Before the coronavirus crisis, the drive-through had been fast losing status, often deployed as a symbol of obesity and the worst of car-dependent urban design. In many cities, it had been subject to outright bans. The drive-in, meanwhile, is nearly extinct, with just a few still operating in Southern California.
But during the pandemic, drive-throughs have become a weird sort of societal glue. And the drive-in has been reconsidered.
— The Los Angeles Times
Writing in The Los Angeles Times, journalist and critic Carolina Miranda takes a look at the renewed significance of drive-thru and drive-in spaces in Los Angeles during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Miranda writes, "Their architectural standoffish-ness, in which vendor and client interact largely via speaker and remain in their own environments during an entire transaction, is designed to prioritize efficiency and minimize human exchange. They are the socially distant design we’ve been living with all along."
Miranda goes on to detail Reyner Banham's drive-in exploits in Los Angeles, Richard Neutra's drive-in church in Orange County, and the more recent phenomenon of drive-in concerts.
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