Archinect - Features

Los Angeles Reckons with a Dark History by Asking the Public How to Memorialize the 1871 Chinese Massacre

2022-09-30T18:40:00-04:00

Architects and artists are frequently asked to contribute their ideas for proposed memorials and other works of public art. The City of Los Angeles recently issued a Request for Ideas (RFI) that many designers may find compelling at a time when America's history of race relations and violence are top of mind for many Americans.

Michael Pinto, Principal at NAC Architecture in Los Angeles, discussed the new L.A. RFI with two figures deeply involved in laying the groundwork for a new memorial to the 1871 Massacre of 18 Chinese in Los Angeles that was the largest mass killing in the city's history. Pinto, an advisor to the memorial process, spoke with Christopher Hawthorne, Chief Design Officer for the City of Los Angeles (and former L.A. Times architecture critic), and Michael Woo, an urban planner who is a former city council member and dean emeritus of Cal Poly Pomona's College of Environmental Design.

Cross-Talk #5: 'The Practice of Criticism' by Eric Baldwin

2018-04-17T09:00:00-04:00

The role of Archinect’s series Cross-Talk is to bring forward the positive aspects of the polemic and allow for the resulting conflict to bring to life an otherwise still and comfortable climate of creativity—if there can be one. Cross-Talk attempts—if to only say that it did—to allow text the freedom that the image has accepted and embraced. Cross-Talk attempts to force the no, to contradict itself, to anger, to please and then anger again, if only to force a stance, to pull out the position of the self, of the discipline and of the hour as a means to begin and maintain conversations moving forward.

Liz Diller gets high: discussing The High Line's development with Christopher Hawthorne

2016-02-19T18:07:00-05:00

Few would have predicted that a “used-condom-strewn” elevated railway line running through what used to be seedy Chelsea would become one of New York City’s biggest cultural attractions. And yet, according to Elizabeth Diller in conversation with Los Angeles Times architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne at LAX Art on February 16, last year over seven million people walked Diller, Scofidio + Renfro’s High Line. That’s about four million more than attended MoMA or even all of the Yankees games, making The High Line not just a renovated railway, but a literal cultural bridge between the pedestrian and the aesthetic realms.