UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles The Production of Architectural Hybridities in Los Angeles A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy In Architecture By Gustavo Leclerc 2017 © Copyright by Gustavo Leclerc 2017 ABSTRACT OF DISSERTATION The Production of Architectural Hybridities in Los Angeles By Gustavo Leclerc Doctor of Philosophy in Architecture University of California, Los Angeles, 2017 Professor Dana Cuff, Chair The relevance of contemporary architectural design is intrinsically dependent upon it’s being in-step with the aesthetic and spatial sensibilities of its time. Within Southern California, one of the most dramatic contemporary influences on aesthetic and spatial sensibilities is that of Latinization, in particular, Mexican/Chicano cultural practices. This dissertation speculates on the emergence of an architectural hybridity autochthonous to Los Angeles informed by a theoretical framework termed the Spanglish Turn. The development of this framework begins with an analysis of visual arts, and material culture in Los Angeles. This strategy aims to ‘stretch’ the relationship between architecture and specific forms of popular and material culture by speculating on the behavior informing them. Then guided by a formulation of this emergent spatial logic, it looks for tangential inroads and alternative patterns to begin to articulate a new ‘grammar of translation’ for LA’s popular and visual culture into the realm of architecture. ii The Dissertation of Gustavo Leclerc is approved. Sylvia Lavin Diane Favro Michael Dear Dana Cuff, Committee Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2017 iii For Hannah, Octavia, and Artemio. iv Table of Contents PART 1. INTRODUCING THE ‘SPANGLISH TURN’ Chapter 1. The Production of Architectural Hybridity 1.1. Goals and Overview 1.2. Producing Architecture 1.2.1 Types of Mixing. 1.2.2 Levels of Mixing 1.3. Context 1.4. Recent Architectural Theory, Activism and The Spanglish Turn Chapter 2. Cultural Streams in the Creation of Place 2.1. Historic California 2.2. Chicano Culture 2.3. Mexican Immigrant 2.4. The Spanglish Turn and Architectural Hybridity PART 2. THE SPANGLISH TURN IN ART, CULTURE AND ARCHITECTURE Chapter 3. From Mexico City to Mexican Immigrant: Individual Perceptions 3.1. Intr3.2. Visual Art and The Spanglish Turn 3.2.1. Case study # 1. Ruben Ortiz-Torres 3.2.2. Case study # 2. Salomon Huerta 3.2.3. Case study # 3. Refugio Posadas Chapter 4. From Mexico City to Mexican Immigrant: Community Cultures 4.1. Popular and Material Culture and The Spanglish Turn v 4.1.1. Case study # 4. Day of the Dead/Dia de Muertos 4.1.2. Case study # 5. Lowriders 4.1.3. Case study # 6. Taco Trucks 4.2. Synthesis Chapter 5. Modernist Architecture and Resistance to the Spanglish Turn 5.1. The Spanglish Turn in Architecture Until Now 5.2. Case study # 7. Mar Vista Tract Housing Outdoor Spaces – Public and Private Indoor Spaces – Public and Private Community Guidance and Discourse PART 3. TOWARD A SPANGLISH ARCHITECTURE Chapter 6. Functional linguistics of The Spanglish Turn in Architecture 6.1. Spatial Analysis 6.1.1. Metafunctions of Space Situatedness Elements Organization 6.1.2. Charged Fields Adulteration - Densification Acceleration - Deceleration Aggression - Sedation 6.2. Vocabulary: Key Words in Spanglish Architecture vi Chapter 7. Openings to a Normative Spanglish Architecture 7.1. A Grammar for Spanglish Architecture Why my own work? A cultural approach to architectural design ‘Gossip’ as a design tactic Ten experimental Spanglish architectural prototypes: 7.1.1. Affect: Blue House 7.1.2. Hybridity: Kaleidoscope Building 7.1.3. Autochthonous: Red and Gold House 7.1.4. Assimilation: Big Blue Cube 7.1.5. Tradition/memory: SHOE 7.1.6. Risk: Four Interlocking Cubes and a Big Golden Fish 7.1.7. Joy: Radiant Yellow Building with a “Mohawk” and Large Wings 7.1.8. Liminal/Blurred: Gold and Blue Building with Heavy Black Lines 7.1.9. Multilingual: Kimono Building 7.1.10. Flexispace: Green Building Chapter 8. Conclusions 8.1. Summary of Findings 8.2 Next Steps 8.2.1. Re-inscribing Cultural Studies into Architecture 8.2.2. Applicability of the Spanglish Turn method to other contexts/cities 8.2.3. Inscribing Latino Culture into Architecture References vii Figures 1 Einar and Jamex de la Torre, Colonial Atmosphere. Mixed Media. 