A Companion to Los Angeles by 
An Architectural Guidebook to Los Angeles by
Brief informative captions on buildings, arranged by neighborhood. The most comprehensive guide available.
Arts & Architecture magazine began as California Arts & Architecture in 1929, but it became the unsurpassed magazine of Southern California modernism after John Entenza became the editor in 1940. The A&A website provides PDFs of issues from 1945-1967. The Kappe Library has the Taschen 2008 reprint of 1945-1954 and original issues for 1944-June 1946, 1947-8, 1952-5, 1957-67. Ask at the Office.
Los Angeles Times Historical Archives (Proquest) searchable digitized images covering 1881-1992. Requires Los Angeles Public Library user i.d.
Southern California Quarterly (journal of the Historical Society of Southern California. PDFs of articles from 1962, with a 3-year delay, are available via Jstor)
California Revealed, via Internet Archive (Digitized materials from California libraries, museums and archives)
Instagram locations Los Angeles, and hashtag #losangeles
LA Public Library Online Photo Collection (Searchable database of historic news images from Southern California)
Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce
Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation
Shades of L.A., via Los Angeles Public Library (collection of oral histories reflecting Southern California’s ethnic histories)
Vox Media, L.A.Curbed (“The Los Angeles neighborhoods and real estate blog” since 2005)
Banham, Reyner, Architecture of four ecologies, University of California Press, NA735 .L55 B3 2009
Betsky, Aaron, et al., Experimental architecture in Los Angeles, Rizzoli, NA735.L55E97 1991
Betsky, Aaron, et al., Myth and mirage : inland Southern California, birthplace of the Spanish colonial revival, Riverside Riverside Art Museum, NA730.C22 S686 2017
Bricker, Lauren Weiss, “History in Motion: A Glance at Historic Preservation in California,” Future Anterior: Journal of Historic Preservation, History, Theory, and Criticism, vol. 1, no. 2, 2004, pp. 4–13 (PDF via Jstor)
Cenzatti, Marco, Los Angeles and the L.A. School, Los Angeles Forum for Architecture and Urban Design, F869.L83C36 1993
Cuff, Dana, The Provisional city: Los Angeles stories of architecture and urbanism, MIT Press, NA7238.L6 C84 2000 (Housing, real estate, development and redevelopment)
De Witt, Wim & Christopher James Alexander, Overdrive : L.A. constructs the future, 1940-1990, J. Paul Getty Museum, NA735.L55O94 2013
Gebhard, David & Harriette von Breton, Los Angeles in the Thirties, Peregrine Smith, NA735.L55G42 1989
Gebhard, David & Robert Winter, An architectural guidebook to Los Angeles, Gibbs Smith, NA735.L55G44 2003
Gebhard, David, "The Spanish Colonial revival in Southern California," Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians,, May 1967, p. 131-147 (PDF via Jstor)
Golden, Greg, Never built Los Angeles, Metropolis Books, NA2705.5.G65 2013
Grant, Thurman & Joshua G. Stein, Dingbat 2.0 : the iconic Los Angeles apartment as projection of a metropolis, DoppelHouse Press, NA7862 .L67 D58 2016
Hines, Thomas, Architecture of the sun: Los Angeles modernism 1900-1970, Rizzoli, NA735. L55H56 2010
Jencks, Charles, Heteropolis: Los Angeles, the riots and the strange beauty of hetero-architecture, Academy Editions, Office NA735.L55J46 1993
Lavin, Sylvia, et al., Everything loose will land: 1970s art and architecture in Los Angeles, MAK Center, NA735.L55E94 2013
Longstreth, Richard W., The Drive-in, the supermarket, and the transformation of commercial space in Los Angeles, 1914-1941, MIT Press, HF5429.5.L7L663 1999
