Gregory Ain’s Mar Vista Tract Homes and the Enactment of the Public Sphere

The architectural and landscape design and neighborhood layout of the Mid-Twentieth Century Mar Vista tract homes by Gregory Ain and Garrett Eckbo coalesce with contemporary preservation efforts today to create a complex dynamic between groups of residents, the neighborhood as a whole, and the city of Los Angeles. As one of the first post war housing developments to receive the designation of Historic Preservation Overlay Zone (HPOZ), this neighborhood presents a unique set of challenges for the application of preservation principles, bringing to light questions regarding the appropriateness of enforced aesthetic principles within modernist tract neighborhoods. Utilizing Jurgen Habermas’ theoretical framework of the public sphere, this paper will analyze primary and secondary data sources to consider the quality and nature of public life in this neighborhood, with particular attention to the influences of the architectural and landscape designs and the current HPOZ governance process on the enactment of a public sphere.

https://doi.org/10.35483/ACSA.AM.106.51

Volume Editors
Amir Ameri & Rebecca O'Neal Dagg

ISBN
978-1-944214-15-9