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Robert Winter, father of LA Architecture, Questions the Motive of Real Estate Developers in Pasadena

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Robert Winter at home in the Batchelder House in Pasadena.

How do you he describe LA's current architectural landscape?

RW: That's wonderful. That's just wonderful. I remember when I taught at UCLA [after World War II], I lived first on Wilshire Boulevard, but then I got an apartment in Santa Monica. And I wouldn't have recommended anybody coming to Santa Monica. And now, like, my god, it's a changed place. And all around it ...

The best building in town in my estimation is the Frank Gehry Disney Hall. It makes me proud when I see that. When I used to go to concerts there, I carried a cane. It's no place for people with problems! Because no carpets on the floor and nothing to hold onto. But I remember with such pleasure going in. And the exterior is just lovely. The library and City Hall and so on still stand beautifully. But what gets me is when I first came to Los Angeles, I taught at UCLA, and in Westwood, you had the feeling that you didn't have to go anywhere else. I didn't have exactly that feeling, because I knew about Greene and Greene and all the people and how good Pasadena was... 

 

There are a lot of mixed-users and apartment complexes being built today that all look the same and are cheap-looking. Do you think someday in the future, Angelenos will think these buildings are cool, sort of like how dingbats are now popular?

I don't want to predict too far into the future. You know what's going on at Walnut and Lake in Pasadena. Where are all those people going to come from? I don't think anybody made a study whether these are needed or not. And that totally goes against the idea of Pasadena, which was a suburb.

So the idea that it's advancing into the future heroically, it's so absurd. I'm not sure what the motivation is. I think it's probably a developer sees open land, and they think money, and they want to increase density. Right up to the sidewalk. It's not Pasadena. But I don't want to be an old fogy. And if they put lower-income people in those houses, eventually, it's a great advance...

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Location: Pasadena, CA, USA
Offical Podcast of Mistah Wilson

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