L.A's Sprawling Modernism, and the Places That Came Before

The prodigious expanse of the valley is painted in rich, dark colors, cut up at regular intervals by the bright orbs of yellow light organized into loose patterns of freeway networks. "For so many of us, this is our one image of L.A.—this vast landscape," says Martin Moeller, senior vice president and curator at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C.

It's a fitting introduction to an exhibit about the built environment of Los Angeles, particularly one focusing on those frenetic post-WWII boom years. The painting in question, by L.A.-based artist Peter Alexander, hangs in the front entrance of "Overdrive: L.A. Constructs the Future, 1940-1990," an exhibition on modern architecture in Los Angeles that opened this week. The show, which also ran at the J. Paul Getty Museum in L.A. for several months this spring and summer, is a collaboration between that institution and the Getty Research Institute, and will continue its run in D.C. through March.