After the Second World War, cities devastated by the conflict had to rebuild themselves. Los Angeles, devastated by self-inflicted Urban Renewal, began the rebuilding process soon after. This issue examines the several ways in which corporate architects adapted modernism to reconstitute the civic realm of Los Angeles.

Articles:

Whose Turf is This Anyways?
by Julie Eizenberg, John Given, Roger Sherman, Doug Suisman

Plans Come and They Go, or Downtown is Almost OK
by Robert S. Harris

Downtown … Again
by Peter Zellner

Hope or Hype: a Residential Community Downtown
by Tatiana Begleman

All Shiny and New : Disney Hall and Downtown
by Carol Mcmichael Reese

Editorial by Vinayak Bharne and Alan A. Loomis

“… because that is all downtown Los Angeles deserves,” wrote Reyner Banham in Los Angeles: The Architecture of the Four Ecologies. Written in the halcyon years before the energy crisis or crippling traffic congestion and well after the Watts Riots, this classic survey is essentially a manifesto for the suburban metropolis. Banham’s four ecologies map a decentralized city organized by regional geography and the freeways rather than a centrifugal expansion originating from the pueblo plaza or City Hall. From his perspective in 1971, downtown was certainly not the focus of the city and nothing more than a historical footnote.

But with the opening of Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles seems to be rediscovering its center, and the rhetoric of a downtown renaissance has reached a crescendo. Following the Cathedral, Staples Center, SCIArc, and even MOCA – the hopes for downtown’s socio-political destiny as the cultural center of Southern California are focused on the Concert Hall. Los Angeles has waited sixteen years for it, and its architectural iconography can hardly be separated from the anticipation that Gehry will deliver the “Bilbao effect” for downtown. Rendered in stainless steel, the Concert Hall is the ultimate “silver bullet” project – a structure so heavily endowed with civic will and capital that (supposedly) it can regenerate downtown single-handedly.

Not withstanding the recent Grand Avenue Project, impelled by the Concert Hall’s success, the iconographic messiah building might be nothing more than a myth. While discussion during the Concert Hall’s six year construction has centered on its impressive structural gymnastics and the hope that Gehry’s architectural singularity will put the LA’s center on the map again, a steady revitalization of downtown has in fact already been happening, occurring incrementally through successive planning studies, modest projects and hidden legislative changes – some much older than even the Concert Hall. The Hall may deserve applause, but downtown’s 3000 new housing units represent not just a lucrative residential real estate engine, but also an emerging community of invested residents, who are probably the surest catalyst for downtown’s long term transformation. While the Concert Hall leaves little doubt of its catalytic influence on the immediate context, all the fanfare may be a pawn in the game of downtown’s renaissance, and one that despite all the utopias of the last century, may have innocuously found its own way to resurrection.

We have collected a few “notes” to explore the physical and planning context of the Concert Hall’s promise, with an interest in locating the rhetoric of a Downtown Renaissance. Carol McMichael Reese opens the discussion with an essay (first published in the Walt Disney Concert Hall’s official monograph) that positions the Philharmonic’s new home within the historic lineage of urban visions that have sought to crystallize downtown. With this backdrop, it is possible to see the Concert Hall as the teleological end to a century of civic center plans, a much-needed “dramatic podium” for a city center “ in need of landmarks”, a symbol of the power of architecture to incite and nurture urbanism. Peter Zellner also reminds us that the recently promoted and ambitious Grand Avenue Project – an outcome of the Concert Hall’s optimism and the potential sequel to Gehry’s powerful urban argument – is but another episode in the fifty-year history of urban visions for the Bunker Hill acropolis. From one of the least utopian, yet most pragmatic plans proposed for downtown, Robert Harris, co-chair of the Downtown Strategic Plan (DSP) Committee, also sees the Concert Hall as one among the many catalytic projects the DSP anticipated. He voices the dilemmas that led to the embalming of the plans, whilst arguing that the DSP’s strategies for safer streets and better neighborhoods are coming to life through downtown’s ongoing, incremental housing and reuse boom. Likewise, the offhanded reference to the Concert Hall by Tatiana Begelman in her survey of downtown’s lofts, apartments and SROs suggests the boom as autonomous and oblivious to the hall’s myth as the “key” for downtown’s emergence as a vibrant city center. Yet for all these plans and developments, a final conversation from an event sponsored by the collaborative LAH*UB suggests that downtown’s status as the city’s center remains inconclusive. With the failure of Pershing Square and the present ambiguity of the civic center mall, the panel members – John Given, Julie Eizenberg, Roger Sherman and Doug Suisman – fail to agree on the importance of downtown as a gravitational weight to a polycentric urbanity or the object of a dubious search for “public” or “social” space. And thus we return to Reyner Banham’s thirty-year old survey of Los Angeles, where downtown is but one center among many, and not even the most important at that.

