LOS ANGELES | METRO Project Rundown 2.0 (non-downtown)

[edluva]

no, i'm just impressed by the ease to which we, the collective los angeles, are impressed.

i don't go by the price or quality of a building's materials, so no jasper and marble by themselves don't impress. creativity and ingenuity are everything though. even with buildings i find morally repulsive, i can appreciate them for their pop (postmodern) aesthetic ingenuity as such buildings are likely to be adopted by pop for reasons alluded to by pesto. and such buildings can be made of cinder block and rebar for all i care.

but trash is trash. it is quickly forgotten. especially when it is gimmicky and cynical. much of los angeles is this way, to the extreme. we may find meaning in the collective trash pop of la, but individually, such buildings are the meaningless refuse of the cynical, opportunistic mercantilism that makes up la. such buildings will never be found, individually at least, to have lasting grandeur, power, or playfulness. they are metabolic byproducts of the more significant culture which pesto struggles to justify and attach to this building and others like it, rather than the thing itself.

but to avoid flooding your parade i can see how some feel this to be an improvement for the neighborhood.

[pesto]

Ed: I am definitely not a postmodernist and am not interested in critiquing this building, except maybe the silly looking tower. I also don’t want to bore everyone with a discussion of contemporary critical theory. But someone mentioned "postmodern" and I though some very brief background on their approach would be interesting.

Briefly, you seem to be arguing for a position within architectural theory, where “postmodern” has reamained as a bit of catch-all term for anything reacting against the supposed sterility of high modernism. This is much more parochial than its use in general epistemological and aesthetic theory, where it (very loosely and roughly) refers to the idea that reality is constructed by the individual in consultation with a small, local group and that attempts to generalize rules and apply them universally or outside their immediate areas of origin are always a mistake. The philosophical and cultural playing out of this idea has had enormous implications in every field of life.

For sure architecture should not ignore spacial or structural concerns. But (to a postmodernis) these are utilitarian issues, not aesthetic.

[sopas ej]

Originally Posted by edluva

we may find meaning in the collective trash pop of la, but individually, such buildings are the meaningless refuse of the cynical, opportunistic mercantilism that makes up la. such buildings will never be found, individually at least, to have lasting grandeur, power, or playfulness. they are metabolic byproducts of the more significant culture which pesto struggles to justify and attach to this building and others like it, rather than the thing itself.

It's a neighborhood police station.

[JDRCRASH]

Landscaping is good, too; and here I think they did a good job.

[edluva]

Originally Posted by pesto

The philosophical and cultural playing out of this idea has had enormous implications in every field of life.

For sure architecture should not ignore spacial or structural concerns. But (to a postmodernis) these are utilitarian issues, not aesthetic.

well i'm not a postmodernist (of either sort) nor am i the one who inserted this into discussion, but if you were referring to topologies then you are the biggest catch-all offender here. even if it is all differance and repetition, i'm not trying to get into a philosophical play on words to justify crap that a critical regionalist would consider to hold subjective meaning. that would be too blatantly hypocritical. a postmodernist, at least along deleuze's train of thought, doesn't choose between the ultilitarian and the aesthetic. he just sees subtext behind its distinction. (and if you're into philosophy, postmodernists don't exist - all postmodernists disavow the label)

sopas ej - it's a police station. yes. and it's crap that only angelenos on a skyscraper/architecture/urban enthusiast site could unite behind.

[WonderlandPark]

edluva cracks me up in somehow attaching deep philosophical meaning to architecture, like something out of an architecture school text. Too much Learning from Las Vegas or whatever theory based stuff is taught these days. Its a building, it is green, visually open to the community, there is no 'pop trash' attached or any deeper meaning. It serves its function.

Theory is fine, but it doesn't build buildings (Hejduk designed tons of interesting theoretical buildings, non ever got even close to built) As unfortunate as it sounds, we are lucky that someone is at least trying and is given a little extra budget to try.

Furthermore, with this nation's recent downright paranoia over terrorism, I am surprised that AC Martin was allowed to put that much glass on the front of a police station.

Its close to our shooting location, so I shot this last evening: works for me, edluva can stick to his ivory tower and dream on

[LAsam]

Originally Posted by WonderlandPark

Furthermore, with this nation's recent downright paranoia over terrorism, I am surprised that AC Martin was allowed to put that much glass on the front of a police station.

I wonder if all the glass on the the new LAPD HQ and Hollenbeck station are meant specifically to imply the police are open and accesible to the public... or if it's just there to be nice looking. The old police HQ and stations were built like bunkers...

[sopas ej]

Originally Posted by LAsam

I wonder if all the glass on the the new LAPD HQ and Hollenbeck station are meant specifically to imply the police are open and accesible to the public... or if it's just there to be nice looking. The old police HQ and stations were built like bunkers...

