Moby Los Angeles Architecture Blog

ok, i’m hoping that your delicate sensibilities are not frayed by today’s random architectural update.

see, l.a has strip clubs.
i mean, most cities have strip clubs.
but l.a, or so it seems, is especially known for it’s strip clubs.
so, regardless of whether people are pro strip club or anti strip club, i’ll state the obvious: they exist and they hold a storied and prominent place in l.a’s urban landscape.
i don’t want to get too grad-student-y or semiotics-y in my discussion of strip clubs, but one of the thing that fascinates me, especially about the outside of strip clubs, is that with very little information they present all sorts of random and illicit narrative possibilities to anyone who happens to be walking or driving by.
by way of example: when was the last time someone drove by a dry cleaners or a sushi restaurant and wondered: ‘wow, i wonder what’s going on in there RIGHT NOW?’
strip clubs are a trigger. for some people they trigger moral outrage, for some people they trigger proustian memories of their pre-sobriety idiocy (ahem), for some people they trigger loneliness, for some people they trigger lust, for some people they trigger fears of neighborhood property devaluation, etc.
but they’re a powerful and significant trigger (or, if we were at brown in 1984, signifier).
which is why i’m including this particular strip club facade.

see, it’s so minimal.
a white front, no windows, and a generic helvetica sign.
but yet it still triggers a reaction when you look at it.
i mean, imagine if it said ‘sol’s office furniture. come on in for bargains.’?
would it trigger any sort of reaction above the banal ‘huh, i guess they sell office furniture.’?
so, personally i’m fascinated by the meaning we attach to such a generic and neutral facade.
granted, most of l.a’s strip clubs don’t present themselves in such a reductionist and neutral way.
but that’s why i took pictures of this one, as it’s part of l.a’s landscape and it’s banal and common but it still illicits (word play intended because i’m dweeb) a strong reaction from anyone walking or driving by.

ok, i’ve rambled on enough.

thanks

moby