I-710/I-105

The main focus of the thesis lies in the freeway-interchanges in Los Angeles. This large-scale >infrasculptures< form an important part in the public perception of the city. They embody enormous human efforts in infrastructure and represent are very special time in the city history. The aim is to show a future potential of these >monuments of the west<.

The thesis draws attention to the historical development of Los Angeles. It deals with past and future developments, with artifacts and potentials of the city. It uses the resources of the city, references real circumstances as well as it uses narrative elements to expand the perception of Los Angeles. The real situation correlates with the potentials of the metropole. The design project focuses on the iconic interchanges, the large-scale freeway-junctions of the city. It questions their role in the public perception and creates a scenario for an appreciation of these spaces that become a >museum< for the paradigmatic space of the 20th century – infrastructural space. Following the context of Hollywood, the design situates itself between emotion and rationality, between clarity and ambiguity, between fiction and reality. The setting of the project is in a near future. Electrified, smart mobility systems replaced the fossil transportation. Places, which were inhospitable, because of noise and air pollution, will become relevant for urban development. The project focuses on this potential and declares the motor-age and its infrastructure as a past, historic era. The new structure will be a new center for the formerly separated neighborhoods. It forms a built frame for the interchange, which is declared as a sculpture, as an important part of city history, as a monument of its time. --- The thesis sees itself in a row of infrastructural developments, as a logical rethinking of urban structures. Automatically it forms analogues with the New York Highline, the Revitalization of the L.A. River or the Tempelhofer Feld in Berlin, but also with conceptual works of Archigram or Dogma.