They call LA the City of Dreams: all those doe-eyed hopefuls yearning to grace the silver screen, only to grace the valet stand.
But there’s another meaning — as in, the architectural wonders that were dreamed, but never built.
And damn, the renderings sure are pretty.
Feast your eyes on Never Built: Los Angeles, a just-Kickstarted retrospective of fanciful renderings hatched by the A+D Museum.
In other words: photos and models of daring projects — soaring bridges, dramatic LAX terminals — that nearly became realities, but were jettisoned thanks to community intransigence or municipal roadblocks.
To wit: the Causeway, a water-based freeway stretching from Santa Monica to Malibu, which was five years in when it was abandoned by the legislature.
And: Frank Lloyd Wright’s domed and high-spired sports club in the hills of Runyon Canyon.
All in, Never Built will include 30 individual pieces ranging from schematics to animated examples to fully-constructed monorails to an eleven-foot LEGO tower.
The exhibit opens this July and runs until September, and if you help them get to $50,000, they’ll be able to add more works.
After that, quoth the Talking Heads: same as it ever was.
This article was featured in the InsideHook LA newsletter. Sign up now for more from the Southland.