Longstreth, Richard W., City center to regional mall: architecture, the automobile, and retailing in Los Angeles, 1920-1950, MIT Press, HF5429.5.L7L66 1997
McCoy, Esther & Randell L. Makinson, Five California architects, Reinhold, NA730.C2M3 (on Gill, Greene & Greene, Maybeck, Schindler)
McCoy, Esther, Case Study Houses 1945-1962, Reinhold, NA7235.C2M2 1977
McCoy, Esther, The second generation, Peregrine Smith, NA730.C2M33 1984 (on Ain, Davidson, Harris, Soriano)
Moore, Charles W., et al., The City observed, Los Angeles: a guide to its architecture and landscapes, Random House, NA735.L55M66 1998 (Originally published 1984, but the analytical essays are still relevant)
Smith, Blueprints for Modern Living: the Case Study House program, NA7235.C22S684 1989
Winter, Robert, Toward a simpler way of life: the Arts and Crafts architects of California, University of California Press, NA730.C2T68 1997
Haas, Lisbeth, Saints and citizens : indigenous histories of colonial missions and Mexican California, University of California Press, 2013. (Ebook via Proquest Ebook Central)
Online Archives of California (part of the California Digital Library project)
Osborne, Thomas J., Pacific Eldorado: a history of greater California, Wiley/Blackwell, F861.O63 2013
Pacific Historical Review (journal of the American Historical Association, Pacific Coast Branch. PDFs of articles from 1932, with a 3-year delay, are available via Jstor)
Pfaelzer, Jean, California, a slave state, Yale University Press, E445.C2 P434 2023
Rolle, Andrew & Arthur C. Verge, California : a history, John Wiley & Sons, 2014 (Ebook via ProQuest Ebook Central)
KEVIN STARR
Kevin Starr’s volumes covering 1850 to 2003, published by Oxford University Press, constitute a standard history of modern California:
Berry, Rob, et al (editors), LA Forum reader, L.A. Forum for Architecture and Urban Design; Actar, HT168.L6 L34 2018
Saito, Leland T., Building downtown Los Angeles : the politics of race and place in urban America, Stanford University Press, HT168.L6 S257 2022
Sanders, James (editor), Renewing the dream : the mobility revolution and the future of Los Angeles, Rizzoli Electa, HT168.L6 R46 2023
Sloane, David C. (editor), Planning Los Angeles, American Planning Association, NA9127. L7 P52 2012
Soja, Edward W., My Los Angeles : from urban restructuring to regional urbanization, University of California, HT168.L6 S65 2014
Varnelis, Kazys (editor), The infrastructural city : networked ecologies in Los Angeles, Actar; The Los Angeles Forum for Architecture and Urban Design, HT168.L8 I54 2008
Kaplan, Wendy, Found in translation : design in California and Mexico, 1915-1985, LACMA, NK1410.C2 D47 2017
Kaplan, Wendy, et al., Living in a modern way: California design, 1930-1965, MIT Press, NK835. C3 C35 2011 (Survey of all design arts)
Tigerman, Bobbye, et al., A Handbook of California design, 1930-1965: craftspeople, designers, manufacturers, MIT Press, NK835 .C3C35 2011
Bahr, Ehrhard, Weimar on the Pacific: German exile culture in Los Angeles and the crisis of modernism, University of California Press, BH301.M54B34 2007
Davis, Mike, City of quartz, Verso, HN80.L7D38 1991
Davis, Mike & Jon Wiener, Set the night on fire: L.A. in the sixties, Verso Books, 2020 (ebook via Ebook Central)
Decherney, Peter, Hollywood : a very short introduction, Oxford University Press, PN1993.5.U65 D44 2016
Faragher, John Mack, Eternity Street: violence and justice in frontier Los Angeles, W. W. Norton, F869.L857F37 2016 (On L.A. in the 19th century)
