Los Angeles Union Station

by Marlyn Musicant (Editor), William Deverell (Contributor), Matthew W. Roth (Contributor)

Union Station today is a celebrated architectural icon and vibrant centerpiece of Los Angeles’s regional transportation network. Designed by John and Donald B. Parkinson, its mission revival architecture speaks to a mythic vision of Spanish heritage, but with streamline moderne and art deco details. At first glance this masterpiece, conceived as a magnificent gateway to the growing metropolis, offers no hint of the civic, financial, and legal battles surrounding its development, siting, style, and construction―battles that were waged across decades in the early twentieth century and that went as high as the U.S. Supreme Court.
 
Los Angeles Union Station explores this compelling example of how transit and corporations disrupted regional balances of power and political economies. Aided by new research and beautiful drawings from the Getty Research Institute’s archive, the authors demonstrate how contentious politics informed architectural design―and the many ways in which Union Station was at the heart of the rise of Los Angeles. The book accompanies the exhibition No Further West, on view at the Los Angeles Public Library from May 2 through August 10, 2014.

Genres: History

128 pages, Hardcover

First published May 2, 2014

Reviews

[Travis · Rating 3 out of 5]

This has some nice photos and architectural drawings, but it felt like I was reading a not particularly engaging textbook, with the author just throwing out lots of names and dates.

[Joan Stewart Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Los Angeles Union Station," edited by Marlyn Musicant of the Getty Research Institute, is full of fascinating information, a beautiful book, with many original drawings and photographs. Unfortunately, it has the text of a stodgy school textbook or doctoral dissertation. Unlike the book's entrancing visuals, the prose does not inspire the reader – in fact, it has the opposite effect.

I think its creators could learn from books like "Wilshire Boulevard: The Grand Concourse of Los Angeles," by Kevin Roderick, with research by J. Eric Lynxwiler. That book combined visuals with an engaging writing style that its subject deserved. "Los Angeles Union Station" needs better writing to keep the trains running, so the reader does not step off at an early stop.

[danny estrada · Rating 5 out of 5]

This limited-run book on the history and architecture of Union Station is an amazing read and an amazing look. The photographs brought life to a station I'd been looking at virtually every day and had forgotten how beautiful it really was. The inclusion of several contemporary maps and resources illustrating the material conditions that allowed Union Station to happen were eye-opening.

[Connor Jackson]

A lovely coffee table book about my favorite building

[Lorenzo Diaz campos · Rating 5 out of 5]

La arquitectura es posiblemente la más compleja de las bellas artes porque para su materialización requiere, en la mayoría de los casos, de la aprobación por parte de la comunidad donde será construida. Los complejos e intrincados procesos que se requieren para lograr los permisos, autorizaciones, financiamientos y demás acuerdos para erigir a un edificio rara vez se conocen y con el paso del tiempo las anécdotas y hechos que giran alrededor de lo construido desaparecen.
La estación ferroviaria central de la ciudad de Los Ángeles, como muchos otros edificios públicos, tiene detrás una fascinante historia. Este libro ha logrado reunir los hechos y documentos que narran lo acontecido. Gracias a una generosa donación al J. Paul Getty Trust y al trabajo de Marlyn Musicant los más de 6,000 documentos que forman el patrimonio histórico documental de este espacio público han podido editarse en este sabroso volumen. Este libro se presenta en paralelo a una exposición en la Biblioteca Pública de la Ciudad de Los Angeles que estará en muestra hasta el 10 de Agosto del 2014.
Por primera vez la historia se cuenta completa y se muestra con imágenes inéditas de primerísima calidad. Detalles constructivos y decorativos —que son el deleite para cualquier diseñador u arquitecto— anécdotas que hacen ver lo difícil que es el oficio de arquitecto y lo complejo que fue y seguirá siendo erigir un espacio público que, por la pasión misma que envuelve, se convierte después de todo en emblemático.
La gloria del ferrocarril en la costa oeste de Norte América tuvo ya su momento, pero las lecciones están de pié.

[Jeramey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Real brief history book on the station. Nothing like the tomes you'll read on Grand Central.

[Michele Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully written and illustrated, a very good history not only of Union Station but also the City of Los Angeles and its transportation system.