Piecing Together Los Angeles: An Esther McCoy Reader
Affection isn't a word often used to describe architecture criticism, but that's the ruling emotion of Piecing Together Los Angeles, the first collection of the writings of California historian and critic Esther McCoy (1904-89). There's McCoy's affection for Los Angeles superstars like Charles Eames, Pierre Koenig and John Lautner when they were young and needed books like McCoy's Five California Architects (1960) to give their work a backstory-and when they were old, and the world needed a reminder of their talents. Reyner Banham called McCoy "the founding mother" and said, "She has the gift of friendship...and is profoundly concerned about people... and that is one of the special strengths she brings to her architectural writing." This book, which collects McCoy's never-finished memoirs, essays on three generations of California architects, fiction, and retrospective essays from the 1980s, is the product of editor Susan Morgan's affection for McCoy's whole project. (Alexandra LangeArchitectural Record2012-05-01)McCoy has long been a hero among students of modern architecture in southern California, a subject scarcely defined until she came along. What has not yet been sufficiently recognized is the subdued power of McCoy's prose. There is an extraordinary delicacy in the way McCoy moves from the idea of architecture to the reality. Now, with the publication of Piecing Together Los Angeles, we can see deep into McCoy's complex imagination. (Jed PerlThe New Republic2012-04-25)