‘I Do Recognize Ugly’

I am writing about the Westwood Tower architecture feature (Times, May 16). Although I am neither a student of architecture nor an expert in the art and design field, I do recognize ugly when I see it.

Mr. Betsky describes the building as a “small green and yellow office building.” If a 22-story office building occupying one-fourth of a city block can be described as “small,” then I suppose its odd angles topped by a Crusader tower can be described as a “kind of contorted grace.”

With the incredible proliferation of multistory office buildings in West Los Angeles, one can only hope for “commercial anonymity that will finish turning Wilshire in Westwood into the corporate canyon that is its destiny” and hope that someday they will all be put to use to serve their intended function--that is, to house commercial ventures, instead of being half-empty monuments to “corporate grandeur.”

FRIMA TELERANT

Los Angeles