The Los Angeles House

In The Los Angeles House, Street-Porter celebrates the city that has shown us more trends in design, architecture, and decoration than any other. He calls the city America's design laboratory, a kaleidoscopic succession of vistas, vegetation, and houses in an almost infinite variety of styles. This architectural landscape is essentially American, for the architects of Los Angeles - unlike those in the rest of the country, who have looked to Europe for their models - have responded to their own particular circumstances, from the city's topography to a state of mind nurtured by the film industry. In the way the city developed and in its invention, it is the quintessential 20th-century city.