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FIVE PLACES L.A.

FIVE PLACES L.A.

Written by: Los Angeles Forum for Architecture and Urban Design Emmanuelle Bourlier
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 FIVE PLACES L.A. is a living documentary of the city. In each episode we ask one inhabitant of Los Angeles about the five places that define the city for them. Each interviewee in turn chooses someone to interview about their five places. Through these interviews and plus-ones the project grows; as the city evolves, its past and present, real and remembered places are mapped.2022 Los Angeles Forum for Architecture and Urban Design Art Social Sciences
Episodes
  • 16: Barbara Bestor

    16: Barbara Bestor
    Apr 14 2026
    Show notes and Barbara’s Five Places: 1. Port of Los Angeles and Terminal Island (see also: Tuna St. buildings on Terminal Island, which are in danger of demolition pending action to designate them as Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monuments; and a book on the History of Terminal Island: Terminal Island - Lost Communities on America's Edge 2.Wayfarer’s Chapel by Lloyd Wright, and a June 4, 2025 LA Times article by (Episode 3 guest!) Sam Lubell on the chapel’s rescue from its unstable site: Lloyd Wright’s Wayfarers Chapel: Inside the rescue of a national landmark 3. Mattachine Steps in Silverlake and the Mattachine Society 4. Musso + Franks (and a sidebar about the Schindler house in the background of a Buster Keaton movie) 5. The Blue Ribbon Garden at Disney Hall, designed by Melinda Taylor, more here, and a story about the secret edible garden. Who would you choose to ask about their Five Places? Artist Lauren Halsey Interview Date: 02-28-24 Related Links / Also Mentioned in this episode (PLEASE VISIT fiveplaces.la FOR FULL SHOW NOTES) Bestor Architecture website, Instagram, and news LA Cleantech Incubator (LACI) and truck electrification Frank Gehry obituaries in the New York Times (by Nicolai Ouroussof) and the Guardian (by Charles Jencks and Oliver Wainwright) History of trolley lines in Silverlake by Eric Brightwell. See also: Secret Stairs A Walking Guide to the Historic Staircases of Los Angeles, by Charles Fleming Bohemian Modern: Living in Silver Lake, by Barbara Bestor Bohemian Los Angeles and the Making of Modern Politics, by Daniel Hurewitz The Black Cat on Sunset: The 1967 Black Cat Demonstration marks one of the earliest moments in US history that the LGBTQ community organized and gathered publicly to peacefully protest the harassment, brutality, and persecution they were suffering for being queer. Mike Davis, beloved writer, activist, and theorist, profiled here in The New Yorker by Hua Hsu, and remembered here by (Episode 14 guest!) Mike Sonksen, aka Mike The Poet, and other key voices. Robert Moses and the Power Broker book. Also, a new podcast series on Moses and The Power Broker, by 99% Invisible. The American Bar in Vienna by Adolf Loos (wiki, American Bar home page) Los Angeles Plays Itself by Thom Andersen Theme building at LAX – and Bestor Architecture’s winning proposal to redesign the LAWA train wrap! Pulitzer Prize-winning L.A. food critic Jonathan Gold, and his article The Year I Ate Pico Boulevard The Quilts of Gee’s bend Grand Central Market and California Plaza by Arthus Erickson Moneo Cathedral in DTLA and Coop Himmelblau High School Sunshine & smog: Barbara Bestor at TEDxOlympicBlvdWomen Lauren Halsey’s Summaeverythang community Center website Summaeverythang Community Center in the Art Newspaper and In the LA Times. (PLEASE VISIT fiveplaces.la FOR FULL SHOW NOTES) Credits:Logo design: still room (www.still-room.com)Animated logo: Bee Murphy (@supadoopabee on Instagram)Music: Guido Parisi, www.pond5.comProduced by: Los Angeles Forum for Architecture and Urban DesignProduction team: Emmanuelle Bourlier, Quynh NguyenCreator, Executive Producer, and Host: Emmanuelle BourlierThis podcast was recorded on unceded Chumash and Tongva land.© 2026 Los Angeles Forum AUD, and FIVE PLACESwww.laforum.org
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    58 mins
  • 15: J. Yolande Daniels

