Host Frances Anderton looks at design and architecture from a Los Angeles perspective.
The founder of furniture giant IKEA has died. What was the legacy of Ingvar Kamprad? Historic Filipinotown is set to get its own design district, but many residents are unhappy with the idea. And a collection of LA’s veteran antiques dealer Joel Chen is going on the auction block at Christie’s. He talks about a life in objects.
Metro ridership continues to decline, but the agency is seeking innovative ideas for alternative modes of transit. Angelenos are offering many solutions to the region's mobility problems. Culver City residents heard one such idea on Monday night, when representatives from Elon Musk's Boring Company pitched a high-speed network of underground tunnels.
Silicon Valley is embracing the idea of the company town, as even high-paying tech companies struggle with the high cost of housing. A westside school district also considers building homes for its teachers. The new downtown federal courthouse wins a major design award, but did an aversion to postmodernism lead the same jury to withhold this year’s 25-year award?
Did you know the city owns almost 9,000 parcels of land and properties across LA County? LA City Controller Ron Galperin released a map last year of unaccounted-for property, with a view to making the city more accountable and transparent, as well as pushing elected officials to amplify the value and best use of these sites.
LA photographer Cathy Opie has made a short film about an arsonist who loves mid-century-modern LA houses so much, he’s driven to destroy them. And the late LA artist Mike Kelley was obsessed with Kandor, Superman's hometown on the planet Krypton. Both artists address the utopian ideals of modernist architecture, and what happens when those ideals fail to materialize.
Authorities in Santa Barbara County are performing rescue operations as mudslides and debris have led to multiple deaths, dozens of injuries and have left hundreds of people trapped in their homes. Is there a way to protect communities and homes from mudslides going forward?
After the battle in Playa del Rey, have road diets been run off the road? The head of Metro’s Office of Extraordinary Innovation describes how you can pitch bold new transit improvements. And the scooter-sharing startup Bird in Santa Monica has taken flight, but it’s also ruffled feathers at City Hall.
California’s recreational pot marketplace is open for business and, already, sales are booming. Take yesterday, for example: marijuana sales jumped more than 300 percent above last month’s daily average. That’s according to the company Green Bits, which tracks pot sales. Even in its early days, it’s becoming clear that recreational marijuana is for sale in stores that don’t look much like the stores of old.
The Westin Bonaventure Hotel defined 1970s Los Angeles. DnA remembers its creator, John Portman. Tech and entertainment companies are descending on Culver City. We’ll hear about the big changes coming to the one-time “Heart of Screenland” -- and meet two young developers who believe in brick-and-mortar retail.
Singer-songwriter Dar Williams has spent years on the road and along the way she learned a lot about America’s small towns and what makes them thrive. She talks about her book, What I Found in a Thousand Towns , and plays songs that relate to those themes.
There’s been a trend of so-called "selfie museums" in LA, with “made-for-Instagram” sets designed for taking flattering self-portraits. So how does selfie culture jibe with “high art”? Meanwhile, Los Angeles-based curators bring new architectural ideas to the Windy City. But are they “boring”? And, one of Apple’s first “town squares” opens in Chicago too.
Coming in January, you'll be able to buy tickets to the Museum of Selfies in Glendale. It's part of the trend this past year of "made-for-Instagram" museums, collections of colorful sets designed for taking flattering self-portraits.
Fires in Southern California have forced thousands of people to evacuate their homes. Author and designer Wade Graham says we are "enmeshed" in fire-prone landscapes and need to respond through smart design and policy. And LACMA’s proposed expansion by Swiss architect Peter Zumthor is nearing reality. Will the gallery spanning Wilshire Boulevard feel like a freeway overpass, or a sculptural work of art?
The Skirball Fire east of the 405 freeway has made the commute through the Sepulveda Pass a scary experience. And the nearby Getty Center has closed because of outside air quality. But management is confident the buildings -- and the art -- will come out unscathed.
We love a good success story, but we love an epic fail even more. DnA visits the Museum of Failure. We also talk to "visual futurist" Syd Mead and architect Craig Hodgetts about creating a "plausible reality." And we hear about the art of cake-making from a West Hollywood baker.
