The inaugural issue of Forum Annual is now available. It marks the Los Angeles Forum for Architecture and Urban Design’s first print periodical after a five-year absence. Forum Annual is our reaction to a void we perceive in the city. For if it is hard to imagine any contemporary city as closely observed as Los Angeles, it is remarkable that we lack a regular venue for critical writing on architecture and urbanism. Forum Annual gathers the most pertinent material from recent Forum Issues and online features to document our activities of the year and provide an arena for debating the most pressing issues concerning architecture, urban design and art in Los Angeles and beyond.

Annual 2004 – dedicated to Rose Mendez – is edited by Kazys Varnelis and includes essays on The Grove, Downtown, Grand Avenue, Dead Malls, Small Skyscraper, the Standard, and Dirty Realism among other topics by Helene Furjan, Robert S. Harris, Alan Loomis, Tom Marble, Steve Rowell, Paulette M. Singely, Kazys Varnelis and Peter Zellner.

Contents :

Introduction by Forum President Kazys Varnelis

Memorial for Rose Mendez

The Once and Future Shopping Mall by Alan Loomis

Twilight Capitol by Steve Rowell

Downtown… Again by Peter Zellner

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

Small Skyscraper by Chris Burden and Taalman Koch Architecture

Cathedrals of the Culture Industry by Kazys Varnelis

Lounge Core by Helene Furjan

Los Angeles’s Dirty Realism by Paulette M. Singley

Art and Architecture Portfolio Series curated by Tom Marble

Forum Annual Report 2002-2004 / Board and Sponsors

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