Getty exhibition strives to dispel the myth of Los Angeles as a chaotic, unplanned accident by showcasing the city’s innovations in architecture and design.
Griffith Park. Venice Beach. Canter’s Deli. Capitol Records. Hollywood Bowl. Olvera Street. Santa Monica Pier. Case Study House #22. Taco trucks. Getty Villa. Ray Kappe’s residence in Pacific Palisades.
“What’s your quintessential L.A.?” the Getty Center asks on social media, drawing responses such as these, along with more charged ones like the “t” word–traffic–along with a string of “s” words: shallow, superficial, soulless and sprawl.
Such is the special identity of a complex metropolis with boosters and detractors lining up in almost equal measure. No other modern city seems to be more loved or hated.
The Getty Research Institute and J. Paul Getty Museum are fully immersed in starting fresh conversations about L.A. vis-a-vis “Pacific Standard Time Presents: Modern Architecture in L.A.,” a citywide initiative with dozens of exhibitions and programs exploring all aspects of Los Angeles’s architectural and urban development. It continues the momentum of last year’s Pacific Standard Time program that chronicled L.A.’s artistic accomplishments in post-World War II America.
At the heart of the current PST drive is the Getty’s own “Overdrive: L.A. Constructs the Future 1940-1990” exhibition, an ambitious undertaking as multilayered and sprawling as its subject, tackling every facet of Los Angeles’s built environment from Disneyland to Disney Hall. Through photographs, architectural drawings, models, films, digital displays and contemporary art, the story compellingly unfolds of how the region was transformed into a laboratory for cutting-edge architecture.
“The ideas that were devised here before, during and after World War II not only transformed this region’s built landscape, they influenced the form of emerging cities around the world,” co-curator Christopher Alexander said. “L.A.’s rapid evolution into a vibrant metropolis wasn’t easy or accidental.”
The exhibition addresses five themes: car culture; urban networks, including freeways and utility systems; engines of innovation, including structures for oil, aviation and aerospace, higher education, international commerce and media and entertainment industries; community magnets, including projects for culture, sports, shopping and faith; and Southern California’s famous residential architecture.
“Overdrive” refers to the extraordinary pace of L.A.’s impressive growth during this five-decade period, while also alluding to how an engine churning at incredible speed may overheat.
Given the enormity of information set forth, “Overdrive” takes on another, maybe unintended meaning. It’s overwhelming. Yet each section appears crucial to every other, highlighting the creative collaborations among enlightened clients, visionary architects and skilled builders that produced an array of groundbreaking structures. The exhibition spotlights many “firsts” in L.A.’s storied history, including the first freeway system, jet-age airport and television studio.
There’s a high/low dynamic that swings from whimsical Googie coffee shops, archetypal suburban communities like Lakewood and popular shopping malls to refined steel-and-glass residences, slick office towers and eclectic cultural institutions.
“Eclecticism still reigns in Los Angeles,” Rani Singh, one of the exhibition’s co-curators, told the Palisadian-Post. “There’s a newness and vastness to the city that fosters innovation. We’re not entrenched in history like the East Coast or Europe.”
While the Getty exhibition leans heavily toward boosterism, the show doesn’t gloss over the shortcomings of L.A.’s boom years either. “Of course there are blemishes on the history of the city, events such as the Chavez Ravine and Bunker Hill redevelopments,” said Singh. “In some ways, these things are just as important as the successes in understanding how complex, multilayered and complicated the development of Los Angeles is and how diverse, eclectic, eccentric and varied it is as a city.”
A 1948 Chamber of Commerce poster promoting “Rail Rapid Transit Now!” contains the prophetic warning: “Autos and buses can’t move Los Angeles’ four million people now. Crawling traffic will come to a shuddering, chaotic halt when we have six million people, plus.”
The exhibition opens with “Car Culture,” a logical beginning given how automobiles influenced the sprawling nature of the city and set the course for its reputation as the preeminent capital of curbside culture with ubiquitous gas stations and strip malls, flashy movies theaters and inventive drive-in churches.
“People imagine Los Angeles had no master plan, that it’s just a city grown willy- nilly, which is not correct,” said Singh. “There really was a plan to create a polycentric city with several different centers all connected by freeways.”
Also in the first gallery is an ingenious animated map that digitally traces the development of the city, chronicling everything from the establishment of golf courses and landfills to parks and higher education centers.
“It’s another way into the story we’re trying to tell,” Singh said. “It presents a lot of information in a dynamic and interesting way. I hope all the displays inspire visitors to explore and learn more about the city.”
The exhibition continues through July 21. For a full listing of related events, visit getty.edu.
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