Peter Reyner Banham, a well-known critique examined the built environment of Los Angeles, looking with fresh eyes at its manifestations of popular taste and industrial ingenuity, as well as its more traditional modes of residential and commercial construction. His "four ecologies" concept explored the forms in which Angelenos relates to the beach, the freeways, the flatlands and the foothills. Reyner Banham delighted and identified this mobile city as an exemplary of the post urban future.
Four Ecologies Architecture provides both a history of Los Angeles and a survey of its largely ignored architectural virtues of the Modern and Postmodern period. Interestingly enough, the "four ecologies" are simple subdivisions of the geomorphology of the city and the car-based culture which in turn structure the book. There is little in the study of Banham which is in contemporary terms "ecological."
The freeways are "one of the greatest works of man" for Banham. He even admires the off-ramps earthworks as pleasant views of the suburbia's surrounding flatland, where "the dream, the illusion still holds". However, for Banham,' freeway land' is the utopia of the futuristic no-place with which he assumes his beloved Angelinos are perfectly happy to be living in.
Along with these now well-known classics of Southern Californian living, Banham sees value in cheap suburban neighbourhood "dingbat" architecture. He lauds buildings on the highway, where the sign is larger than the box; he loves Disneyland and drives into temples and further exploring other iconic landmarks that the freeway connects him to.
According to Reyner Banham freeway driving is interesting on itself, from up here as while driving, you get to see the weird and extraordinary places and people which you can hardly see from down below as you have to discover them for yourself. Though you might have read about them, but you may have forgotten about it when you have finally gotten there to experience it when the moment comes.
I personally like how Reyner Banham stops at iconic landmarks to appreciate the architecture especially to use it to appreciate the use of freeways. For instance at the Griffith Park Observatory, one of the classic iconic point to observe the city of Los Angeles. Banham sees the whole enormous view of the city of Los Angeles on a clear day, endless street running from and to miles and miles to what looks like just a plane endless boring American suburban, but when you look into it more closely and you realise it is really a very different kind of plane of the city showing the people and the places.
Reyner Banham stresses that though Los Angeles breaks all the rules of being a city without the use of good town planning skills, unlike the town planning in the UK and Paris, the form however does only matter very little and you can build a city in a any shapes you like for as long as the design works.
In relation to the article by Reyner Banham, recently, Design Studio 4 of SABE UCSI University had a short trip to both Kelantan and Terengganu. During our visit to the iconic spot called the ‘ Pura Pura Tanjung Sabtu ‘, I have realised that there are few similarities that can be linked and compared to from the article ‘ Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies ‘ in terms of how the freeways can be seen changing into smaller roads and connecting suburban to the outskirts area of Kuala Terengganu.
Reyner Banham likes how there are cheap accommodations alongside the streets of Los Angeles and comparing to Kuala Terengganu, the house there are also considered quite cheap providing the sense of comfortability with the quality of spaces and cool atmosphere all around the site.
In contradiction to the freeways of Los Angeles relating to Kuala Terengganu, the quality of air pollution highly differs at both regions or area. The freeways of LA is more polluted considering the Angelano’s prefer to live most of their life’s on the road while the Kuala Terengganu are providing more vegetations and a sense of coolness around it despite the weather constantly being above 30 degrees centigrade. Besides the air pollution, the visual or light pollution at Kuala Terengganu is very low compared to the billboards of advertisements next to the freeways of Los Angeles. Though many Angelano’s don’t mind the visual pollution, but considering the air pollution and the lights from the billboard combining and causing the heat to be trapped in the city making the temperature around the area to be very warm especially at night.
As for the mode of transportations, the freeways of Los Angeles mainly gets on the 4 wheels of a car, trucks and etc. However, in Pura Tanjung Sabtu, the mode of transportation mainly gets on cars, motorcylces and boats. It is one of a kind because the Angelano prefers to be getting their hands on their car vehicles while at Pura Tanjung Sabtu, most of the villagers would rather ride their bikes or get on a boat to travel in a group to common places like the famous market at the Pulau Duyung.
It doesn’t matter in which part of the world you are, as long as you have a point of interest in the place where you live and how you decide to live with it. Reyner Banham loved the freeways of los Angeles and he decides to be an Angelano even though he is not from that particular region or country. It is the way how he looked at things and appreciate it even though some experts say that the town planning of the city of Los Angeles is bad compared to other European countries. Sometimes, when we appreciate somethings, we see things differently. Even the smallest things like the roads, the people and the atmosphere around us change according to how we plan to define certain things in our life. It is my hope that the people in Kuala Terengganu will have the same idea and appreciate how the area around Pura Tanjung Sabtu is worth the time to be spent, having the most quality experiences possible.
REFERENCES
Reyner Banham Loves Los Angeles. (2020). Retrieved 11 February 2020, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlZ0NbC-YDo
Marshall, C. (2020). A 'radical alternative': how one man changed the perception of Los Angeles. Retrieved 11 February 2020, from https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/aug/24/radical-alternative-reyner-banham-man-changed-perception-los-angeles
Reyner Banham's "Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies" - Features - art-agenda. (2020). Retrieved 11 February 2020, from https://www.art-agenda.com/features/233589/reyner-banham-s-los-angeles-the-architecture-of-four-ecologies
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