Yet, we are convinced that downtown Los Angeles assuredly deserves more than a just “a note”. With architectural monuments confirming its position in Southern California, and residences in long-forgotten commercial buildings establishing coherent neighborhoods, a downtown generated of new-found realisms is gradually becoming clear. LA’s urban core is emerging as a “collage city”, rejecting the fixation on “no-topia,” with the idea of reusing the existing city as an irreplaceable cultural and economic resource, for collective form, and multiple utopias. The emblematic struggle to define LA’s urban core has been a palimpsest, constructed and reconstructed over time, each phase displacing its predecessor and generating newer “notes” on its modernity. As we currently enter yet another era in downtown’s rebuilding, one that confirms LA’s sheer size and diversity as a challenge to any singular urban polarity, the task at hand is an unbiased, unapologetic version of downtown’s history to scrutinize the realities, possibilities and validities of its many dialogues and dialects. A note is not enough – indeed a scholarly history of downtown LA is most overdue.

Kaliski initiated the discussion by identifying the evening’s topics: the city’s urgent housing challenge, the separate roles of the government and the private sector, housing design, interesting case studies, and how legislative policies helped or hindered housing production.

The consensus was that producing housing here produced as many, if not more, headaches than rewards. Some panelists pointed to the huge amount of time and effort spent in resolving conflicting, obscure, awkward legislation, or assigning precious staff time to responding to unwieldy bureaucracies originally designed to encourage community involvement, a laudable goal of the democratic process but one which now appears to have a stranglehold on the larger process of actually getting things built. As Los Angeles reaches its population saturation point, the panel seemed to agree that the city has hindered its own urban progress by allowing the political process to determine housing strategies. While the panel produced more questions than answers, there were a positive suggestions that stemmed from creative and cooperative approaches, giving hope that housing solutions are not unattainable.

Everyone on the panel, including Los Angeles’ housing department’s director of policy and planning, Sally Richman, pointed a frustrated finger towards the city government and the stronghold of politics involved in providing basic, decent housing, though the definition of “decent” was also contested.

Some factors in this crisis are unique to Los Angeles, others apply to affordable housing everywhere. Here population is rapidly exceeding the available housing. The lack of housing for middle to low income residents has increased both rent and sale costs and therefore, Los Angeles home-ownership is low. The rental vacancy is relatively high because most units available are luxury rentals, with owners for whom the need to rent is less urgent. Little undeveloped land, a lack of leadership, lagging economy, changing demographics and the muddled bureaucracy after the 1994 Northridge earthquake, which destroyed 21,000 homes, all have been factors in the current housing crisis.

Currently, building safety codes are being strictly enforced to avoid future earthquake destruction, which slows down the reconstruction of damaged homes considerably. Additionally, politicians kowtow to self-righteous homeowners; affectionately known as NIMBYs (not-in-my-backyard). According to the panelists, citizens are allowed too much of a voice in how their property and surroundings are governed, causing delay after delay until financing and project support runs out. The caricature of the standard “politicians trying-to-please-all attitude” seems to slow, and possibly even prevent, local housing projects. Business investors, shaken by the earthquake and the inevitability of another, are anxious to get a quick return on their investments and therefore regard property only as capital. This often means tearing down affordable apartments and replacing them with luxury ones. All of these reactions, along with the population increase have led to the current housing state.

