Los Angeles, the radical metropolis of Reyner Banham

Abstract

The book Los Angeles – the architecture of four ecologies by Reyner Banham (1922-1988) has been very controversial ever since it was first published back in 1971. There are those who see a seminal text in it, very influential to architects who have engaged in analyses of other urban realities since that decade. However, its critical fortune also includes severe academic, and not rarely, demolishing criticisms. The disputes waged on that moment, over the unavoidable examination of the Modern Movement dogmas, are reflexively, bravely, and sometimes provocatively present in the book. However, after four decades, it is interesting to carefully look at the book in order to appreciate its theses based on the development of the contemporary metropoles, which would probably be named by the author as the capitalistic metropoles of the fourth machine age. The article also tries to highlight the strength and the legitimacy of the methodological innovation the author has forged to articulate his thesis and his object – the Greater Los Angeles.