The Infrastructural City: Networked Ecologies in Los Angeles (Hardcover)

by Kazys Varnelis (Author, Editor)

Editorial Reviews

Review
The Infrastructural City will drive you way beyond Los Angeles. The idiosyncrasies, stories and lessons described are thought-provoking enough to make you look at your own city with a more inquisitive eye. --We Make Money Not Art The outcome of four years research on the changing conditions of infrastructure in Los Angeles, this book is a fascinating excavation of the unique workings of the largest city on the West Coast, but one that illuminates conditions found elsewhere. --ARCHIDOSE As commissions continue to elude practitioners during the current global economic malaise, architects and urban planners may be left wondering where they went wrong. The Infrastructural City will help them. ----Tropolism

With funding now in sight, [The Infrastructural City] reminds us of the unseen physical pieces and a designer's role...The timing could hardly be better for The Infrastrucural City ... A doggedly detailed guide to Los Angeles as a physical thing. --The Los Angeles Times

Product Description
Once the greatest American example of a modern city served by infrastructure, Los Angeles is now in perpetual crisis. Infrastructure has ceased to support architecture's plans for the city and instead subordinates architecture to its own purposes. This out-of-control but networked world is increasingly organized by flows of objects and information. Static structures avoid being superfluous by joining this system as temporary containers for the people, objects, and capital. A provocative collection of research through photography, essays and maps, this is book looks at infrastructure as a way of mapping our place in the city, remaining optimistic about the role of architecture to affect change.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Actar (October 15, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 8496954250
• ISBN-13: 978-8496954250
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #155,115 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A worthy compendium of invaluable theoretical and practical concepts, January 9, 2009

By	Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

The Infrastructural City: Networked Ecologies in Los Angeles is a collection of photography, essays, and maps that examines infrastructure as a means of mapping place in the city and affecting change through architecture. Using the problems of Los Angeles as a focal point, since Los Angeles is a city where the infrastructure can no longer support is plans and has necessarily appropriated architecture to serve its purpose, The Infrastructural City spells out key transformations in the city and alerts prospective architects to potential dilemmas. "Like the freeways before them, wireless networks hold out the promise to spatially liberate the citizen by connecting the city without undermining the autonomy of the individual citizen... However, this new infrastructure is no longer a part of a regional plan; rather it is carved out by private corporations competing for market share. These are commercial enterprises, which by their very nature are competitive yet redundant." A worthy compendium of invaluable theoretical and practical concepts, and a highly recommended contribution to college and professional architectural studies libraries.