REVIEW: Los Angeles: Portrait of a City

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Michael Webb writes on modern architecture, design, and travel. He is the author of 26 books, most recently Modernist Paradise: Niemeyer House, Boyd Collection (Rizzoli) and Venice CA: Art +Architecture in a Maverick Community (Abrams). He travels widely in search of new and classic modern architecture and contributes to magazines around the world. Michael lives in the Neutra apartment that Charles and Ray Eames once called home.

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Sep152010

Wednesday, September 15, 2010 at 9:25AM

Click image to visit Hennessey + Ingalls BookstoreLos Angeles: Portrait of a City
Edited by Jim Heimann with essays
by Kevin Starr
(Taschen, $70)

Starr’s informed summaries of L.A. history from 1865 to the present punctuate a photo album that is skewed towards the tawdry, glitzy and weird. One has to think that Benedikt Taschen made (or strongly influenced) the selection of
images, for it represents an outsider’s view of the city, alternately fascinated and repelled, with generous helpings of beefcake and cheesecake, a dash of porno and gangs and glamour around the pool. It plays to all the stereotypes and tails off disappointingly with almost nothing from the
past decade, but there are enough remarkable shots to make this album worth browsing.

Michael Webb | |

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