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John Southern unpacks the role of the skyscraper in the 21st century city at a new exhibition at Jai & Jai Gallery

2016-11-03T17:57:00-04:00

In the public imaginary, skyscrapers represent something like the pinnacle of architecture. Cities compete to have the tallest. The most iconic become keychains. Tourists wait for hours—and forfeit cash—to climb to their tops. But according to John Southern of Urban Operations, there is something deeply sinister about the skyscraper and its role in the contemporary city.

“If the early modernist skyscraper proposals of Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe were attempts at utopian urbanity and aesthetic prowess, then today’s towers reflect a darker, more nihilistic attitude toward spatial democracy,” writes Southern in a text accompanying his new exhibit Hot on the Heels of Love: Sensational Speculations, which opens this Saturday at Jai & Jai Gallery in Los Angeles.

“Packed with every experience and function, and produced in almost every shape and material finish imaginable, the contemporary skyscraper has become a disaffected breeding ground for neoliberal proposals, which reject the op...

Editor's Picks #229

2011-09-18T03:33:15-04:00

Richard Hamilton the British painter and printmaker and pioneering figure in Pop Art, died on Tuesday. Donna Sink, used it as a teachable moment noting "I *just* showed this collage to my students as an example of an experiential rendering of a non-specific space. RIP", referring to Richard Hamilton's 'Just What Is It That Makes Today's Homes So Different, So Appealing?', which is often referred to as the first example of Pop Art.

In Archinect's newest feature CONTOURS: Whither Goest Thou, Green Economy?, Guy Horton, claims "If the Obama administration is guilty of anything it is of being too optimistic and, yes, hopeful. The culture, with all of its working and non-working machinery, was not ready for big green to be pushed into the mainstream." Then MixmasterFestus commenting on the issue of energy subsidies wrote, "Double subsidy, all the way! It's a shame we have such a Frankenstein's monster of policies, instead of a targeted set of subsidies that achieve desired results. We'd avoid unnecessary reduplication - like subsidizing energy to make it cheap, and then subsidizing the production of new sources of energy because it's not price-competitive to develop them." Don't forget to check in next week for the second feature in this series in which Guy Horton will examine "How the Great Recession has helped redefine what a green economy means."

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Richard Hamilton the British painter and printmaker an...

Urban Operations: Wilshire Star Maps

2011-09-14T19:45:00-04:00

No other place in the world has such a fantastic collection of underecognized and underappreciated vertical architecture as in Los Angeles. In a city of mostly low-density avenues and sprawling suburban tracts, no other street in L.A. contains as many of these Modernicus Erectus as Wilshire Boulevard.

Since 2006, the annual pamphlet on skyscrapers is published as an ongoing research project by the office of Los Angeles architect John Southern, Urban Operations. This year's issue, "Wilshire Star Maps" is a limited edition of 100 prints and a digital edition you are about to enjoy. It also features an essay by Orhan Ayyüce, "Wilshire Boulevard: A Drive-By Family".

Digital copies of Urban Operations' previous pamphlets, Slopscraper, Sumoscraper and Skyscrapers of the Dead are also available at their website.

Wilshire Star Maps by Urban Operations

Urban Operations: Wilshire Star Maps

2011-09-08T17:04:25-04:00

Digital copies of Urban Operations' previous pamphlets, Slopscraper, Sumoscraper and Skyscrapers of the Dead is also available at their website.

Wilshire Star Maps by Urban Operations