Design and Architecture

Painter David Hockney defined LA as a British transplant in the 1960's. Now another young artist, Ramiro Gomez, is putting a new face on it. We meet two painters with unique perspectives of Los Angeles, and the critic who brought them together. And the LA Mayor's office has vowed to revise the city's 35 community plans in the next decade. Will this diffuse the moratorium effort, and create a better planned LA that also provides much-needed housing?

LA is about to get its own biennial, with a focus on public art that will comment on one of LA's most important pieces of infrastructure, the LA River.

At the Electrical Training Institute, in the City of Commerce, 1,500 apprentices are becoming the electricians for an energy-efficient future. Jacob Zuma, the president of South Africa, has been criticized for his taxpayer-funded, excessive home renovations. And we hear about an infamous dictator whose interior decor was the subject of glowing spreads in glossy magazines: Adolf Hitler.

Here are two assumptions being challenged at LACMA: men don't care about clothes, and fashion is frivolous.

We pay tribute to a titan of architecture, Zaha Hadid, who died in Miami last week. Writer Geoff Manaugh argues that burglars have a lot to teach architects about buildings. And we remember a time when men wore corsets, padded stockings and used swords as fashion accessories.

The LA City Council now has a comprehensive plan to repair the city’s aging sidewalks. 

Jobs have left America, but there's growth in new high-tech manufacturing jobs. What are they? How are people being trained for them? First there was the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative, now there's the Build Better LA initiative. Why has housing become a ballot box battle? And we visit TOM House in Echo Park, a museum and mecca for LA "leathermen" and admirers of the homoerotic illustrations of Tom of Finland.

The LA City Council’s thrown its support behind a new development project near the Hollywood Palladium.

Is artificial intelligence a threat to "human culture and history" or a pleasant addition to it? DnA meets Watson and considers the implications of assistance from 'cognitive computing' in our daily lives. Plus, a new opera dramatizes the epic battle between Robert Moses and Jane Jacobs, and Janette Sadik-Khan continues the fight over the streets of New York.

China's top government officials are scientists or engineers. Is there a connection between innovation and the types of politicians we elect? Plus, a new book explores American balladeer Woody Guthrie's early years in Los Angeles. Hauser Wirth & Schimmel, a vast new art complex, opened this weekend in downtown LA's Arts District. And LA Fashion Week launches this week.