Shapes and colors and openings are not the only way that architecture can reveal the blessings of the site. An architect’s power lies in proposing activities as much as designing the hull wherein those activities will take place. It’s a form of writing scripts.
Here’s another exercise in deep recreation: a private sportscars museum in Southern California with a racing track on the roof. The rockstar architectural historian Reyner Banham learned to drive specifically so that he may study the architecture of Los Angeles. Not out of practicality but out of analytical depth, for Los Angeles, he believed, is meant to be experienced from the driver’s seat.
Here a kart racing track sits on-top of an automobile gallery with a capacity for 20 cars on display and over 90 in storage. Driving miniature cars in the company of friends over the roof is a tongue-in-cheek form reenacting the tectonic change that automobiles, freeways and intersections have had on our lives. It’s a toy version of commuting.
Surreptitiously, this cheeky collective pastime is an avenue (no pun intended) to grasping the elusive Angelino identity.
Renderings by Reflexiv Architektur
2024
