Los Angeles

“What [Banham] went looking for, and the way he wrote about what he saw and felt, redefined the way the intellectual world—and then the wider world—perceived the city. . . . Banham wrote like a blissed-out lover, surrendering to his feelings of derangement and wonder while keeping his eyes wide-open. . . . [Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies] has now been reissued in a new edition with an excellent introduction by architect and scholar Joe Day. It is a landmark in the history of writing L.A.”

— Los Angeles Times

“Still as penetrating now as when Banham completed his observations on the city in 1971.”

— LA Observed

“Four decades later [Banham’s] observations still seem sharp and illuminating. . . . Even now, to look at his aerial view of the I-10/405 interchange is to forget all the hours spent inching through its torn-up lanes and simply agree. The interchange is a work of art, full of rhythm, grit, and expansive grace—like Banham’s book itself. In one volume he does the near-impossible: He makes us see this fragmented city as a breathing whole. As he expected, its ephemerality has begun to look like a virtue. Los Angeles, the city built not to last, is the city that adapts.”

— Los Angeles Magazine

“[Los Angeles] has emerged as a central text on the city. . . . Perhaps because of its uncompromising vision, Banham's book has remained au courant.”

— Palisadian Post