In Los Angeles, where development above the subway stop was only invented about 3 years ago, many “architectural” critics are aghast at the minimalist apartment house on Wilshire and Vermont.
From the first time I saw it, I liked it. It has a Northern European modernist air. Horizontal lights hang from wires in the courtyard. Dark gray windows make vertical patterns on the facade.
This properly comes up to the street, neither overwhelming WIlshire, nor shrinking from it. It is clean, unfussy, well proportioned. And the colorful corners are really interesting.
One of the grossest examples of “near the subway” development can be found on the corner of Western and Hollywood where two hulking behemoths, completely stylistically at odds with each other, fight for attention. Wilshire/Vermont is by contrast, simply polite and unfussy.
Almost nothing worthwhile has been built on Wilshire since the 1929 completion of Bullocks. So ANYTHING we construct will never live up to what they were building 80 years ago.
Until the time that we can top the Roaring Twenties, I will stick with classic Bauhaus modernism that brings a touch of Weimar Germany to WIlshire.
Here in Van Nuys 
You must be logged in to post a comment.