Assignment Two: Los Angeles and Architecture

The goal of this assignment will be to explore architectural spaces in Los Angeles while considering the role that buildings play in the emotional, pragmatic, and aesthetic make up of a city. Projects can be approached in color, black and white, or digital means.

Please choose from one of the following assignments:

1. Buildings as Sites of Personal Connection

For this assignment, you will photograph at least three buildings that have served as the backdrop for the most significant moments in your life in Los Angeles. These buildings may be sites where friendships were formed or broken, a first job, a site where an important decision was made, etc. Combine your images with text to create a personal map of the city.

2. LA and the Erasure of the Past

Buildings become symbolic markers of a city, but due to such things as gentrification, rezoning, or commercialization, they can be torn down completely or reconfigured for new purposes.

The Von der Ahe Library is listed in the Guiness Book of World Records for having the largest postcard collection west of the Mississippi River. The Special Collections department in the basement of the library has close to a million postcards systematcally arranged by city. Find two postcards from 1960 or earlier of an exact site in the city (an address, cross street, etc) in the special collections library. (You can request a Xeroxed reproduction of the card). Go to these sites and photograph the same scene from the same vantage point to compare and contrast past and present.

3. Formal Architectural Studies

Shoot a series of at least four images of one architecturally significant building that you have never been to before. Try to take the formal attributes of the building that makes it unique and translate it to a photographic image. Suggested locations include: The Schindler House, the Getty Museum, Randy's Doughnuts, the Bradbury Building, Encounter, Tail of the Pup Hot Dog Stand, The Watts Towers, Graumans Chinese Theater, Aztec Hotel in Monrovia, Union Station, Disney Concert Hall, or any other buidling referred to in Reyner Banham's "Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies." This assignment must be done with the 4x5 camera. When shooting 4x5 in public, it is a good idea to bring a friend to help you. Also, call your location of choice ahead of time to ensure that you can photography there. You can hand in contact sheets rather than enlargements if desired.

4. Location Scouting

For this assignment, you will set up two staged narrative tableauxes in which the subjects are dominated by the architecture of a space and the buildings themselves contribute to the overall pathos and mood of the image, essentially becoming characters in the scenes themselves. For example, the action of the scene might be heightened with the dominance of a futuristic building, or listlessness and boredom might be accentuated by the inclusion of tract housing. These images should not be portraits taken in architectural spaces, but rather staged scenes with an implied narrative.

DUE: OCTOBER 4