Los Diablos, a History in Architecture

by

Arnold Grover

Los Angeles in early 1980, on the eve of the Big One, would not have seemed too different from the Los Diablos we know today. The subway would still be functioning, and together with the local train tracks, many people living in the heart of the city would not bother with a car. Yes, it seems quaint while looking back at it today, but isn't the recent debates over bus lines an attempt to try to recover this era? It is hard to imagine that we once struggled with energy prices and even rationing of gasoline, but the conflicts that cut off the supply in the sixties and seventies are long since irrelevant. Now there is nothing to restrict the use of cars, and the treaties with Canada ensures that a steady flow of oil flows south across the border. But I digress.

Los Angeles at the time could be seen as three different kinds of neighborhoods, each with its own distinct flavor. The newest one would be the grand high-rises clustered downtown, primarily around Bunker Hill. I remember moving here in the early 2000's, when the wrecks of those massive behemoths still dotted the skyline, stark reminders of our violent past. It feels as if we have lost something of our edge now that those buildings have been torn down or renovated. While those exclamation marks were impossible to miss, there was a fair share of new concrete four-to-ten story buildings, built in attempt to clear up crime-ridden neighborhoods and stop the urban decay. Many of these failed in the quake as the first floor, generally occupied by open floorplan stores, collapsed. We now know of the dangers of a soft story slab collapse, but back then there had not been a serious quake in over a century, and nobody expected one of the magnitude unleashed that fateful November day.

The second type would be the old neighborhoods. The age of these varied, and indeed, new ones were built in a similar style right up until the quake. The difference was that increasingly bricks were replaced by concrete blocks, hidden by stucco aping their older neighbors. Most of the old ethnic neighborhoods were in this style, the most famous being Little Tokyo and Chinatown. Today I see them as forerunners of our separatist communes, forming a town within a city. Alas, many of these buildings collapsed or were severely damaged in the quake. The older brick ones were worse off than the more modern concrete, there are hardly any of those remaining today. Some have been rebuilt in a similar style, with incorporation of scavenged elements to give them the appearance of historical veracity.

The third type was the growing suburbs. These houses were mainly constructed of wood, single family homes creeping up the sides of the mountains. Families had fled the increasingly worn down city center, and several building companies were creating new neighborhoods, roads and all. The affluent ones relied on the car for access, touting privacy and a view as the main selling points. More affordable options were built around local rail hubs and, up in the hills, bus lines. From what I can see researching the local papers, some builders speculated that the newly built highways and the family car would replace the subway and the rail as soon as the oil prices dropped. And, as fusion technology was taking it's first strides into general production, a drop was predicted as soon as oil could be replaced when it came to energy generation. Little did people know what was in store. Most of these neighborhoods survived the quake, though some fell victim to landslides, but it was the resulting fires that wiped them out. Built close enough for fires to easily spread, the lack of firefighters meant that once a blaze got started by fractured gas lines or sparking electricity there was no stopping it in the dry conditions. Entire neighborhoods went up in smoke as people fled for their lives.

So how does this Los Angeles of the late seventies compare to our Los Diablos four decades later? Have we learned from our mistakes, or are we bound to head for another disaster the moment the ground starts shaking once more? I wish I had an easy answer to that question, but the truth of the matter is that it is complicated. The rebuilding was not an organized process, it went ahead in spurts. I will do my best to describe the patchwork that this city has become, but first we need to understand the circumstances surrounding the birth of Los Diablos: The Year of Hell.

While the quake devastated Los Angeles, and the tsunami resulting from the Cascadia Fault destroyed the harbor, the casualty numbers were still limited. More buildings were damaged than collapsed entirely, enabling many people to escape. The collapse of the subway was a disaster, but as the quake didn't strike during rush hour it wasn't filled to capacity. The fires were the greatest killer, the quake struck at the end of fire season, and with the infrastructure destroyed there was no stopping it. People either fled or perished. Still, help did arrive, hampered by the destroyed port. The evacuation of vulnerable citizens had just started when the second blow came. Enough has been written about the Long Valley complex eruption that I won't repeat it here, but it was bad. And yet, no matter how bad it was, with the Santa Ana winds carrying ash over Los Diablos, it could have been worse. At the time, many feared a truly cataclysmic eruption was in store, this event had occurred in the caldera of an ancient super volcano, so the evacuation efforts were stepped up. Such as it was. I won't get into a debate of what could and could not have been done, nor how many millions of people actually died on the west coast due to quakes, tsunamis and eruptions. Better writers than me have debated this at length, but I have included it here because it is important to understand the mindset of the survivors. Because yes, there were survivors. Quite a lot of them.

The first wave of reconstruction in the ruins could hardly be called construction at all. Groups of survivors located structurally sound buildings and set about to make them habitable. Soon these survivors organized in communes, sticking together for safety in numbers. The mindset of these hardy men and women might best be described as "this is not over yet." New communes were constructed at what was seen as safe spots, avoiding landslides and floods, which were common as ash and debris blocked rivers and made them take new routes. Many houses looked more like bunkers, sturdy one-floor structures, often based on the bottom floor of a larger, ruined, building. Few of these first houses still survive, but some have been preserved near Irvine as a historical landmark. It is well worth the trip to see the circumstances with which our brave forefathers struggled.

