wilshire book 2011 final web

8/3/2019 Wilshire Book 2011 FINAL Web

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Field Notes and Observations


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This pamphlet is a limited edition series of 100 produced by Urbanops.org- the researchdivision of Urban Operations.

A digital copy of this pamphlet will be available by October 2011 on theUrbanops.orgWebsite.

The 2006 pamphlet Skyscrapers of the Dead: A Post-Critical Solution for Dead Mod-ernism, the 2008 pamphlet Sumoscraper: A Cultural Content Container, and the2010 pamphlet Slopscraper: Sustainable Production in the Age of Flux, are eachavailable for $10.00 through our office at the address below.

We are actively taking submissions for future pamphlets. If you have an idea for apamphlet, please contact us at the following address:

Publication Information:

Urban Operations

817 Silver Lake Blvd.Los Angeles, CA

90026

t)323.644.1415

f)323.644.1814

[email protected] / www.urbanops.org

Copyright Urban Operations 2011. No repoductions may be made of this

publication without without prior consent of its authors.

This copy is ______ of 100.


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We got to Wilshire where the traffic was regulated to aminimum of thirty-five. The Ford couldnt travel that fast,

but she clung to the middle lane and the big fast cars shotaround us.

-John Fante, Ask the Dust, 1939.

I. Preface by John SouthernII. Wilshire Blvd: A Drive-by Family by Orhan AyyceIII. PartiIII. ContextIV. ProgramV. FacadeVI. Epilogue

Project Team: Emily Bills, Celine Juan, & John Southern

Published by Urban Operations, copyright 2011.


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Downtown interests wanted it to be a residential avenue, not a businessrival, and the city had zoned it accordinglyThe result is unique transitionalmovement to the dawn of automobilism; the shops on Miracle Mile stand

hard up to the sidewalk so that it looks like a conventional shopping street,

except that it is not clogged with cars mis-parked in desperation by frustratedshoppers. All but a few of them are safely and correctly stowed away roundthe back, and Wilshire Boulevard is one of the few great streets in the worldwhere driving is a pleasure.

-Reyner Banham, Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies, 1971.

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5225 Wilshire Boulevard

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3875 Wilshire Boulevard 6120 Wilshire Boulevard


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6100 Wilshire Boulevard 3440, 3460, & 3480 Wilshire Boulevard


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Wilshire Boulevard, anyway, is certainly thickly settled. It is said to be thelongest, widest boulevard in the country, intersected by 202 streets; one ofthem, Veteran Avenue, creates within Wilshire the busiest intersection in the

world not on a superhighway. Thefirst experiments with synchronized traffic

lights were conducted here, as were thefirst Christmas street decorationsand thefirst parking limits.

-Charles Moore, The City Observed: Los Angeles, 1984.

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E Q U I T A B L E



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11636 Wilshire Boulevard 11794 Wilshire Boulevard


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Thefinest stores still aspire to be on Wilshire, and most foreign consulatesin Los Angeles are located there. The boulevard functions as a media rowfor magazines, television producers, and the entertainment industry , as well

as the home of the Academy of Motion Picture Sciences, Living space along

it is always in high demand.

-Kevin Roderick, Wilshire Boulevard: Grand Concourse of Los Angeles,2005.

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One Wilshire Boulevard (Listed as 624 South Grand)

ONE WILSHIRE



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10805, 10790, 10754 Wilshire Boulevard 12352 Wilshire Boulevard

1127 Wilshire


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No matter how banal, One Wilshire is the product of modernism and throughits curtain wall grid, partakes in the movements blanket promise to deliverdemocracy through technology, visibility, and neutrality.

-Kazys Varnelis and Robert Sumrell, Ether: One Wilshire, 2007.

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197 West Wilshire Boulevard 1127 Wilshire Boulevard


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PIERCE NATIONAL LIFE

3808 Wilshire Boulevard2404 Wilshire Boulevard


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Energy costs, and the fallout from environmental malaise will eventuallytrump the short-term thinking of a city heedlessly streamlined for the

economy of real estate profit and the automobile. How that change willhappen is yet to be seen; but surely Wilshire Boulevard, like the Los Angeles

River, will remain.

-Lane Barden, The Street: Wilshire Boulevard, 2008.

Despite the global follies of the Post-9-11 architectural academy in Dubai,China, Manhattan, and beyond, we at Urban Operations still believe in the

typology of the skyscraper, and embrace the latent potential within its abilityto absorb and redistribute the sociological and psychological ephemera ofcapitalism into democratic terrain.

Wilshire Boulevard is only the beginning.

Epilogue

wilshire book 2011 final web

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