Architecture in Los Angeles: A Compleat Guide

I bought this book at a rummage sale as I am a native Angeleno interested in Los Angeles history. This is a quite excellent and thorough book which covers not only the city itself but surrounding areas. It provides addresses and maps, making it easy to conduct a self-guided tour of the fascinating diversity of Southern California architecture. Now here's the bad news: this book is out of print, and considering how rapidly the face of Los Angeles changes (this book includes the famous Brown Derby Restaurant, which no longer exists), it's a shame there is no updated edition of this book. I believe such an updated version would be extremely valuable to architecture students and SoCal architecture buffs. If this is you, I recommend tracking down a used copy, but beware: It's almost twenty years out of date.

This book is the indispensable follow-on to Gebhard and Winter's 1977 "Architecture in Los Angeles & Southern California," which itself was the greatly expanded version of the skinny 1960's edition. The geographical focus area of "A Compleat Guide" is tighter, but the depth and comprehensiveness greatly expanded. The authors have made invaluable contributions the understanding of Southern California architectural history with these books, all of which are now out of print. Those of us who are fortunate enough to possess copies of Gebhard and Winter's wonderful books have found them to be of endless value in their travels through the region, not to mention architectural research.Given that "A Compleat Guide" is the only book of its kind for the Los Angeles region, and an exceptional one by any standard, it is shocking and disappointing to find the title unavailable. When will this book be reprinted? We can only hope the publishers will come to their senses very soon.