Flamming, Douglas, Bound for freedom: Black Los Angeles in Jim Crow America, University of California Press, 2005 (ebook via Ebook Central)
Fogelson, Robert M., The Fragmented metropolis: Los Angeles 1850-1930, University of California Press, F869.L95F64 1993
Gottlieb, Robert & Simon Ng, Global cities : urban environments in Los Angeles, Hong Kong, and China, The MIT Press, HC79.E5 .G6573 2017
Gurr, Jens Martin (Editor), Norman M. Klein's "bleeding through: layers of Los Angeles" : an updated edition 20 years later, Transcript,, F869.L857 2023
Hurewitz, Daniel, Bohemian Los Angeles and the making of modern politics, University of California Press, F869.L86E24 2007
Klein, Norman M., The history of forgetting: Los Angeles and the erasure of memory, Verso, F869.L857K57 2008
Matsumoto, Valerie J., City girls : the Nisei social world in Los Angeles, 1920-1950, Oxford University Press, F869.L89 J339 2014
Nusbaum, Eric, Stealing home: Los Angeles, the Dodgers, and the lives caught in between, Public Affiars Books, GV875.L6 N87 2020
Podair, Jerald E., City of dreams : Dodger Stadium and the birth of modern Los Angeles, Princeton University Press, GV417.D63 P63 2017
Scott, Allen John & Edward W. Soja, The city: Los Angeles and urban theory at the end of the twentieth century, University of California Press, HN80.L7C57 1996
Stevens, Errol Wayne, In pursuit of Utopia : Los Angeles in the Great Depression, University of Oklahoma Press, F869.L857 S74 2021
Stevens, Errol Wayne, Radical L. A. : from Coxey's Army to the Watts Riots, 1894-1965, University of Oklahoma Press, HN90.R3 S637 2023
Torres-Rouff, David Samuel, Before L.A. : race, space, and municipal power in Los Angeles, 1781-1894, Yale University Press. F869.L857 T67 2013
Wagner, Anton, Los Angeles : the development, life, and structure of the city of two million in Southern California, Getty Research Institute, F869.L84 W3413 2022
City of Los Angeles General Plan (re-adopted August 8, 2001)
Deverell, William, Water and Los Angeles : a tale of three rivers, 1900-1941, University of California Press, HD4464.L7 D48 2016
Erie, Steven P. & Harold Brackman, Beyond Chinatown: the Metropolitan Water District, growth, and the environment in Southern California, Stanford University Press, HC107.C23E5585 2006
Kahrl, William L., Water and power: the conflict over Los Angeles' water supply in the Owens Valley, University of California Press, HD4464 .L7K33 1982
Libecap, Gary D., Owens Valley revisited: a reassessment of the West's first great water transfer, Stanford Economics and Finance, F868.O9L53 2007
A new infrastructure: innovative transit solutions for Los Angeles: results of an open ideas competition, SCI-Arc, NA 2440 .L67 S688 2009
Varnelis, Kazys, et al., The infrastructural city: networked ecologies in Los Angeles, Actar, HT168 .L8 I54 2008
Walton, John, Western times and water wars: state, culture and rebellion in California, University of California Press, HN79.C22949 1992
Chavoya, C. Ondine, et al, Axis Mundo: queer networks in Chicano L.A., Prestel, N6538.M4 A95 2017
Consulting GPA, Carson Anderson & Wes Joe, Survey L.A.: LGBT Historic Context Statement, prepared for the Los Angeles Department of City Planning, Office of Historic Resources, 2014 (via PDF)
“Explore LGTBQ Los Angeles” (map, short films, and brief overviews of historic places, via The Los Angeles Conservancy)
Faderman, Lillian, Gay L.A.: a history of sexual outlaws, power politics, and lipstick lesbians, Basic Books, HQ76.3 U52 C24 2006
Hurewitz, Daniel, Bohemian Los Angeles and the making of modern politics, University of California Press, F869 .L86 E24 2007
