City of the Silent: The Charlestonians of Magnolia Cemetery Book

Nicely thought-out, a serious analysis of the non-urban Urban Center without-a-center that is LA. Or was L.A. Necessarily compartmentalized, Banham's study takes an unrelated set of parameters and relates them from an overhead perspective on history, development, design, influences. What are now a deeply tangled set of cultural aspects were a little less so in 1971, when this was published. So something of a time-capsule, but one that looks imaginatively toward the future too.

It's not really fair to look at 2009 Los Angeles and pronounce judgements on Banham's vision; but it's fair to say that his optimistic and buoyant post-urban parsing of the course ahead hasn't evolved quite as he foresaw so long ago. Banham wanted to lay the foundation, it would seem, for the new direction in The American Lifestyle, it's minimum requirements, glories, idiosyncracies, conveniences and goals. But he pictures a world of wonder, a sunny, urban encyclopedia accessible by friendly freeway off-ramp, to each fortunate, smiling everyman of the future.

From the intriguing buildings of RM Schindler to the cartoon / drive-in schlock, Banham seems to have counted it all as fairly benevolent, a wealth of profuse intermingling, leading to an unpredictable if inevitable synthesis that would gel sometime in the future.

His vision of "Autopia", however, must leave the contemporary reader mystified :

"The banks and cuttings of the freeways are often the only topographical features of note in the townscape, and the planting on their slopes can make a contribution to the local environment that outweighs the disturbances caused by their construction..."

Surely, even thirty-eight years ago, the insight of this statement must have been fairly shallow :

"Furthermore, the actual experience of driving on the freeways prints itself deeply on the conscious mind and unthinking reflexes. As you acquire the special skills involved, the Los Angeles freeways become a special way of being alive, which can be duplicated on other systems ... but not with this totality and extremity."

L.A. was always a vast, epicurean Doughnut and Hole experience, though, so Banham can't really be faulted for a smart if otherwise all-doughnut perspective. To his credit, he's a shrewd judge of individual projects and architecture, rendering certain aspects of the city-in-the-making with deft & critical detail. It's on the Urban Planning And Design side where he might've wanted to hedge his bets a little more broadly.

Absolutely pick this up if you live in Los Angeles. It's a hard city to read, maybe not a city at all, and any solid attempt at getting an overall picture is a worthwhile one. Just maybe, the urban-center without-a-center IS a doughnut, after all.

As those post-ironists in Randy Newman's band will tell anyone who asks ---- "L.A. ! We love it !!"