Sam Lubell

Greg Goldin

Following on the success of Never Built Los Angeles (Metropolis Books, 2013), authors Greg Goldin and Sam Lubell now turn their eye to New York City. New York towers among world capitals, but the city we know might have reached even more stellar heights, or burrowed into more destructive depths, had the ideas pictured in the minds of its greatest dreamers progressed beyond the drawing board and taken form in stone, steel, and glass. What is wonderfully elegant and grand might easily have been ingloriously grandiose; what is blandly unremarkable, equally, might have become delightfully provocative or humanely inspiring. The ambitious schemes gathered here tell the story of a different skyline and a different sidewalk alike. Nearly 200 ambitious proposals spanning 200 years encompass bridges, skyscrapers, master plans, parks, transit schemes, amusements, airports, plans to fill in rivers and extend Manhattan, and much, much more. Included are alternate visions for such landmarks as Central Park, Columbus Circle, Lincoln Center, MoMA, the U.N., Grand Central Station and the World Trade Centre site, among many others sites. Fact-filled and entertaining texts, as well as sketches, renderings, prints, and models drawn from archives all across the New York metropolitan region tell stories of a new New York, one that surely would have changed the way we inhabit and move through the city.

Never Built New York

Thom Mayne

"Never Built Los Angeles" explores the "what if" Los Angeles, investigating the values and untapped potential of a city still in search of itself. A treasure trove of buildings, master plans, parks, follies and mass-transit proposals that only saw the drawing board, the book asks: why is Los Angeles a mecca for great architects, yet so lacking in urban innovation? Featured are more than 100 visionary works that could have transformed both the physical reality and the collective perception of the metropolis, from Olmsted Brothers and Bartholomew's groundbreaking 1930 Plan for the Los Angeles Region, which would have increased the amount of green space in the notoriously park-poor city fivefold; to John Lautner's Alto Capistrano, a series of spaceship-like apartments hovering above a mixed-use development; to Jean Nouvel's 2008 Green Blade, a condominium tower clad entirely in cascading plants. Through text and more than 400 color and black-and-white illustrations drawn from archives around the U.S., authors Sam Lubell and Greg Goldin explore the visceral (and sometimes misleading) power of architectural ideas conveyed through sketches, renderings, blueprints, models and the now waning art of hand drawing. Many of these schemes--promoting a denser, more vibrant city--are still relevant today and could inspire future designs. "Never Built Los Angeles" will set the stage for a renewed interest in visionary projects in this, one of the world's great cities.

Never Built Los Angeles

Lorcan O’Herlihy

Sinéad Finnerty-Pyne

Good architecture is no longer about simply designing a building as an isolated object, but about meeting head-on the forces that are shaping today’s world. Architecture Is a Social Act: Lorcan O'Herlihy Architects [LOHA] addresses how the discipline can be used as a tool to engage in politics, economics, aesthetics, and smart growth by promoting social equity, human interaction, and cultural evolution. The book features 28 projects drawn across LOHA’s nearly 30-year history, a selection that underscores the direct connection between the development of consciously designed buildings and wider efforts to tackle issues that are relevant in a rapidly changing world. LOHA’s projects range from tiny Santa Monica storefronts to vast urban plans in Detroit, Michigan, and Raleigh, North Carolina. From activating main streets, to designing housing of all shapes and sizes, to bringing hope to the homeless, to developing strategic plans for the future growth of cities, all of the work featured is represented within a larger social framework. Each case study is evidence of LOHA’s mastery of scale, form, light, and space that gives people a true sense of place and belonging. Architecture Is a Social Act: Lorcan O'Herlihy Architects [LOHA] points the way ahead for both people and architecture. Features﻿ A collection of 28 projects completed over nearly three decades gives readers thorough insight – both visually and conceptually – into the work of LA and Detroit-based firm Lorcan O’Herlihy Architects. An important contribution in a post-pandemic world, the book’s main goal is to spark creative ideas and important questions about how architecture can be used in political engagement, smart growth and social structures, in order to improve our urban landscapes and elevate the human condition. Texts by O’Herlihy (Foreword), Frances Anderton (Introduction), Sinéad Finnerty-Pyne and Greg Goldin (project narratives and Afterword) are accompanied by illustrations and renderings by LOHA, and photography by Iwan Baan, Lawrence Anderson, Paul Vu, and others. The book is organized chronologically (starting in the 1990s and ending in 2020) and broken up into six sections, each representing a tipping point for the practice – periods in which LOHA’s work was launched in new directions that brought new sets of challenges, all of which parallel significant historical events. Readers will gain insight into the practice’s process when engaging a new project/site; understanding its history and context, and how it is informed by the culture and ecology of the people who live there.

Greg Goldin

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