Dingbat 2.0: The Iconic Los Angeles Apartment as Projection of a Metropolis

The book successfully leverages the dingbat as a launchpad for surveying multi-family housing in Los Angeles, picking apart the prickly and multivalent nature of its creation myth and subsequent existence through the lenses of prior appreciation, scholarly interest, and post-war art production. [...] A sprawling examination of the economic, social, and technocratic instruments developers, architects, and occupants used to design, build, and enjoy one of L.A.'s most unsung contributions to architectural-historical patrimony. [...] The book's central matter, the field guide to dingbats, will change the way you see L.A. --Antonio Pacheco, The Architects Newspaper Dingbat 2.0 gives an often-maligned Los Angeles building type its long overdue moment in the sun, not only advancing a sophisticated typology of dingbats, but also reimagining the potential of the dingbat for the twenty-first century--at a moment when the imperative to create livable and modest affordable housing is more pressing than ever. -- Ken Bernstein, Principal City Planner, Los Angeles Department of City Planning and Office of Historic Resources This book is extremely valuable for designers, particularly when one considers that architects generate species of buildings. An in-depth study of this particularly indigenous species to Los Angeles allows architects to not only become familiar with the causes and effects of the dingbat, but also the many possibilities for its future morphologies. -- Jimenez Lai, founder and creator of Bureau Spectacular One of the many brilliances of this great book is the telling comparison of Le Corbusier's Villa Savoye--raised on its skinny pilotis to create an entirely ornamental void--and the dingbat--likewise lally column-upped in the air but usefully making room for cars beneath. Ever not quite modern, Corb pontificated about "machines for living" while never quite knowing what to do with their true enabler: the machine for leaving. The indelible dingbat is a sandwich of necessity and desire that bespeaks the throwaway (and getaway) modernity uniquely Made in L.A. -- Michael Sorkin, Architect, Urbanist and Author; Principal, Michael Sorkin Studio Dingbat 2.0 is the first critical study of the most ubiquitous and mundane Los Angeles building type: the dingbat apartment. Equally praised and vilified, dingbats were a critical enabler of Los Angeles' rapid post-war urban expansion. Known for their mid-century decorative facades, this book explores qualities that arguably make dingbats innovative, iconoclastic, and distinctly "L.A." Dingbat 2.0 includes front-runner and winning designs from the Los Angeles Forum for Architecture and Urban Design's DINGBAT 2.0 contest, and integrates essays by some of today's leading architects, urbanists, and cultural critics with photographic series, typological analysis, and speculative designs from architects around the world. Published in cooperation with The Los Angeles Forum for Architecture and Urban Design. Book design: Jessica Fleischmann/still room.