Michael Maltzan, architect: “In Los Angeles, the pressure to relocate people and rebuild as quickly as possible is going to be enormous”
In an interview with “Le Monde”, the architect, whose agency is based in the American city, discusses the problems, issues and prospects following the fires.
Interview by Isabelle Regnier
With the 6th Street Viaduct (2022), the large apartment buildings he designed to house the homeless, the reconstruction of the Hammer Museum, architect Michael Maltzan is gradually reshaping the face of Los Angeles. From his office, located in the Silver Lake neighborhood, spared by the flames, he shares his thoughts on the current disaster .
As an architect, how do you perceive the situation?
Everyone is affected, on multiple levels: personal, emotional… We have many friends who have lost everything. Architecturally, it is a pivotal moment for the city. Many historic houses have disappeared. But, above all, nearly 10,000 homes have gone up in smoke. It is something difficult to conceive of intellectually…
We are used to wildfires in Los Angeles. Houses burning on the edge of mountains are considered inevitable. It is not reasonable to build in canyons, everyone agrees on that… But the fires ravaging the city today are of a different nature. They are urban fires. No one imagined that the flames could ravage such vast areas – the size of Manhattan! The shockwave will reverberate throughout the city, and for years to come.
What structural weaknesses do these fires highlight?
Almost all the houses in Los Angeles are made of wood. Even when the exterior is brick or concrete, the interior is wood. So they are very vulnerable to fire. The tragedy we are experiencing has had the virtue of bringing the urban question into the public debate. We say to ourselves that no neighborhood is safe anymore, that we have to question our ways of living… Everyone is talking about this. Will this translate into action? That is the question.
To what extent did the city’s urban planning contribute to the spread of fire?
An article in the LA Times made a comparison between the current fires and those that regularly ravaged American cities in the 19th century. The most famous of them, the Chicago fire of 1871, practically destroyed the entire city. And it led to a major revision of the building code. American cities have massively converted to these protocols and the huge fires have more or less ceased. But Los Angeles has adopted a model of urban development radically opposed to that of Chicago or New York, that of a proliferating suburban housing estate. The question of fire resistance, here, has never been essential. We are paying the consequences. The prospect of reconstruction requires a new approach.
What can we imagine?
If we take a step back, we say that we should seek a new balance between built density and public space. In the sociocultural context of LA, it is hard to imagine asking people to abandon their individual homes to move into collective housing buildings. But we could draw inspiration from certain experiments conducted after the Second World War, which produced very compact groups of individual homes, assembled around large, shared spaces. By freeing up public space, this type of urban form benefits the community and makes firefighting easier.
This is a reflection that has been animating the architectural community for a while in Los Angeles, but whose implementation is made difficult by regulations, by a certain number of administrative and political blockages. Do you think that the current catastrophe could break these barriers?
If we want to be realistic, we immediately come up against the empire of private property, the question of insurance, the limits set by regulations… Owners have complete freedom, in fact, to rebuild their house as they see fit, and there is a strong chance that the reconstruction will restore the density to the same level. This does not prevent us from imagining small-scale alternatives, which are like prototypes for the future.
And for the rest?
A less radical approach would be to establish lists of materials, to redefine construction methods and fire-fighting systems, the types of plants that can be planted on one’s land… All of this needs to be re-evaluated, and not just in relation to fires. It’s going to get hotter and hotter, energy is going to get more expensive, air conditioning too… We need to see reconstruction as an opportunity to help people make their homes more self-sufficient.
Do you think this kind of measure can be easily applied?
It’s hard to say. The pressure to relocate people and rebuild quickly is going to be enormous. The industrial complex is probably already at work. Insurance companies are going to be called upon, companies are going to be looking to make the most of the situation… This need to move quickly is going to conflict with the city’s responsibility to prevent such a disaster from happening again.
In the 1990s, the riots that followed the Rodney King beating [1965-2012] led Los Angeles to rethink itself. A lot of people mobilized at the time, including architects, to try to help rebuild. But the causes of the riots were very deep, they had to do with social and economic inequality. And it was really over the long term that we were able to find answers. I have the feeling that it will be the same this time.
Social and economic inequality has not really disappeared in Los Angeles…
That’s true. The geography of the fires attests to this. Pacific Palisades, the neighborhood where the first fire spread so brutally, occupies a very strong position in the city, while Altadena, where the second one ravaged everything, is much more fragile. Altadena is one of the few neighborhoods that is still a little bit working class… Many artists live there, there are quite a few people who have taken over their parents’ houses, there is also a strong African-American community, established for generations. It is perhaps the last ecosystem that is somewhat egalitarian, somewhat democratic, somewhat equitable… With what is coming, its survival seems very uncertain.
Won’t the insurance companies play a role?
Many of these homes were underinsured, or not insured at all. And for those that were, the money paid out won’t cover the construction costs, which have increased dramatically in recent years. With tens of thousands of people needing to relocate, that’s going to put additional pressure on a housing sector that’s already under unsustainable strain. There’s not enough housing for the city’s population, let alone for low-income families.
What are your thoughts on the prospect of the Olympic Games [to be held in Los Angeles in 2028]?
One of the things that impressed me about the Paris Olympics was the way it both provided a historical perspective and connected different neighborhoods. When the torch was passed, it was clear that this was not the direction Los Angeles was going to take. Snoop Dogg on the beach, Tom Cruise, the palm trees… The city was reduced to a series of Hollywood icons. It needs to forge a collective identity more than ever, however. The megafires showed how dependent we are on each other: everyone knows someone who lives or works in the affected neighborhoods, the smoke spread all over the city… The Olympics should serve to highlight the cultural and ethnic diversity of Los Angeles. We could redefine the marathon route, for example, and have it go through Altadena. We could imagine an opening ceremony scattered throughout the city… It’s not too late!
