Stories from the Library: Los Angeles, Revisited

Name: Stories from the Library: Los Angeles, Revisited | The Huntington
Start: Sat, Jun 21 - Mon, Dec 1 2025
Location: The Huntington

Exhibitions

Perhaps no other American city has so thoroughly perplexed and inspired people—or been as maligned and mythologized—as Los Angeles. This exhibition celebrates the reciprocal influence of the city and its artists and visionaries, whose stories are inherently intertwined.

In 1900, LA had the world’s largest interurban railway system, which later provided the framework for the world’s longest freeway system. What emerged was a collection of neighborhoods over hundreds of square miles without a central hub, making it one of the largest and most culturally diverse regions in America. But periods of rapid growth and urbanization also prompted renewal efforts in places like the original Chinatown and Bunker Hill, forcing families from their homes and erasing the city’s past.

Centering on plans for LA’s first skyscraper—the Braly Block, designed in 1902 by architect John Parkinson—this exhibition explores the ways in which architects, planners, business owners, and activists have contended with an aspirational city that is constantly evolving. What has resulted, in part, is an urban landscape as varied as the Southern California climate.

A blueprint elevation drawing of a building.

A full-color concept sketch of a restaurant building.

An accordion style book with gray photographs of a city.

A hand-drawn map of Los Angeles depicting major streets and landmarks.

A composite image, on left an abandoned mini-golf course, on right a parking lot in a strip mall.

John Parkinson, architect, Building for Southern California Savings Bank [Braly Block], elevation to Spring Street, 1902, ink on tracing cloth. | The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens.

John Hyde Braly, a banker from the Midwest, chose John Parkinson as the architect for his namesake building. At 12 stories, Braly Block became the first skyscraper in Los Angeles. A triumph in modern architecture and engineering, the Beaux Arts–style building heralded the transformation of Los Angeles from a remote outpost to a metropolitan city. Braly Block would remain LA’s tallest building for two decades, until it was surpassed by another Parkinson design, Los Angeles City Hall. Other major commissions for Parkinson followed, including the LA Memorial Coliseum, the USC campus master plan, and Los Angeles Union Station, making him one of the architects who had the most influence on the city’s skyline.

John Parkinson, architect, Building for Southern California Savings Bank [Braly Block], elevation to Spring Street (detail), 1902, ink on tracing cloth. | The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens.

Lee Linton (attrib.) for Armet & Davis, architects, Googies, ca. 1955, tempera or grease pencil over graphite on tracing paper. Gift of Victor M. Newlove. Courtesy of Victor Newlove on behalf of Armet Davis Newlove Architects, 2025. | The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens.

In 1955, the owner of Googies Coffee Shop, designed by architect John Lautner and located on the Sunset Strip, opened a second location downtown at Fifth and Olive streets. “Googie” architecture, a consumer-oriented design style that combined elements of space-age futurism with the city’s car culture, lent itself to the commercial success of roadside businesses. The firm Armet & Davis popularized the vernacular coffee shops and restaurants that proliferated across the country. Features of the style included highly visible, futuristic elements such as upswept roofs, large expanses of glass, open kitchens, bold colors, and prominent signage—now iconic vestiges of midcentury Los Angeles.

Edward Ruscha, Every Building on the Sunset Strip, 1966, photographically illustrated accordion-format book. © Ed Ruscha | The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens.

Starting in 1963, with the publication of Twentysix Gasoline Stations, artist Ed Ruscha began a series of photographic artist books that document ordinary aspects of life in Los Angeles. At the time, he witnessed what he called “aggressive architectural activity” happening in the city. To capture the iconic Sunset Strip at that moment in time, he mounted a camera on the back of a pickup truck, photographing a mile and a half of storefront planes as they wind through West Hollywood. The resulting pages of this accordion-format book pair two elevations, stretching out to 25 feet, revealing both sides of one of the most famous streets in Los Angeles.

Eve Babitz, Map of Los Angeles, ca. 1977, graphite and ink on paper. Eve Babitz Papers. © Estate of Eve Babitz. | The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens.

Now remembered as an iconoclast, friend to the stars, and literary stylist, Eve Babitz portrayed 20th-century bohemian Los Angeles in her articles, essays, and novels. Her bylines appeared in Rolling Stone, Vogue, and the Los Angeles Free Press (often called “the Freep”), among other publications. Except for stints in Europe and a year in New York, which she disliked, Babitz spent most of her time living in and defending her home city of Los Angeles. This map—part travel guide, part characteristic sass—accompanied an article in which she expressed her exasperation with the cultural centrality of New York.

Left, Tim Bradley, Miniature Golf, from the California Dwelling series, ca. 1980, Kodak Ektacolor RC contact print from 8 x 10 in. negative. © Tim Bradley. Right, Tim Bradley, Untitled (Miniature Golf course site revisited), 2022, color inkjet print. © Tim Bradley. | The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens.

From 1978 to 1981, Tim Bradley lived in and photographed neighborhoods in and around the city of Glendale, which he described as having an “uncanny visual presence.” He found the layering of old bungalows, postwar apartments, and vintage cars made the area look timeless. With an initial interest that was mostly aesthetic and inspired by the color photography processes that had emerged during the 1970s, Bradley soon realized he was also documenting a fragile corner of Los Angeles that could one day be replaced. In the early 2020s, he revisited many of the sites he had photographed for his California Dwelling series, offering a then-and-now perspective on the neighborhood.

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Stories from the Library: Los Angeles, Revisited

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