What do you guys think of housing design? Personally, I’d like to see better housing design and urban planning.
Here’s an interesting LA Times West Magazine article on the Persian Palace.
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Full LA Times Article
In Defense of the Persian Palace
They’re ostentatious and ridiculous and blot out their neighbors’ sun. They’re also open to light and the street, and expressive of an inviting, sociable culture.
By Greg Goldin, Greg Goldin is Los Angeles magazine’s architecture critic.
December 17, 2006
Here, in two words, is the architecture that Los Angeles, the city that loves and hates architecture, currently loves to hate: Persian Palace. No other coinage so immediately evinces dismissal and revulsion. It is the ultimate form of “mansionization,” taking a small lot and building the largest possible box on it. A compleat Persian Palace—there are many minor variations and lesser imitations—is distinguished by its exaggerated moldings, numberless layers of cornices, elaborate grillework and columns galore. A Persian Palace brazenly combines motifs and wantonly disregards proportion and scale. A giraffe could glide through the front door without stooping, then turn around and peer out the clerestory window while grazing on a crystal chandelier. In Beverly Hills, where the Persian Palace may have originated and certainly came to prominence, the design is now banned. In Glendale, where steep ravines have been piled high with faux stone and banded entablature, it must abide by strict official architectural guidelines. Elsewhere—as in Valley Glen, where some residents have begun leafletting against encroaching mansionization—it is often unwelcome, a sign that, if nothing else, a neighborhood is in for sniping over the look and size of its homes.
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