Local Events

"Culture in Concrete"
LA River Presentation and HPHT Board Meeting

Monday, January 9, 2012
Program Meeting, 7:00PM
Presentation will be followed by
an HPHT Board Meeting
Hathaway-Sycamores Family Resource Center
840 N. Avenue 66, Los Angeles, CA 90042

John Arroyo, former HPHT board member, presents Culture in Concrete: Art and the Re-imagination of the Los Angeles River as Civic Space, his award-winning MIT urban planning/design master's thesis.

The Los Angeles River is the common thread that connects many of Los Angeles’s most diverse and underrepresented communities. Once a natural and alluvial river, a series of devastating floods led the Army Corps of Engineers to pave the 51-mile River with concrete in the 1930s. The River has been forgotten, abandoned, degraded, and largely misunderstood by many ever since. Artists have taken to the River as a creative venue. Their actions have re-defined the River and offer urban planners, designers, and policy-makers the opportunity to re-imagine the River as the civic space that Los Angeles is desperately seeking, but has yet to find. This thesis examines the patterns, motivations, and history behind over 40 largely unheralded art projects over a 20-year period along the River’s Glendale Narrows, Lower Arroyo Seco, and downtown Los Angeles segments. It illustrates why generations of artists representing have been inspired to engage with the River’s concrete and natural forms.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/62182369/Culture-in-Concrete-Art-and-the-Re-imagination-of-the-Los-Angeles-River-as-Civic-Space

Free Tai Chi Classes Every Sunday, 8:30am Audubon Center at Debs Park, ca.audubon.org/debs_park.htm
 

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