Thanks for the photos! This is just my personal opinion, but I think the Santa Monica-Westwood-Beverly Hills-West Hollywood-Hollywood corridor is the best area of metro LA.
(now it just needs a subway running down Santa Monica Blvd)
Thanks for the photos! This is just my personal opinion, but I think the Santa Monica-Westwood-Beverly Hills-West Hollywood-Hollywood corridor is the best area of metro LA.
(now it just needs a subway running down Santa Monica Blvd)
They're talking about it... we'll see. I would add Los Feliz, Sunset Junction, Silverlake and Echo Park to that list and it won't be long to include Korea Town, MacArthur Park and Downtown to that list too. My preference is West Hollywood to Downtown north of Wilshire.
...in the 60's and 70's everyone headed for LA or tried anyway. Surfing was such a perfect pastime and the music echoed the activity. I will always think good thoughts about the entire area...and never forget the billboard "The Doors, Live at The Whiskey".
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"You need both a public and a private position." --Hillary Clinton, speaking behind closed doors to the National Multi-Family Housing Council, 2013
Thanks for sharing. That was the one part of LA I did not get to see when I was last there. Definitely want to go. And yes, I love that dense looking picture in Westwood Village. Despite its reputation for sprawl, I am constantly amazed at how dense many areas of LA are.
Despite its reputation for sprawl, I am constantly amazed at how dense many areas of LA are.
That's what a lot of us LA forumers are always trying to get across to everybody!
Great photos, you were in my neck-o-the-woods. Everyone seems to be interested by Westwood... I believe you may have inspired me to do my own photo post on it.
The UCLA campus is quite impressive even if the architecture is a pastiche of several traditions. I sometimes marvel at the difference is between the America of the 1920s (in LA, USC's campus also stems from that era) and the contemporary period. Even in depression-era LA, there were some jaw-dropping buildings going up. If a civilization is judged by its art and buildings, we're in a period where even the grandiose looks cheap. I know there are exceptions but it almost seems like we don't care anymore.
The UCLA campus is quite impressive even if the architecture is a pastiche of several traditions. I sometimes marvel at the difference is between the America of the 1920s (in LA, USC's campus also stems from that era) and the contemporary period. Even in depression-era LA, there were some jaw-dropping buildings going up. If a civilization is judged by its art and buildings, we're in a period where even the grandiose looks cheap. I know there are exceptions but it almost seems like we don't care anymore.
I wonder what happened that transformed Los Angeles from being a city that constructed archtectural gems to a city that has an almost absolute disregard for public architecture and design. Out of all the alpha cities in the world, Los Angeles, by far, has the most uninspiring public architecture since the 50s.
I wonder what happened that transformed Los Angeles from being a city that constructed archtectural gems to a city that has an almost absolute disregard for public architecture and design. Out of all the alpha cities in the world, Los Angeles, by far, has the most uninspiring public architecture since the 50s.
Capitalism run amuck... the cheaper to build the better seems to be the motto in this city... just a guess anyway.
The UCLA campus is quite impressive even if the architecture is a pastiche of several traditions. I sometimes marvel at the difference is between the America of the 1920s (in LA, USC's campus also stems from that era) and the contemporary period. Even in depression-era LA, there were some jaw-dropping buildings going up. If a civilization is judged by its art and buildings, we're in a period where even the grandiose looks cheap. I know there are exceptions but it almost seems like we don't care anymore.
I don't think the architecture at UCLA is more a pastiche than that at most American universities. There was a traditional, founding theme--Lombardian/northern Italian in particular--and then came the modernist era, the postmodernist jumble, and now whatever the hell we call the current architectural era.
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"You need both a public and a private position." --Hillary Clinton, speaking behind closed doors to the National Multi-Family Housing Council, 2013
^^^That seems to be true of the largest universities but the two medium-sized ones I attended have been pretty consistent at trying to adhere to the original style (one Georgian, one Gothic).
Anyway, nice pictures of this part of LA. Santa Monica looks as much like Berkeley at the beach as I would have guessed. The Westwood photo does show a nice density, but what contrasts with other dense cities in my mind is the width of the streets--I count 9 lanes of traffic with no median. That's an almost uncrossable barrier for many pedestrians (e.g the aged or disabled or just slow). Clearly this part of LA, like the other parts with which I'm more personally familiar, is still a car-centric place.