Urban Operations: Wilshire Star Maps

"No other place in the world has such a fantastic collection of underecognized and underappreciated vertical architecture as in Los Angeles. In a city of mostly low-density avenues and sprawling suburban tracts, no other street in L.A. contains as many of these Modernicus Erectus as Wilshire Boulevard." — Urban Operations

Since 2006, the annual pamphlet on skyscrapers is published as an ongoing research project by the office of Los Angeles architect John Southern, Urban Operations. This year's issue, "Wilshire Star Maps" is a limited edition of 100 prints and a digital edition you are about to enjoy. It also features an essay by Orhan Ayyüce, "Wilshire Boulevard: A Drive-By Family".

Digital copies of Urban Operations' previous pamphlets, Slopscraper, Sumoscraper and Skyscrapers of the Dead are also available at their website.

Wilshire Star Maps by Urban Operations

SpareTop 9/2011. OA

SPACE OF POLITICS

Summer Journal

With all the people traveling and taking pictures of beautiful places they are vacationing, I feel like the people in old city, in front of the social club, a coffee house or the tailor shop, freshly hosed down, you and your friends consider once a year visit to central park of the city a trip to countryside, never leaving the neighborhood, the street, the smell of the buildings, sounds of children playing on the sidewalk, vendors selling their goods, occasionally a rat chased by few people, noise of cars from the boulevard beeping on impulse, friends stopping and chatting about the family, gossiping about the neighbors, regulars playing cards inside the club and the man with a trilby hat talking like a mob boss, every page of the newspaper on the card table is read and creased, this is the city life in the summer, this is New York, Los Angeles, this is Istanbul, this is Cairo, this is Rome, half empty, this is where the old oscillating fans blow and you hear someone washing dishes from upstairs apartment.. This is a travel to everyday life in metropolis.

PLASTIC DUMMY CAMERA

"NEVER TRUST A CAMERA IF IT IS DUM AND PLASTIC"

IF YOU have to SIGN a RELEASE FORM, it's PROBABLY WORTH DOING.

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Genius Production in Architecture Schools

Many times a typical architecture student is made to believe he or she is a special breed, a special talent the world needs, a genius worthy of $15,000 education per semester in private avant garde schools, taught in cutting edge theories and design, by the people who are experts beyond criticism.
But, during the summer when the schools have shed their clothing and no one is around, the reality is a naked truth.
A student needs to see this.
This is the reality, and, this is a snapshot of this condition.
More time for a new school and social research is needed?
If so, drop out now!
Otherwise, you will graduate from your desk, another tuition will be deposited and the new student will start all over again.
It is like being beaux arts f'd every semester. Draw, make, script, present.., whatever and what do you know?