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Adam Pincus
LOS ANGELES HAS ALWAYS BEEN FRIENDLY to architectural innovation: lots of land, a general lack of history. L. A. and its environs were a veritable hothouse for early and mid-century modernism: the nowcrumbling concrete experiments of Frank Lloyd Wright, the elegant international style of Rudolph Schindler, the numerous Neutras of Westwood and Silverlake, the open-plan prototypes of the Case Study houses and Pierre Koenig's cantilevered glass and steel structures, jutting in terrifying defiance of physics in the Hollywood Hills. And, of course, Charles Eames's house in Pacific Palisades, the ultimate in postwar California optimism.
As the city is home to the movie business, its more inventive architecture -- close at hand and camera-ready -- has naturally found its way into...