NY Times' Nicolai Ourousoff Plants Sloppy Wet One on LA

Lest we forget that NY Times architecture critic Nicolai Ourousofffffff began his vaunted career at the LA Times (he was a nominated finalist for a Pulitzer Prize in 2004), yesterday's article on the New York Five, a group of influential architects including the recently deceased Charles Gwathmey, serves as a reminder that Nicky may be gone, but LA is hardly forgotten. Ourousoff, recalling the architectural innovation that once dominated New York and then slid into "effort[s] to suburbanize the city’s core and make it safe for tourists" draws on the old trope that New York's loss was Los Angeles' gain: "The country’s creative energy shifted westward, to Los Angeles, whose vibrant mix of urban grit and nature, abundance of relatively cheap land and lack of confining historical traditions allowed architects to experiment with a freedom that had become virtually impossible in New York." Besides name-checking the usual suspects (Gehry, Mayne and Moss, natch), he also acknowledges the work of "a younger generation, including Greg Lynn, Michael Maltzan, Neil Denari and the team of Kevin Daly and Chris Genik, that has no real equivalent in New York." [Image of Denari's High Line 23 Condos courtesy of architect]
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