Authors on Architecture: Fontenot on Ain
SAH/SCC Zoom Program
Sunday, July 09, 2023
Join
SAH/SCC for a thoughtful program with author Anthony Fontenot as he discusses his
book Notes From Another Los Angeles: Gregory
Ain and the Construction of a Social Landscape (MIT Press, 2022). It is the first book devoted to exploring
the communal developments that Ain believed in deeply, with a focused look at each
of the projects he constructed. Had his ideas taken further hold, Los Angeles might
be a very different place today.
The
book is arranged through a quartet of “notes”—both textual and visual—akin to a
police or surveillance file (which is no accident, given that among these notes
is Ain’s actual FBI file). The first presents a series of striking black-and-white
photographs of four of Ain’s built housing projects by celebrated architectural
photographer Julius Shulman. These are followed by illustrated essays on Ain by
contemporary architectural historians—including SAH/SCC past-President Anthony Denzer—an
archival section of articles, including notes for a lecture on Ain by the distinguished
architectural writer, critic, and SAH/SCC Founding Member Esther McCoy, and lastly
project descriptions, drawings, and contemporary color photographs by Kyungsub Shin.
In
Fontenot’s words: “This work is presented with the hope that designers may be inspired
not only to seek innovative solutions for creating low-cost, high-quality environments
but also to engage in some of the more difficult questions related to inequality
and segregation that continue to shape our cities.” For more on the book, read the
review in SAH/SCC News, Spring 2023.
Fontenot is Professor of Architecture at
Woodbury University School of Architecture in Los Angeles and the author of Non-Design:
Architecture, Liberalism, and the Market (The University of Chicago Press, 2021).
He is a contributing author to Hannes Meyer: New Bauhaus Teaching Methodology:
From Dessau to Mexico (Spector Books, 2021), New
Orleans Under Reconstruction (Verso, 2014), and Berlin – Stadt ohne Form. Strategien einer anderen
Architektur (Prestel, 2000).
Fontenot on Ain—Sunday, July 9, 2023; 1-2:30 PM PST; $5; pay
via PayPal above or mail in the order form with check.
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