2002 2 US/Mexico Border Fence at the Pacific Ocean 3 John Valadez, Car Show. Painting, 2001 4 Quema de Castillos in Mexico City 5 Quema de Judas in Mexico City 6 Ruben Ortiz-Torres, Alien Toy. Kinetic Sculpture, 1997 7 Ruben Ortiz-Torres, Power Tools/Herramientas de Alto Poder. Sculpture, 1999 8 Peter Paul Rubens, Lion Hunt. Painting, 1621 9 Salomón Huerta, Los Tres Caballeros. Painting, 1992 10 Salomón Huerta, Sniper. Painting, 1994 11 Salomón Huerta, Shaved Head. Painting, 2001 12 Salomón Huerta, Purple House. Painting, 2002 13 Bobco Metals Showroom, designed by NULAB Architects, 14 Refugio Posadas, Sotoyama-Chinampa. Painting, 1990 15 Refugio Posadas, City with Two Faces. Painting, 1990 16 Refugio Posadas, Cuicuilco. Painting, 1993 17 Refugio Posadas, Casa para un Taquero. Painting, 1993 18 Day of the Dead celebration in Mexico 19 Day of the Dead Altar 20 Totonacan Flyers from Papantla, Veracruz, Mexico 21 Natural Born Killa, Lowrider Bicycle, 2010 22 Acido Dorado House, designed by Robert Stone, Joshua Tree, 2009 viii 23 Rosa Muerta House, designed by Robert Stone, Joshua Tree, 2009 24 Lonchera (Taco Truck), East Los Angeles, 1996 25 Rem Koolhass and John Baldessari, Design Proposal for Cal Trans Building, Los Angeles, California, 2001 26 Gregory Ain Mar Vista Housing perspective 27 House on Meier Street, exterior facade 28 Kitchen 29 Barbara Jones, La Alianza. Mixed Media, 2002 30 Salomón Huerta, Pink House. Painting, 2003 31 El Cuarto and Charge Fields Diagram 32 Joe Lewis, don’t look back, why? Sculpture, 2002 33 Daniel J. Martinez, Nellekaghnituten: Man Who Throws Rocks (An event for A-Moralist as Parrhesiates. Kinetic Sculpture, 2002 34 Grafitti wall in Los Angeles 35 Piñatas in Los Angeles 36 Raspberry Fields House, designed by Jason Payne, Round Valley, Utah, 2011 37 Gajin Fujita, Southland Standoff. Painting, 2013 38 Hustler Casino Lobby, designed by Godredson-Sigal Architects 39 Self Help Graphics and Art building in East Los Angeles 40 Somis Hay Barn, designed by Studio Pali Fekete Architects 41 Mark Bradford, The Devil is Beating His Wife. Painting, 2003 42 El Pedorrero muffler shop in East Los Angeles 43 Ruben Ortiz-Torres, The Garden of Earthly Delights. Kinetic Sculpture, 2002 ix 44 Affect: Blue House 45 Hybridity: Kaleidoscope Building 46 Autochthonous: Red and Gold House 47 Assimilation: Big Blue Cube 48 Tradition/Memory: SHOE 49 Risk: Four Interlocking Cubes and a Golden Fish 50 Joy: Radiant Yellow Building with a ‘Mohawk’ and Large Wings 51 Liminal/Blurred: Gold and Blue Building with Heavy Black Lines 52 Multilingual: Kimono Building 53 Flexispace: Green House x Biography Gustavo Leclerc is an architect and an artist. He is a partner and founding member of the multidisciplinary collective ADOBE LA (Artists, Architects, and Designers Opening the Border Edge of Los Angeles). He was a fellow at Harvard University in the prestigious Loeb Fellowship program during the 1999-2000 academic year. In 2000, he co-chaired the ACSA National Conference in Los Angeles, titled Heterotopolis: Immigration, Ethnicity and the American City. He’s been involved in several art exhibitions as a curator, artist, and exhibition designer such as Mixed Feelings at the USC Fisher Museum of Art; Revelatory Landscapes at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Facades: Architecture, Urban Space and The Moving Image at the Long Beach Museum of Art; House Rules at the Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio; and Urban Revision: Current Projects for the Public Realm at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art. He co-edited Postborder City (Rutledge, 2003), Urban Latino Cultures: La Vida Latina in L.A. (Sage Publications, 1999), and Hybrid City/Ciudad Hibrida: The Production of Art in Alien Territory, (SCI-Arc Public Access Press, 1998). He has taught courses on architectural history, architectural theory, landscape theory, and design studio at Woodbury University and Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles, California. He lectures throughout the United States and Mexico on art, architecture, border culture, new cosmopolitanisms, (im)migration, and cultural criticism xi PART 1. INTRODUCING THE ‘SPANGLISH TURN’ Chapter 1. The Production of Architectural Hybridity 1.1. Goals and Overview In the creation of artistic and cultural works, where you are, and at what time period, will have a constitutive effect on the kind of work you produce. Especially during times of turmoil in social, economic, or political life, there are opportunities for a radically altered art and architecture. Such creative processes are both a reflection of changing contexts but also an act of re-creation: it is an interpretive strategy and an opportunity to reimagine, even transcend the present. Los Angeles, currently in a time of radical change itself is one location where new hybridities are created, a process which is heavily influenced by the changing cultural dynamics of Los Angeles (Davis 1992, 11). This process, along with the current urban turmoil, produces an emergent hybrid culture, visible in the arts, and contemporary urban practices, and architecture (Gonzalez, 1999; Rojas, 1999). This dissertation describes and explains