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Downtown Los Angeles does have a number of older, historic, "stoney" buildings, and in fact is often used in films and commercials to represent East Coast or Midwest cities. There are also neighorhoods with very high density (of people and buildings) and which don't have the stereotypical "Californian" look. (and, for that matter, some neighborhoods in Minneapolis have lots of older apartment buildings with tile roofs, wrought iron, and Spanish-sounding names; given the surrounding landscape you'd never mistake them for the southwest, though, although on a cold and snowy January day one can at least imagine...)
Not to say that there aren't significant regional differences in terms of architecture -- there certainly are -- but when you compare neighborhoods or cities of the same time period to each other the differences won't be as significant as if you're comparing a modern skyscraper with something from the 1920s, for example.
Texas (Houston, San Antonio, Austin, El Paso) have A LOT of Spanish design, stucco, tile roofing. Houston has large subdivisions with nothing but Spanish Mediterrean designs. It also seems to be the new trend. However, I think they use a faux-stucco
due to the humidity.
That style is rare in Houston. The majority of new construction is contemporary "ranch" in brick and those boulder accented homes.
When I was in Los Angeles, I noticed that the popular 21st Century contemporary consisted of clean lines with a modernist touch (a nod to MCM). Examples are the Disney Concert Hall, the Cathedral, and the Getty Center. There are so many trendy restaurants with trendy items over there! I wish Houston had cool restaurants like that.
You guys will know better than me about this but I get the impression while there is Spanish and Mediterrean style achitecture in Texas, its not quite as common as California or Florida. Is that the case?
Incredible as it may sound, it is because the architects actually do consider certain climatological factors when designing buildings.
For example, in the midwest, some areas have houses with overhanging eaves, and other areas do not. It's because the the characteristics of the clayiness of the soil underneath, and how tolerant it is of having water soaking down next to the foundation.
Local styles of architecture can vary according to whether thermal pane windows are required in that climate or not, or whether snow is likely to drift up against the doors. Houses in Florida have a "Florida Room", but I never saw a house with a "Minnesota Room", unless its the room by the front door where you take off your galoshes. Cold climate houses will have an attached garage, but in hot climates, just a carport.
Even the colors of houses might depend on whether it is going to be surrounded by lush gardens and shade trees, or desert vegetation.
There's not a lot of stone available for building in California. You also see the changing ideas about what's safe here--for a while it was brick to forestall fires, but then they figured out that brick is bad in earthquakes. You get local influences--in LA affluent homeowners started to imitate houses they'd seen in the movies. In Philadelphia for a while local building codes required stone for certain kinds of structures.
Nowhere in the west have I seen what is considered normal row home districts here in the east.
I've been to every major city in the west and there is nothing in that expanse of country that compares to what you see in the attached photo of typical Philly.
A block or two here and there of certain types of architecture an overall city does not make.
Actually the oldest cities on the West Coast do have some 'old' architecture and you could almost think you were in NYS.
Yep. Sonny Barger once said that San Francisco is an east coast city dropped onto the west coast, and Oakland is a midwestern city dropped onto the west coast.
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