FINANCIAL TIMES
Sixth Street Viaduct project replaces a landmark overpass with a vision for a greener, more vibrant community — and offers an optimistic glimpse of a more united future
by Christopher Grimes
It is a sparkling southern California summer morning and I am climbing over a “do not cross” barrier to begin a winding ascent for a meeting on Los Angeles’ newest piece of civic design: architect Michael Maltzan’s elegant Sixth Street Viaduct. A friendly worker in a hard hat waves me across when I tell her that I’m here to see the man who designed the bridge.
While waiting for Maltzan to arrive, I admire the view from the latest addition to LA’s skyline, which opened July 9. To the west is the buzzy Arts District in downtown LA, while to the east is the working-class Latino neighborhood of Boyle Heights. Beyond are skyscrapers, cars on tangled freeways and LA’s ubiquitous helicopters.
Maltzan appears in a white canvas sun hat and dark sunglasses. We begin by talking not about his design, but about the bridge that had stood here until 2016: an iconic Depression-era structure that was demolished after decades of repairs failed to halt its structural rot.
The original Sixth Street Viaduct was a product of the 1930s “City Beautiful”movement, and later dubbed LA’s “most cinematic” bridge thanks to its appearance ina vast number of films, TV shows, music videos and advertisements. John Travolta sped under it in the famous drag racing scene shot along the concrete-lined LA River in Grease. Madonna danced in its shadow in her “Borderline” video, and it featured in chase sequences in The Last Action Hero and Repo Man.
Given the history, Maltzan — a New York native who has lived in LA since the late1980s — knew he had to come up with something cool. “When we won the design competition, I had a real moment of anxiety,” the 62-year-old architect tells me.“Replacing an icon was one of the daunting tasks we faced. That bridge lived in people’s consciousnesses.”
Dubbed the “Ribbon of Light,” the $588m project features a series of concrete arches that rise and fall along the 3,500-ft (1,066 metre) span, with each arch canting outward by 9 degrees. “My goal was to give a sense of space that opens out to the sky,”he says. To me, the arches imply motion, rhythm.
Perhaps radically for car-loving LA, Maltzan has included generous pedestrian walkways and bike lanes, which people are using on the morning we meet. Below us,work is under way to create a 12-acre park, and there is a plan to give Angelinos better access to the LA River (which, it has to be said, is more of an LA Trickle during some times of the year.
Many wonder whether the LA River even is a river, given that it was paved and“channelised” following a pair of deadly floods in the 1930s. The city is now trying to allow it to return to more of a natural state.“It’s a huge project to re-establish the river, but it is happening,” he says.
For Maltzan, the bridge, park and river rehabilitation are all part of what he hopes will be a larger transformation of LA —from a city choked by traffic and dominated by single-family homes into a greener city with enough housing for everyone. But this will require a fundamental rethink about what life in southern California is all about.
To get there, Angelinos will need to shed their obsessions about owning houses with spacious lawns and multi-car garages — the building blocks of the mid-centuryCalifornia dream — and embrace public transport and high-density flats.
“The greatest proportion of the funky, interesting and radical architecture [in 20th-century] LA was in the single-family home,” he says. “But that is changing. The question is, how do you evolve the best parts of living in southern California for everyone?”
He sees the answer around him every day among the young people in his neighborhood, the hipster (and modern architecture) mecca of Silver Lake. “There’s no doubt in my mind that change is going to be largely driven by a younger generation demanding a different way of living in the city,” he says.
Looking out on downtown LA from the bridge, Maltzan’s optimism feels refreshing, particularly at a moment when many believe the US is coming unstuck and taking the rest of the world with it. He acknowledges that there are serious problems. California — a severe lack of affordable housing and a homelessness crisis chief among them — but believes they can be fixed.
Since moving to Los Angeles a year ago, I have been struck by the persistence of the idea that California is an incubator for the nation — that public policies, social and political trends and technological breakthroughs happen here first and are adopted everywhere else sooner or later. After living in Asia for four years, I assumedCalifornia’s moment was beginning to pass. But I have come to recognize that there is still unmistakable energy here, despite legitimate concerns that the state is losing its edge to low-tax, low-regulation states such as Texas.
The biggest proponent of California exceptionalism is the state’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, who has been taking his message of muscular liberalism on the road recently — prompting speculation that he could run for the US presidency in2024 if Joe Biden decides not to seek re-election.
Newsom has asserted himself on the national stage before, declaring himself the leader of the anti-Trump “resistance”. This time, he is tapping into anger amongDemocrats at the Supreme Court’s reversal of abortion rights and the failure to pass meaningful gun control laws. He has even been running advertisements in the battleground state of Florida, whose governor, Ron DeSantis, is seen as the top rival toDonald Trump for the 2024 Republican nomination.
The 54-year-old Newsom’s palpable anger has been contrasted with Biden’s more measured approach. “Where the hell’s my party?” Newsom said earlier this year.
He has had problems as governor, including an unsuccessful but distracting recall effort last year sparked by his flagrant violation of his own Covid-19 policies. But he is sitting on a record $100bn budget surplus, which he is planning to use to enact policies reflecting California’s “unshakeable values”. He is expected to cruise to re-election this year.
A hack political operative could easily wedge a Newsom presidential run into the narrative of California reasserting itself as America’s policy laboratory. Just as formerCalifornia senator Richard Nixon and former governor Ronald Reagan helped usher in a new era of conservatism, a Newsom candidacy could spark a return to activist liberalism in the face of Republican over-reach. It seems like a stretch, at least for now.
Back in the real world, Maltzan sees the completion of the bridge — and the plans for creating more civic space around it — as a sign that Los Angeles can still do ambitious work. “We made something in a city,” he said. “This is hugely important, especially when the country is divided.”
