Gruen Associates

Re “Architecture as Spectacle,” by Anthony Vidler, Opinion, May 3:

Social interaction, political activity and cultural festivity are supremely encompassed in the planning and architecture of the Pacific Design Center, part of the Los Angeles cityscape conceived by the original Victor Gruen partnership more than 30 years ago!

The lack of recognition afforded Gruen Associates in the Vidler article and elsewhere demonstrates the brilliant rhetorical pyrotechnics of an architectural historian, while obstructing a bona fide recounting of the history of urban planning and design in Southern California.

SUSANNA BAIRD

Los Angeles