The primary problem is the system in place to protect homeowners and renters. According to developer John Given, the building codes and zoning laws are hindering progress. Los Angeles has maxed out its land use, and is now faced with a density issue. The current laws don’t allow for height change (currently two stories) in mixed-use zoning (combining residential and commercial properties.) Given believes that Los Angeles has backed itself into a corner by not supporting mixed-use development. Residential neighborhoods don’t want to incorporate commercial businesses into the neighborhoods, and there is a negative public perception of commercial development. Given recently worked with Koning Eizenberg Architects on a mixed-use downtown development in Brea, which allowed for apartments over one-story shops. According to Given, the project was a success as all the commercial shops and apartments have been rented, and there are plans to continue to build more.

Given believes that astute marketing was the key to the project’s success. In order to change Los Angelenos’ perception of mixed-use housing, a strong marketing campaign will be needed that promotes a dense living in a way that is desirable. Though Los Angeles it as widespread and as spacious as Houston, it aspires to be just as metropolitan as New York. People move to Los Angeles for opportunities and lifestyle; everyone on the panel agreed that the ‘car dependent and single-family house’ lifestyle would have to change in order to accommodate the increase in population. This means that a solution needs to be in place for traffic and that “density” needs to be marketed as a desirable condition. Architect Lawrence Scarpa cited Atlanta as a city that was not willing to give up space and pushed residents to the outer boroughs and towns, which subsequently has created some of the worst traffic in America. Developer Given suggested relooking at the strip mall, which is famously designed to accommodate cars, not pedestrians. If one could build even two stories of apartments above every strip mall, there would be no housing problem at all, he proposed. Reducing the required number of spaces required per residence from two to one was suggested, but qualified by the idea that if more people lived closer to, or even above, commercial spaces there would be less need for cars. Unfortunately, current local laws are biased towards the automobile and its need for ample parking. By comparison, most New Yorkers don’t own cars because they are cost prohibitive, as New York city has not privileged car owners by mandating parking spaces for residents. If Los Angeles wants to be as metropolitan as New York, it needs to re-examine its relationship to the car and work towards providing a usable public transportation system.

The restrictive city codes have taken the pleasure out of designing housing, according to architect panelist Julie Eizenberg. The current micro-management state might prevent the construction of complete schlock but it also impedes any progressive retooling of existing paradigms, or experiments that can elastically respond to changing demographic trends. A certain amount of risk must be assumed by the city in order for change to occur; however, in these dubious financial times, investors and politicians are less willing to take risks. Instead of putting money behind experimental development projects–housing or retail–they would rather emulate previous financial successes, such as Third Street Promenade and fund a formulaic design, which breeds homogeneity.

Lee Stark, a developer whose interest is housing whether low income, single-family, or luxury, is currently developing what the panel described as a remedy to the housing crisis. In controversial playa vista, Stark has plans that are underway for mixed-use properties with businesses on the ground floor and up to four stories for housing above. (He invited everyone to view the model on display at the Playa Vista Welcome Center.) Los Angeles has not yet adopted this model for mixed-use live/work and it is refreshing to see that someone might be able to employ such a model for new property. While it seems to present a viable model for many of Los Angeles’s housing problems, it is unique as it is being built on the rare commodity of undeveloped land. The real challenge is changing existing housing and lifestyles. Richman is a proponent of preservation and upgrading of existing buildings, as opposed to demolition and reconstruction. Such a tactic preserves viable housing and promotes maintenance, but it probably won’t solve the impendent density and traffic problem.