The sculptural installation Vermonica is an "urban candelabra" of 25 Los Angeles street lamps installed in an East Hollywood parking lot in 1993. Artist Sheila Klein's project was supposed to only last a year, but this month, after 24 years, it was removed at the insistence of the developer, who plans to renovate the shopping center.
KCRW is coming up for air. We take a sneak peek at the station's new building, designed by architect Clive Wilkinson. And why are some affluent young city women dressing like members of religious cults? A look at the new modesty in fashion, and how women architects dress to express a "total design philosophy."
Los Angeles is seeing an explosion of murals. Would you like to paint one? Hear about the movement to "Beautify Earth." And a World War II armory becomes the permanent home for the Wende Museum of the Cold War, just as Russia-US relations revive old tensions. But what do former East Germans think about it?
Can a robot get people walking again? Meet Gita, a cargo carrier on wheels created by the same company that designed the Vespa scooter. And "Dirty Girl Construction" founder Joan Barton shares her thoughts on building -- and triumphing -- in a man's world.
The Culver Steps, a mixed-use development planned for the heart of Culver City, broke ground on Wednesday. Mayor Jeff Cooper called it "the last piece of the downtown puzzle."
Los Angeles has tunnel vision. DnA tours the Downtown Regional Connector, as Elon Musk digs his own tunnel. United Airlines flies its last Boeing 747 flight. DnA meets nostalgic pilots and hears about what's coming next for airline passengers. Plus, Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA is not over. DnA takes a road trip to see three desert shows.
The five-story Lincoln Heights Jail opened in 1931 and has housed everyone from Al Capone to people arrested during the Zoot Suit Riots and the Watts Riots. It was finally decommissioned in 1965, but its long and sordid story is about to get a new chapter, with a planned redevelopment that will turn it into a bustling residential and commercial destination.
The prototypes for the new US-Mexican border wall are now built, but will President Trump's dream of a big, beautiful wall materialize? Or will it be just a beautiful patch? Architect Renzo Piano takes a cinematic approach to designing the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. And as cities change, so too do their cemeteries, with suburban lawns giving way to tall and dense mausoleums.
Everyone's excited about the Dodgers once again being in the World Series. But the Dodgers may have never left Brooklyn 60 years ago if it wasn't for a deal hatched between city officials and a real estate businessman to turn Chavez Ravine into a baseball field.
As the World Series kicks off at Dodger Stadium, we'll look at how the construction of the stadium at Chavez Ravine symbolized the birth of modern Los Angeles. And we meet the two women architects behind the firm "Design, Bitches." They’re currently converting the Highland Park Masonic Temple into a buzz-worthy events space.
Thursday is the deadline for cities near and far to submit bids to internet superstore Amazon for its second global headquarters. Amazon says its new HQ2 will be an economic engine for any city, generating around 50,000 jobs. That has cities in Southern California, including Los Angeles, San Diego, Irvine and Santa Ana licking their chops and offering up incentives in an effort to score the headquarters.
The deadline is this week for cities to bid to host Amazon's second headquarters, or HQ2. What can Seattle teach those cities about becoming Amazon's company town? And the late landscape architect Lawrence Halprin saw gardens through the lens of dance. Los Angeles right now is paying tribute to the visionary designer of modernist parks and plazas.
It's now up to the full, LA City Council to decide whether or not to add an additional fee on developers looking to build in the city. It's being called a “linkage fee” and the hope is that it will bring in as much as $90 million a year to help build more affordable housing. A council committee signed off on the idea this week.
You might think Hollywood and the NRA are at opposite ends of the political spectrum. But recent mass shootings have brought renewed focus to the glamorization of guns in the movies. And a music festival in Joshua Tree this weekend takes place in a setting known for its spiritual qualities as well as its architecture. We hear about the Institute of Mentalphysics.
Traffic in Southern California keeps getting worse. Elected officials have commissioned new light rail lines, additional bike paths, and have even added more freeway lanes. There’s also another concept they’re playing with: road diets. One community is fighting back.