Kenney, Moira, Mapping gay L.A.: the intersection of place and politics, Temple University Press, HQ76.8.U5 K466 2001
Rivera, Reynaldo, Reynaldo Rivera, Semitext(e), TR655 .R58 2020
Tschorn, Adam & Arit John, “20 landmarks that underscore L.A.’s pivotal role in the fight for LGTBQ rights,” Los Angeles Times, June 7, 2021
Gumprecht, Blake, Los Angeles River: its life, death and possible rebirth, Johns Hopkins University Press, F868.L8G86 1999
Hall, Clarence A., Jr., Introduction to the geology of Southern California and its native plants, University of California Press, 2007 (Ebook via ProQuest Ebook Central)
Hise, Greg & William Deverell, Eden by design: the 1930 Olmsted-Bartholomew plan for the Los Angeles region, University of California Press, HT394 .L67E34 2000
McPhee, John, Assembling California, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, QE89.M37 1993
Ornduff, Robert et al., Introduction to California plant life, University of California Press, QK149 .O73 2003
Rundel, Philip W., Introduction to the plant life of Southern California: coast to foothills, University of California Press, QK149.R86 2005
Schoenherr, Allan A., A natural history of California, University of California Press, QH105.C2 S36 2017
Southern California Earthquake Center
Ulin, David L., The myth of solid ground: earthquakes, prediction, and the fault line between reason and faith, Viking, QE538.8.U45 2004
David Carle has covered the four classical elements for the California Natural History Guides:
Adelman, Andrew A., City of Los Angeles zoning code: manual and commentary, City of Los Angeles, KFX1632.A2 2013
Bestor, Barbara, et al., Bohemian Modern: living in Silver Lake, Regan Books, NA735.L55B47 2006
Chávez, Ernesto, Mi raza primero! nationalism, identity, and insurgency in the Chicano movement in Los Angeles, 1966-1978, University of California Press, 2002 (ebook via Ebrary)
City of Los Angeles, Business Improvement Districts
City of Los Angeles, Historic Preservation Overlay Zones
City of Los Angeles, Neighborhood Councils
Auditor - Controller, Los Angeles County, Incorporated areas - cities
Deener, Andrew, Venice: a contested Bohemia in Los Angeles, University of Chicago Press, HN80.L7D44 2012
Flamming, Douglas, Bound for freedom: Black Los Angeles in Jim Crow America, University of California Press, 2004 (via ProQuest Ebrary)
Fong, Timothy P., The first suburban Chinatown: the remaking of Monterey Park, California, Temple University Press, F869.M7F68 1994
Gottlieb, Robert, Reinventing Los Angeles: nature and community in the global city, MIT Press, HT168.L6G68 2007
Gottlieb, Robert, et al., The next Los Angeles: the struggle for a liveable city, University of California Press, HN80.L7 N49 2005
Greenwood, Roberta S., Down by the station: Los Angeles Chinatown, 1880-1933, Institute of Archaeology, UCLA, F869. L86C454 1996
Kelley, Ron & Jonathan Friedlander, Irangeles : Iranians in Los Angeles, University of California Press, F869.L89 I55 1993
Lee, Shelley Sang-Hee, Koreatown, Los Angeles : immigration, race, and the "American dream," Stanford University Press, F869.L86 K675 2022
Mandel, Jennifer, The coveted Westside : how the Black homeowners' rights movement shaped modern Los Angeles, University of Nevada Press, HD7288.76.U52 M355 2022
Marsak, Nathan, Bunker Hill Los Angeles: essence of sunshine and noir, Angel City Press, NA735.L55 M37 2020
Neighborhood and homeowners associations in Los Angeles include Baldwin Hills Estates, Brentwood, Cheviot Hills, Downtown Pasadena, Valley Village, West Adams, West L.A., Wilshire Vista, ....
