In the Gutter | Dingbat 2.0: The Iconic Los Angeles Apartment as Projection of a Metropolis
Wednesday, Apr 27, 20166 PM - 9 PMPDT
| 648 N Spring St
Los Angeles, CA, USRelated
The Los Angeles Forum for Architecture and Urban Design is pleased to announce the publication of Dingbat 2.0: The Iconic Los Angeles Apartment as Projection of a Metropolis, a collaborative project of the LA Forum with Doppelhouse Press. Join us for a presentation and conversation on the future of the dingbat in Los Angeles followed by a book launch celebration with Architects, Planners, LA Forum members, the publisher, book contributors and participants in the Forum’s Dingbat 2.0 design Competition.
Dingbat 2.0: The Iconic Los Angeles Apartment as Projection of a Metropolis
Edited by Thurman Grant and Joshua G. Stein, Doppelhouse Press
Dingbat 2.0 is the first critical study of the most ubiquitous and mundane building type in Los Angeles: the dingbat apartment. Often dismissed as ugly and unremarkable, dingbat apartments have qualities that arguably make them innovative, iconoclastic, and distinctly “L.A.” For more than half a century the idiosyncratic dingbat has been largely anonymous, occasionally fetishized and often misunderstood.
Praised and vilified in equal measure, dingbat apartments were a critical enabler of Los Angeles’ rapid postwar urban expansion. While these apartments are known for their variety of mid-century decorated facades, less explored is the way they have contributed to a consistency of urban density achieved by few other twentieth century cities.
The book’s essay contributors include many familiar names from progressive architecture, urban planning history, and critical studies: Barbara Bestor, Aaron Betsky, James Black, John Chase, Dana Cuff, Thurman Grant, John Kaliski, John Southern, Joshua G. Stein, Steven A. Treffers, and Wim de Wit. Photographic series in the book are by Judy Fiskin, Paul Redmond, and Lesley Marlene Siegel. A new typology of dingbats by Thurman Grant and James Black is an exhaustive study of the housing type and will be invaluable to educators, students of architecture, and planners alike.
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