Irvine is also a good place to see examples of second wave construction. I am not too fond of the term "The New Pioneer Era," due to its colonial legacy, but it describes the buildings well enough. With a lack of wood due to the fires, houses were made of recycled bricks and concrete blocks, which some have dubbed "reclaimed adobe." As earthquakes were still a hazard, few of them were more than one floor, and collapse was an ever-present hazard. It is most likely an exaggeration, but it is said that people at that time were so sensitive to vibrations in the ground that most would wake up from even minor quakes in the middle of the night and rush outside. As a result, these buildings often had two peculiar traits compared to our modern ones. The first was the ubiquitous bedroom door or large window, an easy escape route when you needed it the most. The second one was the tradition of building houses half submerged into the ground if possible. Not only did it help with warmth during those icily cold volcanic winters, but it was also said to reduce quake damage. Whether this is true or not I cannot say, perhaps it is just a superstition, like the rumored sacrifices to feed the hungry earth before striking ground for a new house.

This was the sight which will have greeted the first settlers as they arrived, seeking a land without laws or rules. Isolated hermits in their bunkers, fortified farming communes ready to defend themselves, and ruined city centers settled by warlords and bandits. In general the city communes belong to the third era of construction, where people who had managed to survive now wanted something more. To rebuild. To create a future. These communes are as varied as they are numerous, but they are generally categorized in three ways: Those built around a charismatic leader, those built along a pre-existing cultural heritage, and finally, those created by necessity, in the face of outside pressure. We have all heard of the Los Diablos leaders in those early days, Buck Wylde and his raiders turned community protectors, Jemma Lee and her river stabilization project, and Norm the Grimm's fishing fleet. But, as famous as the exploits of these individuals were, the people who actually started to rebuild Los Diablos are the ones that deserve the credit. The unnamed councilors who organized trade routes, food exchanges and sent work-gangs to repair roads and seek contact with surrounding cities. Some of our local communes still hark back to these days, absorbed into the greater Los Diablos as individual units. If left alone, it is possible that Los Diablos would have become a network of small city states, linked by trade and custom. Alas, the city was now safe enough for outsiders to start streaming in.

With the establishment of the Free Economic Zone in 1992, money started flowing in. Companies eager to work without taxation and oversight started reconstructing Los Diablos in earnest. These "company towns" as they were initially known, were not much larger than the local communes, but once the first footholds were established, they soon begun to grow. They have often been called architectural atrocities or prison camp chic, but we have to understand the age in which they were built. The wall-enclosed compounds were necessary for the safety of the staff, and as there was no need for building permits it was understandable that they clashed with the surrounding areas. A stable power supply was deemed more necessary than preservation of historic buildings.

It wasn't until the first Los Diablos council was established in 2003 that there was an interest in a planned approach to the rebuilding process. The city was now seen as "safe," the base industries necessary for large scale construction was now up and running. Roads were rebuilt or re-established, and new bridges were constructed to make travel easier. The first buildings of this period were still of the brutalist variety, concrete blocks, reinforced against the frequent but minor quakes. Once this skeleton was in place, one by one, larger buildings started growing up around the new downtown. The first skyscrapers of steel and glass was a promise of modernity, and the new shatter-proof safety formula promised to lessen any damage from falling glass. This proved to be less effective than promised, but by now there was no stopping modernity.

Los Diablos was where the future was at, the home of the American Dream, and many put it in contrast to the stale and increasingly conservative east coast, still laboring under martial law. Money was lavished on historic restoration projects, though the attempt to revive the harbor and sea-trade was aborted as the ocean was increasingly hostile to man-made vessels. Instead the new coastal highways connected the reborn cities, forming a trans-national trade route between Canada and Mexico that required no US tariffs or taxes, only a modest road-toll. As a result, the west coast thrived and the population grew.

Today, many people are under the impression that Los Diablos has surpassed the Los Angeles of 1980 and finally shrugged off the legacy of the past. Nothing could be further from the truth. While a population estimate is always unsure due to lack of registration, it is believed that the greater Los Diablos area holds about 70% of the population the same area did in 1980. This might not be visible looking at the city center, but the outlying communities reveal the truth. Away from the company-influenced areas, towns and settlements are still small and rural. There are vast stretches of land deemed too dangerous to settle due to mudslides and lahars during the rainy season. The ruined remains of many small cities and towns dot the coast, inhabited by a fraction of their former inhabitants, if that. Newly built residential blocks lie within sight of refurbished ruins, or repurposed factories. There is no rhyme or reason or organization to the city, even though the City Council is trying to enforce something akin to a building code. Only time will tell whether they succeed, and whether the citizens of Los Diablos will be happy to live in a modern city, or whether they will morn their eclectic chaos of the past. The only thing that is sure is that attempts to regulate rarely passes without incident. Even when it's for the common good.