Kaliski was optimistic that affordable housing could get built as long as designers were willing to compromise. He has found that in order to promote density in housing, one needs to present a more traditional design–not compromise good design but perhaps compromising style. The panel concluded with Kaliski asking each of the panelists what they would change if they could, and practical responses were instantly proffered. Larry Scarpa would do away with the two-car garage (which everyone agreed ended up as private storage sheds for ’stuff’) and narrow some residential street widths. Jay Stark would promote home ownership by asking the city to give more incentives, tax or otherwise, to homeowners. Sally Richman supported more leniency with the ban on accessory units, which would increase density and provide an owner with means to rent out space, house a relative, friend or student, or respond to a new need. John Given would edit, clarify and simplify existing building policies, eliminating some redundant or arbitrary rules, acknowledging initially that some mistakes might be made, but the infusion of grass roots innovation and initiative would be well worth the effort. Like Richman, he also would like to see a wider range of financial incentives extended to housing conservation, so that it is more financially viable to preserve a space than to demolish and replace it. Julie Eizenberg, whose firm has worked on several award-winning housing projects, would like to continue doing so only if there were a revision and simplification of the city codes. John Kaliski would like to see longer mortgage terms (100 year terms) to promote better design through using materials that last longer (30 years is not that long for a house or housing structure and encourages cheap building technologies, solutions and materials.)

Even though all the panelists appeared to blame politicians and government policies as the bad guys, I would argue that the real focus of their frustration is the general public. As John Given said, Los Angeleno are pretty design savvy and very active in enforcing property-owner’s rights. If Los Angeles were to incorporate the changes in density, the panel suggests, it would alter the current LA lifestyle that encourages spaciousness.

Philosopher Pierre Bourdieu coined the term habitus in his book Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste. He claims that identity and self-expression are formed by an internalized sense of self-destiny based upon one’s upbringing. One feels destined to reach or surpass a certain educational and financial level in which one was raised. He writes, “. . .the best [one] can expect from the future is the return of the old order, from which [one] expects the restoration of [one's] social standing.” (Distinction, p 111). Without educating people about the housing crisis and the restrictive codes or promoting a different way of living in Los Angeles, no change can occur. “Home” is a very personal and subjective issue. Almost everyone has a strong sense of home and what a home should or shouldn’t be based upon their own upbringing. One’s residence becomes an extension of his identity. If someone was raised in a single-family home with plenty of yard, then according to Bourdieu’s theory, one will strive to attain that same style living or better. Any marketing campaign would need to promote the condominium lifestyle as equivalent socially to single-family home lifestyle.

People come here for the weather, the business and cultural opportunities, the generous sense of space and spaciousness. Los Angeles is promoted as such. Most of the local residents are no more than two generations invested in the city and are still living the Los Angeles dream of the single-family, free-standing house. Developer Given thinks the only way to change Los Angeles is by convincing people that urban apartment living is on par with a single-family home. Architect Eizenberg agreed, citing recent issues of Dwell Magazine that made apartment living desirable by profiling the residents and their sophisticated, alluring, metropolitan lifestyle.

Bourdieu also wrote about the effect of all the choices one makes in living in a capitalist society. He noted that a consumer believes he has participated in the creation of a product or cultural object simply by choosing it. The consumer decodes the product based upon his own background and makes a selection that is appropriate to his social standing. Therefore, in order to change Los Angeles current attitude towards dense living, it will need to employ strategic marketing. In my opinion the city needs to hire these panelists or those like them to create a campaign that promotes an alternative to the conventional Los Angeles dream that does not totally reject its regional identity; an identity that appreciates a good set of wheels, spare Modernist design, and outdoor barbecues.



Back to Forum Issue 3: Rethinking Housing

On June 17, 2003 the collaborative LAH*UB [Los Angeles H* Urban Bureau] sponsored a panel discussion at Gallery 727 on the subject of public space in downtown Los Angeles, in conjuction with their Civic Park Proposals competition/exhibit (see Issue 5). The following conversation is an edited extract from the panel transcripts. For the full transcript, including audience comments, contact www.lahub.net.

Doug Suisman : We talk interchangeably, and I think mistakenly, about open space, public space, civic space. They’re not the same thing. They’re also other problems of terminology in our discussion that we should address, which is that the notion of civic is also sometimes equated with government. Government is often interchangeably spoken of as bureaucracy. Civic is not government, government is not bureaucracy. Civic fundamentally has to do with the city, and in particular with the citizens of a city. It may have to do with self-governance and democratic institutions, but not necessarily. Now, the reason I raise this is because my experience was as a member of the team that developed the master plan for the Civic Center, known as the ten-minute diamond.

