Renovation

Los Angeles is a city of juxtapositions. Waist trainers on leg day. Veneers on decaying nubs. TikTok and Facebook on the Westside. Nonnative plants. Bagel pop-ups with no water. Valet in public parking spots. It’s awkward, to say the least, but in L.A. the rando is, in fact, a product of design. What we see has been engineered by choice and imagination, or the lack thereof. The great difficulty of living here is that it’s hard not to look at the spoils of our own doing.

When it comes to design, we can’t unsee certain things. On our feeds, it’s the Spanish colonials in Pasadena, the Craftsmans of St. Charles Place and the Midcentury Modern cribs in the Hollywood Hills. IRL, it’s the outlandish decadence of apartment signs. The South Beach-inspired McMansions docked in Mid-City, 10-ish miles from the beach. The clumsy beauty and charm of dingbats. We take mental snapshots during our evening commutes and file the images right next to pictures of the gentrifence wood spreading on the sides of homes off Obama and the memories of the not-so-secret celebrity hotel we weren’t supposed to notice atop a quiet residential hill in Silver Lake.

There’s a lot to hold together. A lot to unpack about the way our city looks and to whom. L.A. is the land of “multiple things can be true.” Palm trees tower over some of the most beautiful and iconic blocks in the city that don’t have any shade. Some of the best views in the city can be seen from the top of parking garages. Angelenos don’t do carbs but they can’t shake the Cheesecake Factory-ification of the Grove and the Americana at Brand. In our minds, we cherish the levels.

In our hearts, however, the visual language of L.A. anchors us. The architecture of the everyday gives us our sense of place. Our surroundings communicate with us; what we see is available for us to draw inspiration from. The most time-honored observance in L.A. is being one with where you are at any given moment. There should be a holiday for us to examine how the city’s idiosyncrasies choreograph our every move. The closer you allow yourself to look at what’s around, the more you’ll understand what upgrades and tweaks need to be made, and why.

“Renovation” has arrived. This issue is where we tear it all down and rebuild. Don’t be nervous. The luminaries of L.A. have the blueprints on deck. They’ve been observing, thinking, planning, writing their ideas down and checking their work. Now it’s time to let them present. Author Xuan Juliana Wang has a story to share that will make you reconsider the meaning of an ADU. Activist Theo Henderson and scholar Ananya Roy have prepared a beautiful talk on the growing web of solidarity afoot in L.A. Artist Ryan Preciado can show you a new path for furniture design. And photographer and writer Janna Ireland has assembled some notes on interior life and family.

This is the moment where we pull back the carpet to find, well … more carpet, as Dave Schilling writes, trying his best to make sense of “chic” flooring. But the point is duly noted: When you peel away the artifice, surprises are inevitable. An unexpected, better reality is always possible.

So let’s switch it up one time. The future belongs to those ready and willing to let go. There are plenty of things that deserve a good refresh. Plenty of old foundations to fix. Plenty of façades that need to be torn down. Rent lives rent-free in the minds of the people of L.A. But it doesn’t have to. What could be is never beyond our control.

Ian F. Blair
Editor in Chief