Building on Pacific Standard Time

A new PST spinoff examines the architecture of L.A. Photo/Gehry Partners LLC

It’s big, it’s sprawling, it’s diverse, it could only have happened in Southern California.

You could be talking about L.A.

Or you could be talking about L.A. architecture, which is the subject of a big, sprawling, diverse SoCal initiative that launches next month, courtesy of the folks who brought you Pacific Standard Time, last year’s sweeping examination of Los Angeles’s place in the post-war art world.

“Pacific Standard Time Presents: Modern Architecture in L.A.” will celebrate the megalopolis’ man-made landscape with nine exhibitions and programs around the Southland, from tours of modernist homes in Pasadena to a first-ever major survey of Los Angeles’ postwar development at the J. Paul Getty Museum.

Underwritten by the Getty Foundation, which made some $3.6 million in grants to 15 participating organizations, the spinoff is about one-sixth the size of last year’s PST. “Obviously, we can’t do an initiative on the scale of Pacific Standard Time every year,” says J. Paul Getty Trust President and CEO Jim Cuno.

Still, it’s comprehensive. The Neutra ranch houses, the Norm’s diners, the Frank Gehry landmarks, the 405 Freeway, Beverly Boulevard photographed from a car window and Wilshire Boulevard explained for participants in CicLAvia—they’re all there (and more) in shows scattered from LACMA and MOCA to the University Art Gallery at Cal Poly Pomona.

Exhibitions are scheduled to run from April through July, though the heaviest programming will run from mid-May until mid-June. For a full list of events, click here.

Posted 3/7/13