Beauty From the Bureaucracy : City Holds Out for Form as Well as Function

We pound our chest and declare Los Angeles to be a world-class city. We proudly proclaim that Los Angeles has long passed San Francisco as the financial center of the West. Economists tell us that the metropolitan area now is the largest manufacturing center in the country, and the Pacific Basin looks toward Los Angeles as the entry point for business into the United States and the heart (and pocketbooks) of its citizens. The maturing of our city has brought wealth to the area and continues to contribute fuel to almost 200 years of uninterrupted growth. Yes, El Pueblo de la Reina de Los Angeles is becoming a world-class city. But will it also be a city with class, a livable city, a beautiful city?

Beauty comes in many packages. Major projects certainly make national headlines and catch the public eye. Bold programs excite people--some in support, some in opposition. A renaissance (or is it a first birth?) of the arts is booming in Los Angeles. Wealthy people donate millions of dollars to enclose beauty within museums named after them, a marvelous happening. However, the beautiful city in a democratic society is created not just by major projects and exclusive museums but by all the people who can contribute by carrying out each construction project with taste. As one drives through the city, the picture we see is a composite of individual efforts: Each housefront, each storefront, each building, each corner, each park and yard and garden--all contribute to an attractive mosaic or an ugly mess.

If we take care of all these little details in the city fabric, we create a beautiful city. If we let the parts deteriorate, we will contribute to an ugly city, regardless of a few beautiful buildings here and there.

City government has a big responsibility in this respect, not by being a heavy-handed bureaucrat prescribing what beauty should be, but by demanding good design in its own sphere of influence, by being a role model when commissioning government structures.

The city charter gives the Cultural Affairs Commission power to guard over the design quality of public buildings and buildings on public lands. For years, approval was automatic and taken for granted. Questioning was absent. This has changed under the leadership of Merry Norris and the forthright and thoughtful members of the commission.

The commission form of government can work. Citizens have a direct responsibility to share in the business of governing themselves and they can affect the quality of our lives--if they are so inclined and have the political guts to exercise the powers vested in them. The commission is challenging the design professionals. Poor designs for public buildings are not acceptable anymore. Designs resubmitted for projects first rejected by the commission now display good architecture. We cannot demand or accept less. The two enemies of quality, expedience and incompetence, have reared their ugly heads on a few occasions, but there is progress.

A few examples of good design deserve mentioning, for they are exemplars for all city departments.

The Department of Water and Power devotes millions of dollars to hundreds of projects all over the city, year in, year out. Most of the structures are utilitarian-type buildings and maintenance yards, often located in industrial areas. DWP can spearhead good industrial architecture; the buildings can become good neighbors, improving the quality of the environment. Los Angeles has been a leader in industrial design for decades; we can do as well in industrial-building design. And the DWP is indeed responding to the challenge.

The Department of Recreation and Parks is leading the way and has created, to the delight of the Cultural Affairs Commission, a wondrous building design in Shatto Park near downtown. Its architect, Steven Ehrlich, collaborated with world-renowned artist Ed Moses in creating a structure that is aesthetically exciting, fits the environment and is eminently practical and cost-effective. Good and thoughtful “bureaucrats” can be leaders.

Much negative ink had been put on paper when the commission asked for design modifications for rebuilding the Central Library. And yet the redesign is responsive to the criticism raised by the commission, and its historic context is much improved with the new design. The city is better off for it.

The Cultural Affairs Commission is on the right track. It challenges the architects to apply all of their skills to the fullest, and being challenged, the architects are responding. The design standard of city buildings has taken a quantum leap and reached a level that we have not enjoyed since the 1920s and ‘30s, when city pride demanded that city buildings be designed to the highest standards.

In times past, princes and Popes made the decisions on public taste and design. We want to create a beautiful city of our own age where the people are the ultimate sovereign. To paraphrase Alexis de Tocqueville: I have never been more struck by the good sense and the practical judgment of the Angelenos than in the manner in which they elude the numberless difficulties resulting from their city charter.

The affairs of culture are well-served by the commission as it sets an agenda for the future.