Sign in or register
for additional privileges

Asian Migration and Global Cities

Anne Cong-Huyen, Jonathan Young Banfill, Katherine Herrera, Samantha Ching, Natalie Yip, Thania Lucero, Randy Mai, Candice Lau, Authors
Los Angeles, page 1 of 9
Previous page on path     Next page on path

 

You appear to be using an older verion of Internet Explorer. For the best experience please upgrade your IE version or switch to a another web browser.

Los Angeles: Reading the City


(Photo by Weiling Deng)

There are almost too many texts to characterize Los Angeles in any coherent way. In fact, it is its incoherence that makes L.A. special, as it is a city-object whose layers and histories run in a multiplicity of directions, both backwards and forwards in time, in a way that is like no other place. As Reyner Banham says, it is its “non-sense of history” that is important, as well as the fact that it “breaks all the rules”. There are simply too many Los Angeles’s, too many entry and exit points, with each presenting a different window into a city that has deeply penetrated the world’s cultural imagination. As one views it from a macroscopic vantage, say from the top of Mulholland Drive or from the Griffith Park Observatory, one can see all these things. They emerge from the sheer spatial immensity of the city to tell different stories or embody different contrasting narratives, steeped both in reality and stereotype. The following will try to survey just some of these important pieces in order to give a portrait of where Los Angeles has been and where it is going, culled from the existing cultural textual history of the city. It will zoom into some specific areas, film of course, but other mediums like literature and music, as well as historical or other notorious events, and give a sketch of some of the major works/events that make L.A. what it is. Fundamental to this analysis will be the dialectical relationship between light and dark, or as Mike Davis so eloquently puts it, Sunshine or Noir, that permeates every relationship within this city.
Comment on this page
 

Discussion of "Los Angeles: Reading the City"

Add your voice to this discussion.

Checking your signed in status ...

Previous page on path Los Angeles, page 1 of 9 Next page on path

Related:  City Lights in a Highway HeartbeatBeijing Subway VisualizationBeijing MonumentsBeijing SimulacraBlade Runner - Opening SceneBeijing: Reading the City (Culture)Line I: Orientations & PlacesBeijing: Asian Migrants and LaborersLittle Tokyo in Los Angeles798Beijing: Recycling VillageBeijing: First Ring RoadThe City of Angels and the Beverly Hills ChihuahuaVirtual Dubai: Spec Ops: The LineCNN: How Los Angeles may look in the futurePinguoyuanExpat MigrationYoudu 幽都Beijing DoorsWangjing: Korean MigrationAppendix: Towards a Reading of Los AngelesL.A. Songs: Funtimes in BabylonBeijing: A Global City?How The Her Filmmakers Created A Utopian Los Angeles Of The Not-Too-Distant FutureWudaokouBeijing LiteratureLong Live Shougang SteelNorth Korean RestaurantBeyond the Black DahliaHistory Channel City Of The Future: Los Angeles 2106Beijing to SeattleSanlitunLos Angeles: FuturesBeijing: Reading the City (Official Texts)Line 13: Experiencing MigrationsMulholland DriveDiscover LABeijing TourismMigrant Children in the RubbleBeijing: YonghegongBeijing Music Scene南锣鼓巷Beijing PhotosBeijing: GulouTimeout BeijingSkylinesBeijingBeijing: FuturesThis Is What Los Angeles Could Look Like in 2033Seeing Foreign Bands in BeijingChinatown - 1974L.A. Songs: Desperados Under the EavesWelcome to the Northern CapitalFuturistic Los Angeles SubwayL.A. Songs: HappyHer - Official Trailer (HD) Joaquin Phoenix, Amy AdamsGTA V UCLAEducational MigrantsFuturistic LA SubwayWhat's Beef? Featurette - Jesse Proudfoot on Mike Davis' "City of Quartz"Beijing SkylineBeijing Death CloudDay on Broadway eventBlade RunnerBeijing: PastAmerica's Next Great City: Downtown L.A.Beijing GhostsTaijian BowuguanBeijing FilmL.A. Songs: Sunshine, Santa Monica, and Sheryl CrowChinatown - TrailerBeijing SkyTsinghuaL.A. Songs: It Was a Good Day720 RapidFahaisiBeijing: Chang'an JieRural to Urban MigrationTian'anmenDTLALos AngelesBeijing: BookwormLos Angeles: Light and DarkMulholland Drive Vantage