There have been many, many plans for the civic center. One of the confusions of our downtown is that we don’t know whether we’re a north/south downtown or an east/west downtown. And partly that’s because of Bunker Hill – we’re always trying to get around it. Some of the plans have said that the main civic spine would run north/south along Main and Spring. That was early. Sometime around the forties, fifties, or sixties, there was an idea that actually the main civic axis should swing east/west up Bunker Hill. What is there now is a kind of failed mini Washington Mall – the National Mall. It’s very clear that at some point that was the conception – the Department of Water and Power is where the Capitol is, City Hall is the Washington Monument, and, I guess, City Hall East is the Lincoln Memorial? I don’t know what’s at the other end but there was clearly an idea of an axis and of a big open space. Right now it’s incomplete. There is a public space between the two county buildings that is owned by the county. It is public but it’s totally walled off, unlike the Mall in Washington, which is visible and accessible from all sides. Unless you’ve been a juror recently for a county trial, you probably don’t even know that that space is there. One block down, between the Archives Building and the County Law Library, there’s another space which is optimistically called El Paseo de los Pobladores de Los Angeles [The Route of the Settlers of the City of Los Angeles], and it is as mean a public space as you are likely to find in any American city. Hot, concrete, unused, unloved, but on axis. And finally, at base, right in front of City Hall is, well, perhaps it’s symbolically appropriate that there’s actually a private parking lot. That is what is currently arrayed along that axis. That’s what’s there now – a part of downtown that is uniquely dedicated to the functions of government, and particularly the bureaucratic functions of government – a government ghetto.

My particular task was to develop a concept for framing the Civic Center conceptually, that would tie together open space, public space, linkages for pedestrians. We came up with the name of the ten-minute diamond. The ten-minute diamond says: at least let’s finally complete the vision and create a continuous public green space up the hill. Some see it as a great lawn; some see it as a botanical garden. The idea was to link time and space: the diamond was the shape of the space that is defined by walking ten minutes in any direction from the rotunda of City Hall. It’s an enormously elaborate space – truly a civic space. It’s a symbolic space, symbolic of government and symbolic of representative democracy. And it sits directly underneath the tower of City Hall, which is our Washington Monument, our obelisk, our marker in space of some central point of meeting.

We debated long and hard, well, is the civic center a government center? It’s been in the historical plans and it was referred to as the administrative Center. Is it administration, is it government, is it civic, is it cultural? And while it is monumental in scale, and enjoys some attractive open space and green space, in my view it is deadening to civic life. Not just public life generally – animation in the streets, cafes, stores, hotels, all the excitement of urban life – but is also deadening to civic life, to the responsibilities of citizenship.

Why is that? Well, there’s almost no place for the citizens to gather and express the views and responsibilities of citizenship. And what we have in a representative democracy, instead of spaces for citizens to gather, are rooms in which laws are made. That is the City Council Chamber. The one truly significant space, in all of the Civic Center, is the City Council Chamber. Many of you probably have never even been in it, you probably don’t know where it is within the city hall structure, yet that is the space where your democratic representatives make the laws which affect civic life. So, the idea of a civic square is enshrined in the ten-minute diamond plan. We can talk long and hard about where it should be and what it should be, but it was always seen as part of a pair.

The idea is that civic gardens would go up the hill to the music center, along the axis from City Hall, past the county buildings, and terminating with the Department of Water and Power. That is a symbolic space of enormous power: city government at one end, water and power at the other. There are very few European cities or Latin American cities that have such an absolutely clear statement of where power is concentrated as in the metropolis of Los Angeles. Electricity, water, and government. Oh, by the way, on the corner is the Los Angeles Times. So, the idea was that that much space was appropriate for civic gardens because of the topography. We talk about locating a civic square on the west face of City Hall, but in the history of the building itself… from the opening day of City Hall, the south face, the narrow south face – if you look at City Hall from the west, it’s wide and massive, but the view from the south is tapered (much closer in form to an obelisk) – that’s where the opening ceremonies of City Hall are. That is where mayors are inaugurated, on the steps. That is where janitors, who feel they are unfairly paid, gather to protest, and where other groups protest.