That was my interpretation; when I drove by it, i thought it was far more welcoming than the facility that it replaces. And to me it doesn't look like a typical police station; take away the police sign, and it could be a neighborhood public library branch.

[Steve2726]

Originally Posted by edluva

no, i'm just impressed by the ease to which we, the collective los angeles, are impressed.

Originally Posted by edluva

and it's crap that only angelenos on a skyscraper/architecture/urban enthusiast site could unite behind.

Why do you extrapolate what 1 or 2 people on a forum say as representing the collective thought of millions? I appreciate your criticism, but it would be far more compelling without ridiculous generalizations.

[pesto]

Ed: I am a lover not a fighter. I had some difficulty following your comments, so I won't comment on them except the last: many postmodernists openly and freely accept the term (Harvey and Lyotard among many others use it in titles of their books and in their lectures as well). Of course, maybe some don't.

I was not defending either postmodernism or American society or world architecture norms or anything else. I gave a basic explanation of postmodernism. However, some of your comments are not helpful or apposite in explaining their views.

Otherwise, the night pictures are actually quite striking. I would call it pretty good by night, if perhaps only OK by day. I had thought about the gunfire vs. openness issue as well, since even libraries now-a-days avoid glass facing toward unpatrolled areas. I am curious what thinking went into this.

Is this the same station that Sandow Birk was doing the murals for? I don't think so, I believe that it was in Boyle Heights. Anyone know?

[JDRCRASH]

Don't feed Edluva, Pesto. Place him on your "ignore" list.

[sopas ej]

Originally Posted by pesto

Is this the same station that Sandow Birk was doing the murals for? I don't think so, I believe that it was in Boyle Heights. Anyone know?

Yes, it's the same station; the Hollenbeck Station is in Boyle Heights.

So what happened with the mural? Was it too controversial, so it wasn't done? I remember reading about it last year in the LA Times.

[edluva]

Originally Posted by WonderlandPark

edluva cracks me up in somehow attaching deep philosophical meaning to architecture, like something out of an architecture school text. Too much Learning from Las Vegas or whatever theory based stuff is taught these days. Its a building, it is green, visually open to the community, there is no 'pop trash' attached or any deeper meaning. It serves its function.

Theory is fine, but it doesn't build buildings (Hejduk designed tons of interesting theoretical buildings, non ever got even close to built) As unfortunate as it sounds, we are lucky that someone is at least trying and is given a little extra budget to try.

Furthermore, with this nation's recent downright paranoia over terrorism, I am surprised that AC Martin was allowed to put that much glass on the front of a police station.

Its close to our shooting location, so I shot this last evening: works for me, edluva can stick to his ivory tower and dream on

i wasn't attaching philosophical meaning to anything. i was going of what i though was pesto's understanding of philosophy, which had nothing to do with this building (aka, a tangent). but apparently, he doesn't understand the philosophical version of postmodernism, just the parochial aesthetic one he criticized earlier, which is a dumb word.

[pesto]

I know that Birk himself was surprised to have won the competition due to his consistent outspoken criticism of LAPD. But I don't know what happened after that. Maybe his submissions were found to be unsuitable. Wasn't there an issue over a taco wagon in one of them? I remember that from a community comment session some time ago.

Ed: I was going to tell JDR that while your comments are not enlightening, they are at least entertaining because of your passion. To be honest, they seem to reflect a quick emotive response backed up by a couple of phrases pulled out of a quick internet search of the subject.

If you want to be taken more seriously you are going to have to do better than "Gehry sucks" or everything is "trash" or such. Read a good introduction to architecture history and criticism and pay attention to local neighborhoods and contexts. If you want to branch out there are a number of books on critical theory that will give you a sense of its breath.

[pesto]

and, almost as important, its breadth.

[edluva]

i don't believe you understood a word of my reply, pesto. apparently you didn't realize that it pretty much had nothing to do with architecture to begin with.

[LosAngelesBeauty]

I drove past this police station and was pleasantly surprised by it (within the context of the neighborhood that is pretty dilapidated/seedy). Then I realized that right across the street, IIRC, is the new Gold Line station. It's pretty obvious that the County decided to pay for a more expensive architecture firm, AC Martin in this case, to design a station that would be presentable, and make a fairly good impression, to passengers getting off the trains at this new station. IOW, its a phenomenon I hope continues as the community invests and upgrades the areas next to the stations to breathe new life and money and hopefully sets a precedent followed by even more investments.

[JDRCRASH]

It's good that you see the beauty in this structure, LAB.

[pesto]

Context! This is exactly what the local hood needs: some presence and some style that sets a tone for future development, but without an attempt to act as a showplace (which could discourage further development).

In and of itself not that interesting, but location appropriate.

[Avanine-Commuter]

I don't even know why Edluva lives in L.A. Just reading his posts make me feel sick. Just FYI, trying to sound intelligent with your philosophical babble won't change the fact that this building > a stone block.