; how technology enables you to watch Sunset Boulevard as you cruise down Sunset Boulevard; Watts Towers as the key to Los Angeles; the city's far-flung museums, and their 21st-century tendency to roll large objects through the streets; how he came to teach a Rhetoric of Los Angeles class, and what his students have taught him; the truth of most local legends, even when contradictory; and how best to see the Los Angeles palimpsest.

Colin Marshall sits down in Santa Monica with Clive Piercy, founder and principal of design studio air-conditioned and author of the photo book Pretty Vacant, an appreciation of Los Angeles "dingbat" apartments. They discuss Reyner Banham's enduring definition of the dingbat; his time growing up in England enamored with American culture, and his surprise to find Los Angeles existed in color; the glory of freeways and the guilt of driving them, and the sense of failed utopia they share with dingbat buildings; how dingbats crept into his Los Angeles photography jaunts, shaped by his love of Ed Ruscha's paintings, and what happened when his fellow immigrants living in them came out to confront him; how his countryman Martin Parr perfectly captures the blandness of modern architectural wonders; his countrywoman Frances Anderton and their separate flights from the crushing burden of history; the cars parked under dingbats, and their saddening cheapness that resonates with the saddening cheapness of the home itself; inherent British negativity versus inherent American positivity; his participation in the aesthetics of eighties Los Angeles, the redesign of the Shangri-La hotel, and the newspaper coverage of the 1984 Olympics; how the mini-mall co-opted postmodernism, getting the proportions all wrong in the process; Reyner Banham Loves Los Angeles, which brought Banham and Ruscha together; Clive James and Ian Nairn's writing on cities, which honor the high and the low together; how neither graphic design nor Los Angeles needs you, and how that's the appeal; the current availability of all aesthetics, and his students' tendency not to discriminate between them and focus on brands instead; and whether he's been able to get any of these internet-savvy kids, usually from Asia and indifferent to Los Angeles, excited about dingbats.

Colin Marshall sits down in Ocean Park with Frances Anderton, host of KCRW's Design and Architecture and Dwell magazine's Los Angeles editor. They discuss how her countrymen Reyner Banham, David Hockney, and Christopher Isherwood opened up the idea of Los Angeles to England, vague as the understanding of its cityscape remained; the modernism of Los Angeles then emblematized by its freeways and its architectural freedom from the crushing burden of history, as unlike her native Bath as possible; how Paris' Pompidou Centre and the mere image of sliding glass patio doors shaped her architectural consciousness; the rise of preservation in Los Angeles, and how it might take an outsider to clearly see the movement's potential to hinder eccentricity; the American tendency to prostrate ourselves before whatever seems sufficiently old; how stark early-sixties modernism rose in Los Angeles without actually displacing anything, except on Bunker Hill; Chris Burden's ideas about the super-fast self-driving car as the transportation of his future, and his generation's implicit yearning to bring back 1962; how she figured out that radio was indeed a suitable medium for the discussion of design, architecture, and aesthetics, especially when it can include conversations about such subjects with the likes of Moby; and what Moby's architecture blog says about the surreality of Los Angeles, as well as where she still finds that surreality herself after 21 years in the city.

Colin Marshall sits down at the La Brea Tar Pits with David L. Ulin, Los Angeles Times book critic, editor of the anthologies Writing Los Angeles, Another City, and Cape Cod Noir, and author of The Myth of Solid Ground, The Lost Art of Reading, and the upcoming novella Labyrinth. They talk about his attitude as a young New Yorker moving to Los Angeles; his approach to everything in life through the filter of books; his "graduate education" writing for the mythologized oasis of writerly cool that was the Los Angeles Reader; the importance of competition in print journalism; criticism as the search for the most important questions; how to talk about a city that doesn't know how to talk about itself; how to have a coherent conversation about a city that resists coherent conversation; the "sacred ordinariness" of Los Angeles; how literature of exile became literature of place; ersatz public and protected pseudo-urban space; whether the city will feel the same ten years from now; whether we'll still have what architectural critic Reyner Banham described as an "autopia" ten years from now; how narrative offers our only hope of meaning, yet only offers meaning up to a point; and what happens when our narratives go bad, assuming we notice. (Photo: Noah Ulin)