Dingbat 2.0: The Iconic Los Angeles Apartment as Projection of a Metropolis is the first full-length critical study of the dingbat apartment, the stucco-clad boxy “building code creature” that is the Southland's most ubiquitous and mundane vernacular typology. Co-edited by Radical Craft founder Joshua Stein and architect and educator Thurman Grant, the book is the latest initiative in the Dingbat 2.0 project, following the LA Forum's 2010 Dingbat 2.0 competition.

The nearly 300-page publication features essays by figures like Barbara Bestor, Aaron Betsky, Dana Cuff, John Kaliski, the editors themselves, and more. It also includes a Dingbat Field Guide, a fun-to-read section of critical responses and comments from both architects and non-architects, and winning entries of the Dingbat 2.0 competition.

Thanks to DoppelHouse Press, Archinect is giving away five copies to our readers!

Joshua Stein and Thurman Grant took a moment with Archinect to share more details about the book. Read on for more, and how to enter the giveaway.

Copyright James Black, 2016.

ARCHINECT: When did you first learn what a dingbat apartment was? What drew you into wanting to study the typology? 

JOSHUA STEIN (JS): Upon arriving to LA to study architecture at UCLA, Reyner Banham's Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies was required reading. Dingbats are mentioned briefly in the book, along with a few photos. I realized that the building into which I had recently moved, Dee's Apartments in West L.A. was indeed a dingbat. I would quickly learn more about the role of the dingbat in the development of the city.

THURMAN GRANT (TG): I had never lived in a dingbat. However, along with most Angelenos, I knew at least several people who had lived in a dingbat. Like most architects who stay in Los Angeles for any period of time, I developed a curiosity about them and (in my case) a mixture of mild disdain and begrudging respect.

JOSHUA STEIN and THURMAN GRANT: Our true examination of the typology began as LA Forum board members when the Forum decided to focus on the dingbat through the Dingbat 2.0 competition in 2010 after similarly bringing attention to the “Dead Malls” phenomenon several years earlier. A major goal of organizing the Dingbat 2.0 competition was to bring attention to this building type which, although ubiquitous in Los Angeles, had rarely been discussed beyond its kitschy aesthetics and had yet to be broadly recognized as a major agent in creating the particular character of Los Angeles’s dense urban sprawl. In addition, we hoped to reconsider both the architectural and urban scale issues of the type as they apply to Los Angeles housing today.

L.A. Periscopia, Aisling Marie O'Carroll, Christopher Green, Julian Ocampo Salazar.

Dingbat Terrarium, Benjamin Luddy and Makoto Mizutani (Scout Regalia)

Microparcelization, Carmen C. Cham, James Black, Tyler Goss (Footprint).

ARCHINECT: How did creating this book affect your personal understanding of the dingbat and of Los Angeles?

JS and TG: We felt it was important to move beyond nostalgia when considering the dingbat. If you’re an Angeleno who has lived in a one, you will always carry that connection—an intimate knowledge of all the quirks, the benefits, and the drawbacks of the dingbat. But of course this is ultimately seems to be an individual experience. In doing the research for the book—collecting the essays that considered the dingbat’s history and urban impact on Los Angeles, understanding how directly it is a “creature of the building code,” positioning it historically as an icon in the Los Angeles art world, and meeting Angelenos from diverse backgrounds with their own stories—it is now impossible for us to view these structures simply as quirky, kitschy, objects in the city. Of course, they still are that, but they are also much more.

Copyright James Black, 2016.

ARCHINECT: What were the biggest challenges in putting together this book?

JS and TG: As an example of modern vernacular architecture, the dingbat is inherently of the people so it was important to accept this nature of the publication—that it should speak to the general public. At the same time, outside of the essay “The Stucco Box” by John Chase and a brief mention in Banham’s book, although there had been a few photographic books about dingbat facades and signage (including Clive Piercy’s Pretty Vacant and Lesley Marlene Siegel’s Apartment Living Is Great), there had not been much academic discourse on the typology and it seemed clear that the type deserved a critical study.

In putting together the publication, we were constantly working to make the book accessible to the general public without oversimplifying the critical architectural discourse about the dingbat. Carrie Paterson, our publisher at DoppelHouse Press who comes from an arts background, helped immensely with formulating the book to negotiate these two goals, suggesting additions to the book such as Paul Redmond’s wonderful photographic series, which shows dingbat inhabitants in and around their apartments and includes their personal stories of living in dingbats and dingbat neighborhoods.

Copyright James Black, 2016.

ARCHINECT: As L.A. continues to evolve, why do you think people (Angelenos and non-Angelenos alike) should care particularly about the dingbat?

JS and TG: We see the discussion around the dingbat as raising some of the most important issues regarding the American metropolis today. The postwar development of the dingbat was one of the first large-scale waves of densification within the existing fabric of the city. Simultaneously, the dingbat encapsulated the struggle between development and regulation, as tens of thousands of small-scale buildings funded by "mom and pop" developers transformed vast areas of the Los Angeles basin to accommodate the postwar influx of people to the region. These same issues are again at play today as the city faces crucial decisions on housing shortages, affordability, density, and regulation. It seemed timely to examine some of the debates, decisions, and outcomes of Los Angeles's first bout with densification.

The book incorporates discussions on the relationships between the dingbat and current local, national and worldwide strategies affecting these issues in housing. It also includes a comparison between Los Angeles’s current popular development model, the Small Lot Ordinance, which allows single residential lots to be divided to create multiple small residences, and backyard homes which allow the addition of a second small unit at the back of single-family lots, which both Los Angeles and other regions of the country are hoping will legally increase the density of existing neighborhoods without disrupting their scale. Both work at a similar scale to the dingbat, operating within the individual lot as a cell to incrementally densify the city.

Copyright James Black, 2016.

ARCHINECT: Any plans on expanding this project?

JS and TG: The dingbat project has always been conceived as a series of initiatives that build on one another: the original LA Forum Dingbat 2.0 competition, panel discussions, the exhibition of the winning competition entries, and now this publication. In the near future we hope to host more discussions among the city's planners about the future of the dingbat. Dingbats have now aged into consideration for historic preservation. In addition, they comprise many of the over 10,000 structures that the City of Los Angeles has identified as needing seismic retrofitting. Therefore, dingbats fall into two extensive cataloging efforts of the City and we will follow the repercussions of how new policies will impact existing dingbats. We also hope to host a dingbat block party.

TO ENTER THE GIVEAWAY:

Instructions on how to win a copy of Dingbat 2.0 will be included in an upcoming Archinect Daily Newsletter, so be on the lookout! Sign up now for the Daily via this form. Good luck!