variety is a style of life I...

variety is a style of life I enjoy your magazine and look forward to interesting articles each week. However, the homes featured, though beautiful, are generally of a country or more traditional style. My home was built in the early ‘30s with lots of geometric shapes, balconies and loads of glass. Since I’m relatively new to California and I’m beginning to decorate my home, I hope to acquire many new ideas and tips from future issues. I also hope to see a wider variety of styles presented, perhaps including a mixture of Art Deco, high tech and minimalism.

Lucy Hug

Los Angeles

can this be the place? Inspired by today’s article by Bevis Hillier on Welton Becket’s Colorado Place (Taste/Trends, Feb. 17), I went there to see it. What a great disappointment! There are some interesting landscaped islands based at the second or third subterranean parking levels, but they cannot be seen from the street-level plazas; the parapets are too big to permit a glance over them, and they are covered with vines that effectively discourage leaning over the parapets to look down. The street-level plazas do not encourage visitors; there are no benches or other seating and no outdoor directories of what shops, stores and offices are in which buildings. What is most ironic is Hillier’s strong criticism of “open-plan” offices: One of the major corporate tenants of Colorado Place is indeed committed to three full floors of open plan.

David Ross

Agoura

Congratulations and many thanks to Bevis Hillier for the fascinating article, “How Ugly Is Ugly?” (Taste/Trends, Feb. 3), and to Hillier’s colleagues for having the good judgment to publish it. That kind of substantial, quality writing is exactly what is needed. Give us more.

William Santoro MD

Beverly Hills

Letters for this column should be addressed to Letters, Home magazine, Los Angeles Times, Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles 90053.