Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies
The book of Banham has provided a different perspective to implement an analytic city planning. Banham centered his study on Los Angeles by providing a complete landscape to represent an architectural object on its own. He developed a total revolutionary perspective on urban architecture which has given a significant influence on the improvement of discipline in architecture. In Banham’s Four ecologies, he explored the traditional modes of residential and commercial buildings and scrutinized how the beaches, flat lands, freeways, and the foothills comprising the city of L.A. Banham’s philosophies on the concept of ecology has made a major contribution in understanding architectural designs for the last three decades. Banham has provided four ecologies to better understand the structure of L.A. despite all the chaos in city’s structure. First ecology is the beach which can be considered as one of the advantages of L.A. since the sun, sand and the opportunity to surf emerged as a way of life in L.A. (Banham 4). The foothill ecology located in Beverly Hills has provided higher income for the city that served as residential roads that led to private houses tucked beneath the wilderness, in contrast to the usual anarchy found in other cities (Banham 6). The third ecology represented the plains or flatlands in L.A. showcasing the city’s infinite roads and non-stop streets (Banham 7). The fourth ecology is the freeway system in the city of L.A., which gives the people a peace of mind because of its consistency and coherence that provided a way of life for the people. This can be illustrated by the Santa Monica-San Diego freeway which has been acknowledged as a brilliant work of art (Banham 8).
References
Banham, Reyner. Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies. California: University of
California Press, 2009. Print.