Rawitsch, Mark Howland, House on Lemon Street: Japanese pioneers and the American Dream, University Press of Colorado, 2012 (ebook via Ebrary)
Sánchez, George J., Becoming Mexican American: ethnicity, culture, and identity in Chicano Los Angeles, 1900-1945, Oxford University Press, 1993 (ebook via Ebrary)
Sánchez, George J., Boyle Heights: how a Los Angeles neighborhood became the future of American democracy, University of California Press, F869.B69 S26 2021
Sidesk Josh, L. A. City limits: African American Los Angeles from the Great Depression to the present, University of California Press, 2004 (ebook via Ebrary)
Waldie, D. J., Holy Land, W. W. Norton, F869.L217W35 1996 (on Lakewood, CA)
Waldinger, Roger David, Ethnic Los Angeles, Russell Sage Foundation, F869.L89A1 1996
Weibel-Orlando, Joan, Indian country, L.A.: maintaining ethnic community in complex society, University of Illinois Press, E78.C15W48 1991
Barnet-Sánchez, Holly & Tim Drescher, Give me life : iconography and identity in East LA murals, University of New Mexico Press, 2016 (Ebook via Proquest Ebook Central)
Brafman, David (writer of introduction), L.A. graffiti black book, Getty Publications, NC138.L68 L3 2021
Curtis, Erin M., et al., ¡Murales rebeldes! : L.A. Chicana/Chicano murals under siege, Angel City Press, ND2638.L67 M87 2017
Gunckel, Colin (editor), Self Help Graphics & Art : art in the heart of East Los Angeles, UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center Press, NC999.4.S45 A4 2014
Kaplan, Ilee & Carol A. Wells (editors), Peace Press graphics 1967-1987 : art in the pursuit of social change, University Art Museum, California State University; Center for the Study of Political Graphics, NC1849.P42 P43 2011
Noever, Peter & Kimberli Meyer (editor), How many billboards? : art in stead, Verlag für Moderne Kunst Nürnberg, N8217.A35 H69 2010
Phillips, Susan A., The city beneath : a century of Los Angeles graffiti, Yale University Press, GT3913.C22 P45 2019
Andersen, Thom, Los Angeles plays itself [videorecording], Cinema Guild, Media Shelf F869.L857L677 2014
Balio, Tino, Grand design: Hollywood as a modern business enterprise, 1930-1939, Schribner, PN1995.5.U6H55 1995 (volume 5 of the History of the American cinema series)
Brown, Jane, et al., Both sides of Sunset: photographing Los Angeles, Metropolis Books, F869.L843B68 2015
Chavoya, C. Ondine, et al, Axis Mundo: queer networks in Chicano L.A., Prestel, N6538.M4 A95 2017
Clark, Robin, et al., Phenomenal: California light, space, surface, University of California Press, N6530.C22 2011
Davis, Mike, Ecology of fear: Los Angeles and the imagination of disaster, HN80 .L7 D37 1998
Field, Allyson, et al., L. A. Rebellion : creating a new Black cinema, University of California Press, PN1995.9.N4 L24 2015 (Ebook also available via Proquest Ebook Central)
Film L.A. (city government office in charge encouraging and facilitating location filming in Los Angeles)
Gilbar, Steven, Natural state: a literary anthology of California nature writing, University of California Press, QH105.C2N425 1998
Grenier, Catherine, Catalog L.A.: birth of an art capital, 1955-1985, Chronicle Books, N6535. L6C38 2007
James, David E., The most typical avant-garde: history and geography of minor cinemas in Los Angeles, University of California, PN1993.5 .U718J36 2005
Jones, Kellie, Now dig this! art & Black Los Angeles, 1960-1980, Prestel, N6538 .N5 J666 2011
Kennedy, Marla Hamburg, et al., Looking at Los Angeles, Metropolis Books, Oversize Shelf F869.L843L655 2005
Mark, Lisa Gabrielle & Paul Schimmel, Under the big black sun: California art, 1974-1981, Prestel, N6530 .C2U53 2011
Nawi, Diana & Pablo José Raímrez, Made in L.A. 2023 : acts of living, Delmonico & D.A.P., N6535.L6 N395 2023
Nelson, Harold B., The House that Sam built: Sam Maloof and art in the Pomona Valley, 1945-1985, Huntington Library, NK2439 .M28 N45 2011
Peabody, Rebecca, et al., Pacific standard time: Los Angeles art, 1945-1980, J. Paul Getty Museum, ND235 .L6P33 2011
Perry, Claire, et al., Pacific arcadia: images of California 1600-1915, Oxford University Press, N8214.5.U6P473 1999
Rivera, Reynaldo, Reynaldo Rivera, Semitext(e), TR655 .R58 2020
Roettinger, Brian &J.C. Gabel, Slash : a punk magazine from Los Angeles, 1977-1980, CA Hat & Beard, ML3534.3 S537 2016
Schatz, Thomas, The genius of the system: Hollywood filmmaking in the studio era, Pantheon Books, PN1993.5.U65S3 1996
Ulin, David L., Sidewalking : coming to terms with Los Angeles, University of California Press, F869.L875 A27 2015
Ulin, David L., Writing Los Angeles: a literary anthology, Library of America, PS572.L6W74 2002
