Edifice Complex

Historian Robert Winter is probably best known for “An Architectural Guidebook to Los Angeles,” first co-written in 1965 with David Gebhard and just released in a fifth, updated edition. Often called “the bible” in architectural and preservation circles, the 512-page tome also is a selling point for real estate agents. Winter soloed on the new edition, dedicated to fellow historian Gebhard, who died in 1996. Winter, 79, served as a B-17 gunner in World War II and spent 31 years at Occidental College, where he was the Arthur G. Coons Professor of the History of Ideas. Retired from teaching, he still writes from his historic Craftsman bungalow overlooking the Arroyo Seco. Winter, who has three new books in the works, gave us the grand tour.

The Disney Hall question first. Disney is on the cover of the new edition. Your take in a nutshell?

It expresses freedom, it expresses joy over architecture. The interior is functional and the exterior--it’s just a wonderful thing to see. It does represent Los Angeles, and Frank Gehry is a genius. Face it.

What is your favorite structure in Los Angeles?

I guess the Watts Towers. It’s so marvelously imaginative. One time I took some Easterners there. [A] professor at Bowden College in Brunswick, Maine, where I taught for a couple years, said, “Isn’t it interesting that the best thing in Los Angeles is made out of junk?” He meant that as a slam, but it’s true. You have a sense of freedom here that you don’t have anywhere else in the United States.

Why is landscape architecture so prominent in the book?

It needs to be rescued because when the stuff grows, it’s gone. And it does have a lot to do with architecture. One time I was showing a picture of my house; I always do in lectures. A guy piped up in the question period. He said, “Your house isn’t much, it’s the tree that hangs over it.” I thought, “He needs a punch in the nose,” but he was making a good point. Craftsman architecture is supposed to fit into nature.

What’s your take on downtown’s Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, built amid controversy over abandoning St. Vibiana’s Cathedral?

My reaction to St. Vibiana’s, and I’ve been proved wrong, was that it couldn’t be saved. I thought a [new] church could serve that community. It had been added to so often, the original was not there except the tower. It was not one of those cases where you have to fight. If the Bradbury Building was endangered, we’d go crazy. I’d attach myself to an elevator or staircase. They hired one of the greatest architects in the world to do the new building. Jose Rafael Moneo is, I would say, among the top 10. I still believe where St. Vibiana’s is would be the best place. I doubt that Moneo would have done it quite the way he did if it weren’t right next to the freeway. The exterior is what we call formidable. In the guide I said it’s too much out of Spain. It’s not Los Angeles. I may regret saying that too. The interior is just wonderful if they didn’t have--and this is a cliche by now--those lights hanging down all over, which clutters the space.

What is the next big wave in L.A. architecture?

I’m sure it will be out of Frank Gehry and his people. Gehry and the Southern California Institute of Architecture seem to teach not to follow any particular design. It’s going to be freer, but I can’t predict what. I hope it isn’t like postmodernism, where you seem to be going back and imitating things, having a good laugh over architectural stuff. Architecture is more than a good laugh.

Speaking of laughs, the guide has a high joke quotient for a scholarly tome.

One time I was on a plane from London and sitting next to me was a woman who had worked on guides to Cambridge, Mass. She said, “I’ve been reading your guide, and you have such a sense of humor. I wish we could do that in Boston.” I said, “You can. Boston is funnier than Los Angeles.” She said, “Oh, no.” She was afraid of insulting the Brown and Harvard university types. David [Gebhard] and I were both pretty corny.

What do people not get about Los Angeles?

The variety of culture that we have here. There are too many naysayers like Joan Didion. How dare she desert the city and then write about it as if she knew it. It’s a snooty East Coast view. [The late] Jack Smith of The Times was a good friend of mine. What a smart guy. He had a wonderful attitude. He said that everything people say about Los Angeles is true--good and bad.