So, there is already a civic space and it’s called City Hall Park, unofficially. I assume you all know about City Hall Park. It’s that little space directly south of City Hall. And it is supposed to function in ways that I think the civic square is intended to function. Let me close and let others talk and we can come back to this in our discussion. But for the idea of the civic square, that space was insufficient. One, it’s mostly grass; two, it’s blocked by trees; three, there’s a statue right on the axis – and it’s completely unused as civic space except on rare occasions. The idea was that by taking the block south of City Hall where the Caltrans building is now, and removing it, we could open up the space that would truly serve as the central, symbolic, and civic space of Los Angeles for all Angelinos. This isn’t just any civic space, the idea is that this would be the civic space… where New Year’s Eve is celebrated, where Presidents come to visit and address the public.

Julie Eizenberg : I’m not sure if that’s being really characteristic of LA… the idea of authority and belonging to that big a group… isn’t a compelling way for how I see myself in the city. So, I never saw the civic layer until you mentioned it, Doug. I’m completely confused by what the purpose of this “park” as a zone is, and what you were talking about as public space. Because I feel that a lot more of this place belongs to me, no matter what the actual ownership is.

I don’t know if anybody looks at those 1789 Nolli maps when they study architecture anymore – what they did was they colored all the space that was considered public space black, and everything that was considered private space was white. And black space included the streets and it extended into the churches. Now, I would extend that into the stores, into the libraries, I would extend it into a number of things like that – but for me that’s what public space is. So, that’s my response to “what do you mean by public space?” I think it’s everywhere. It’s not to do with who owns it, it’s to do with if you’re allowed to use it, and there’s a sort of implied contract that you can go in there and use it… that’s public space.

John Given : I’m going to focus my initial remarks to my own journey in public space in Los Angeles. As a native Angelino, my first introduction to Los Angeles, truly, was a walk down Broadway and Spring Street in 1980. I just was blown away, because there was this amazing city and an amazing public space, which was Broadway. That a native could grow up here and completely miss it – was a tremendously new perspective on Los Angeles that has fueled me ever since.

One of my next ventures was in ‘80s, trying to figure out the framework for a residential community originally conceived in 1972 by The Silver Book [a plan for downtown sponsored by business leaders and the precursor to the central business district redevelopment plan]. The Silver Book proposed South Park as a community formed around a nine square block park with a lake in the middle of it. It’s that same area that the football stadium was being talked about, this last year. That was an impetus to the central business district re-development project, and an impetus to the concept of creating a community in downtown. It dwindled to what I think was a very real and practical concept of Hope Street as a great civic space. It’s this wonderful street that ties all the way up to one of the most beautiful buildings in Los Angeles, which is the library.

Later on, Roger Sherman and I met, trying to create a grand civic space for the West Hollywood Civic Center in West Hollywood Park. It was fostered by the vision that a city needed to have a great space, a very great space. So, what do you do when you build a park in a city that’s starving for open space, and everybody wants to use it, and everybody wants to use it for purposes that probably are going to drive another group of people crazy? And how do you deal with a small amount of space, given those constraints? And yet the need to use it and have it be a success? What we learned is that perhaps that no matter how grand the vision was, that really wasn’t where the people of West Hollywood were at and the project didn’t go forward for a number of reasons. But I think it does raise that question of open space being Mom and apple pie for everybody. One can promote endless projects and endless visions around the need to have more. You can always have more of it, there’s never enough. We can do studies about whether there’s a need for it or not, and there’s never enough. We never really quite know what it is we need the open space for, and it’s often civic space that’s attached to that. We all conjure different ideas about what civic space is.

Back to Forum Issue 6: A Note on Downtown