#UnbuiltLA: Elysian Park Heights
Elysian Park Heights, as envisaged by architects Robert Alexander and Richard Neutra (Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research) Los Angeles faced a housing shortage after the Second World War. City planners identified Chavez Ravine, just north of Downtown, for development. The plan was to build 3,600 new homes for low-income families. Existing residents, mainly Mexican…
#UnbuiltLA: Tower of Civilization
1940s Tower of Civilization for a World’s Fair that was never held in Los Angeles Los Angeles was meant to host a World’s Fair in the 1940s, but World War II got in the way. The centerpiece of the fair could have been a “Tower of Civilization,” concocted by real-estate developer William Evans and civil engineer Donald Warren. Almost 400 meters high and 45 meters in diameter, it would have been…
#UnbuiltLA: Lloyd Wright’s Civic Center
Sketch of a proposed Los Angeles Civic Center by Lloyd Wright Frank Lloyd Wright’s son, commonly known as Lloyd Wright, had his own vision of Los Angeles. He proposed a massive, multi-tiered Civic Center to house all the city’s public services, including City Hall, county offices, courthouses and police headquarters. An “acropolis for the city,” it would have radically transformed Downtown Los…
Hillside living was the thing in 1920s Los Angeles. Wealthy Angelenos sought luxurious homes close to the hills, the most famous district being Beverly Hills of Hollywood fame.
A large section of what is now Beverly Hills was undeveloped in the early 20s and owned by an oil tycoon, Edward L. Doheny.
Frank Lloyd Wright, the grandfather of organic architecture, pitched a scheme for the estate that would transform it into a dieselpunk-era Shangri-La, with houses, roads and nature in harmony.
Wright’s proposal never went anywhere and he only drew a few sketches, circa 1923.
But what emerges from the drawings is nothing less than an idealized prototype for what American suburbs might have become, but did not, according to the Library of Congress.
#UnbuiltLA: Frank Lloyd Wright’s Shangri-La Hillside living was the thing in 1920s Los Angeles. Wealthy Angelenos sought luxurious homes close to the hills, the most famous district being Beverly Hills of Hollywood fame.As surviving perspectives demonstrate, buildings, roadways and plantings are conceived as an integrated totality; it is the vision of the suburb as one structure.
Urbanists will be familiar with the history of the Lower Manhattan Expressway. This proposal for an elevated, ten-lane highway through the middle of Lower Manhattan was hugely controversial at the time and shelved in 1968, after years of protest.
Not everyone could let the project go, though. In 1967, the Ford Foundation employed the Brutalist architect Paul Rudolph to reexamine its potential.
Rudolph went way beyond the original plan. He sank the expressway into the ground and added enormous tower complexes on top with connecting monorails between them. Parts of the old city would have disappeared under vast pyramid-shaped, glass-and-concrete monstrosities.
If you want to learn more about the history of the Lower Manhattan Expressway, there is a great article in The New Yorker, here, and a long read at Curbed, here.
#UnbuiltNewYork: Paul Rudolph’s Lower Manhattan Expressway Urbanists will be familiar with the history of the Lower Manhattan Expressway. This proposal for an elevated, ten-lane highway through the middle of Lower Manhattan was hugely controversial at the time and shelved in 1968, after years of protest.#UnbuiltNewYork: Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe’s Battery Park Apartments
Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe’s proposed Battery Park Apartments You don’t have to be a fan of Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe’s work to see that his proposal might have been an improvement over the bland, grey and pastel-colored towers that were built on the southeastern tip of Manhattan instead.
#UnbuiltNewYork: Welfare Island
Victor Gruen’s plan for Roosevelt Island, New York (Metropolis Books) In the 1950s, what is now Roosevelt Island (named in 1971 after the wartime president) was arguably underused. Nicknamed “Welfare Island” because of the many alms houses, hospitals and even a lunatic asylum that were situated there, it was not considered a pleasant place to live. Victor Gruen, an Austrian-born architect known…
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