LAForum 2020 Summer Newsletter

In this issue: Political posters by Luis Montoya, a look at the Southern California Library and interview with SCL staff member Yusef Omowale on the library and social justice archive in south L.A., activist posters by Cal Poly Landscape Architecture students in Nina Briggs’ shade equity studio and student photos of uprisings all around Los Angeles. The 2020 Summer Newsletter also features translations of select content en español — a first for LA Forum.

The 2020 Summer Newsletter also includes interviews, notes, responses, and reflections from the first six months of 2020 as an appendix, indicative of the rapidly changing nature of architecture and urban design and they are a reminder of what we should sit with, embrace, and acknowledge as the warp speed shift of “now” carries us to another reality.

As we read, these texts are filtered through the simultaneous crises of social and racial injustice, a public health and well-being disaster, and climate chaos. The voices included here ask about the extent to which our efforts as designers are compromised by institutionalized presumption. They posit that times of crises can reveal real opportunities for radical interpretation, adaptation, and transformation, and they remind us about the prospect of a built environment in service to all of humanity.

Mitchell De Jarnett, Nina Briggs and Wendy Gilmartin, Editors

To download the Newsletter, click here.

This publication is made possible in part by a grant from City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs.

PUBLISHED 2020