![\"A+D3755](\"https:\/\/aecom.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/AD3755-2-1.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nThe exhibit is comprised of numerous models, renderings, blueprints and drawings that explore buildings, master plans, parks, and transportation proposals that had the potential to radically reorder Los Angeles.\u00a0 The collection shares alternative realities that are presumably better or worse than Los Angeles today \u2014 in many cases, the City is fortunate that many of the projects never came to fruition. Perhaps most importantly, the exhibit urges its audience to become active participants in considering how Los Angeles\u2019 civic future can be shaped from these unrealized projects of the not-so-distant past. For better or worse, the visionary works shown had a great potential to influence and reshape Los Angeles, but were undermined by institutions, agencies, economics and infrastructure. Had even one of these projects been completed, the character of Los Angeles might be strikingly different.<\/p>\n
One of the city\u2019s biggest character flaws stems from Los Angeles\u2019 struggles to establish a consistent attitude towards its private and public land. For a city that boasts some of the most experimental and exciting residential architecture in the world, its public space is, for the most part, disappointing. The Barnsdall Art Park, Griffith Park, Elysian Park, Runyon Canyon, and Grand Park are superlative examples of pockets of unique and well-used public space.\u00a0 However, for a city of its size, Los Angeles\u2019 metropolitan area is the 13th<\/sup> largest in the world, and with such an idyllic environment, having an average of only 35 rainy days annually, there is a dearth of connectivity between public realms.\u00a0 It\u2019s also worth noting that nearly all the aforementioned successfully public spaces devote a significant percentage of their mass to parking and, in many cases, are not adequately serviced by public transportation.<\/p>\n By educating its audience on plans developed by urban visionaries of the past, Never Built: Los Angeles<\/i> gently offers alternatives to such harsh realities.\u00a0 A perfect example is the Olmstead Brothers and Bartholomew Parks, Playgrounds, and Beaches for the Los Angeles Region \u2014 an \u201calternative blueprint\u201d for Los Angeles. Olmstead and Bartholomew foresaw a city without proper access to open public space, debilitated and decentralized by speculative development.\u00a0 After a series of exhaustive studies, Olmstead and Bartholomew recommended that the City of Los Angeles seriously reconsider the detrimental effects of a lack of properly planned public space. In an effort to address the reordering of public and private space, this 1930 report recommended the inclusion of 71,000 acres of small parks \u2014 all within a half-mile walking distance from every residence \u2014 and 92,000 acres of larger parks throughout the region. Within their plan they diagrammed 95 parks with a 440-mile chain of \u201cpleasureway parks\u201d and suggested that the coastline from Malibu to Long Beach be placed in a public trust and remain undeveloped.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n