Authors on Architecture: Suisman on the Boulevards
January 31, 2015 |
Take a journey down LA’s boulevards with architect, urban planner, and author Doug Suisman, at SAH/SCC’s Authors on Architecture. Suisman will discuss the new edition of his book Los Angeles Boulevard: Eight X-Rays of the Body Public (ORO Editions, 2014). First published 25 years ago, the book was a response by “a 32-year-old architect (born and educated on the East Coast) trying to make sense of the urbanism of Los Angeles,” according to the author’s updated introduction.
The first part of the book originally appeared as a “pamphlet” published by the LA Forum for Architecture and Urban Design. Eight chapters—with names that take the term “body” public to heart (“Umbilical,” “Girdle,” “Suture,” “Pathogen”)—explore how the boulevards establish the framework for the public realm, and how architecture and urban design play critical roles in place-making along the boulevards and in the districts and neighborhoods that line them.
Following is “Boulevards in Practice,” new text that shows projects from Suisman’s firm, which is known for designing the LA Metro Rapid bus system and The Arc, an award-winning scheme for the West Bank and Gaza. These 10 projects range in location from Atlanta and LA to Copenhagen and Pittsburgh. The most recent project, The iQuilt Plan, brought Suisman back to his home town of Hartford, CT, where, as a 10-year-old kid riding the bus, he first started making sense of urbanism.
Los Angeles Times architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne, who also undertook a massive journalistic exploration of LA’s boulevards, contributed the foreword.
Following the presentation, the book will be for sale and signing by the author.
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Website:
www.sahscc.org/site/index.php?function=event_details&id=157 |
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Location Information |
Martin Luther King, Jr. Auditorium at the Santa Monica Central Library |
601 Santa Monica Blvd Santa Monica, CA |
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Contact Information |
Email:
info@sahscc.org |
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