Innovations in Technology
Technology played a huge role in virtually every example of Modern architecture in Los Angeles.
Postwar L.A. was the right place and the right time for new technologies to usher in a wave of experimentation and innovation in terms of building design, construction, engineering, materials, and purpose.
The war had brought a number of high-tech businesses to town and had produced an unprecedented era of invention and new materials that architects applied to their work.
The Case Study House program is a prime example of how technology affected architecture, with architects taking on the challenge of designing and building inexpensive and efficient homes using “war-born techniques and materials” (Arts+Architecture, Jan. 1945).
Master-planned, large-scale suburban communities featured new materials and processes including “total design” –- designing, producing, and assembling homes on site, from the ground up.
And of course, the glass-skinned architecture of corporate Los Angeles would not exist without innovation in materials and construction.
Curating the City: Modern Architecture in L.A. is part of Pacific Standard Time Presents: Modern Architecture in L.A. This collaboration, initiated by the Getty, brings together seventeen cultural institutions from April through July 2013 for a wide-ranging look at the postwar built environment of the city as a whole, from its famous residential architecture to its vast freeway network, revealing the city’s development and ongoing impact in new ways. Major support for this project has been provided by the Getty Foundation. pacificstandardtimepresents.org.