    15: J. Yolande Daniels
    Apr 25 2024
    Learn more about J. Yolande Daniels' work at MIT, StudioSumo, and The Black City. Follow The Black City on instagram here. Show notes and Yolande’s Five Places:1. Biddy Mason Place (in today’s Downtown LA): more on Biddy Mason here.2. Brick Block (in today’s Downtown LA)3. Los Angeles Street (formerly Calle de Los Negros, near today’s Union Station)4. Azusa Street Mission (in today’s Little Tokyo)5. Bronzeville (in today’s Little Tokyo): How 'Little Tokyo' Of Los Angeles Changed Into 'Bronzeville' And Back Again (NPR); and Azusa Street to Bronzeville: The Black History of Little Tokyo (PBS SoCal)Honorable Mention: El Prieto Canyon—named after Robert OwensWhom would you choose to ask about their Five Places? Amy Murphy, Akira Mizuta Lippit Interview Date: 02-24-21 Related Links / Also Mentioned in this episode:J. Yolande Daniels, Black City: the Los Angeles Edition, The Museum of Modern Art (2020).Reconstructions: Architecture and Blackness in America, The Museum of Modern Art (2020), Totem House by studioSUMO + Histories of Negation by J. Yolande Daniels, Architecture at Home, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art MIT Center for Art Media and TechnologyCrystal Bridges Museum debuts five house prototypes that take on Northwest Arkansas’s housing crisis (The Architect’s Newspaper)The Open Hand: A Conversation with the Descendants of Biddy MasonWhat’s in a street name? LA’s forgotten Calle de los Negros (KCRW) – refers to the 1871 anti-Chinese massacre in downtown Los Angeles and the forthcoming memorial designed by Sze Tsung Nicolás Leong and Judy Chui-Hua Chung. How Can We Create Communities of Care? Projects by architect Sekou Cooke and designer J. Yolande Daniels explore how architecture can nurture people and communities.A Glimpse of the Kingdom of Heaven: the Azusa Street Revival (PBS) Credits:Logo design: still room (www.still-room.com)Animated logo: Bee Murphy (@supadoopabee on Instagram)Music: Guido Parisi, www.pond5.comProduced by: Los Angeles Forum for Architecture and Urban DesignProduction team: Emmanuelle Bourlier, Monica Lamela, Quynh NguyenCreator, Executive Producer, and Host: Emmanuelle BourlierThis podcast was recorded on unceded Chumash and Tongva land.© 2024 Los Angeles Forum AUD, and FIVE PLACESwww.laforum.org
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    42 mins
  • BONUS: Mike the PoeT reads Los Angeles A to Z

    BONUS: Mike the PoeT reads Los Angeles A to Z
    Feb 29 2024

    Discover more of Mike’s work via his instagram, and Linktree, and find other relevant links in the show notes for his original interview with art critic Shana Nys Dambrot (E14). For Shana’s bio and her Five Places L.A. interview, check out Episode 12, here. “Los Angeles A to Z” is a poem included in Mike Sonksen’s beautiful tribute to Los Angeles, “Letters to My City”, the second edition of which was just published by Writ Large Press in 2023. “The poems and essays in Letters to My City combine two decades of field experience, research, personal observations, and stories told to the author, Mike Sonksen, a third-generation Los Angeles native, by his grandfather and other family members, to interrogate all sides of Los Angeles, its streets, its people, its neighborhoods, as a means to examine the postmodern metropolis.”

    Credits:

    Logo design: still room (www.still-room.com)

    Animated logo: Bee Murphy (@supadoopabee on Instagram)

    Music: Guido Parisi, www.pond5.com

    Produced by: Los Angeles Forum for Architecture and Urban Design

    Production team: Emmanuelle Bourlier, Quynh Nguyen

    Creator, Executive Producer, and Host: Emmanuelle Bourlier

    This podcast was recorded on unceded Chumash and Tongva land.

    © 2026 Los Angeles Forum AUD, and FIVE PLACES

    www.laforum.org
    Show More Show Less
    4 mins
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