MArch I

“If it looks like a . . . and acts like a . . . ” 

Advised by Jennifer Bonner

This thesis looks at structures referred to as “towers” in the City of Los Angeles insofar as they fit the proportional and contextual requirements of towerhood despite their nonconformity to expectations of scale and form. The “kind-of tower,” an altogether distinct urban condition, is common among landmarks of LA due to the city’s unique topography. It most ubiquitously appears in its oil infrastructure— namely, its many derricks and accompanying built artifacts used to hide, obscure, or otherwise camouflage them. This thesis questions the role of proportion and signification in the reading of architecture, using the tower and oil to ask: In an otherwise horizontal landscape of generic sprawl, how does one create a visual language of a state of exception?