LA: Rising from the Ashes

On January 7th 2025 the Altadena and Pacific Palisades neighbourhoods of Los Angeles suffered two of the most destructive fires in the city’s history. 21 people died and 15,000 buildings were destroyed over a combined area the size of Paris.

Architecture critic Jonthan Glancey visits a city still reeling from the scale and intensity of these fires and the challenge of rebuilding areas in which almost nothing remains standing. As the first tentative shoots of recovery begin to appear he meets architects, urban designers and activists. Many of them lost their own homes in the fires and saw their communities displaced. Now they’re trying to help their communities whilst looking for better ways of building in a land where earthquakes, drought and most of all fire are an ever present threat. As man made climate change and urban growth both heighten the risk of fires and worsen their impact Jonathan asks if and how this city can reshape itself for a better future.

Jonathan meets Dan Turner, retired fire chief and Executive Director of Cal Poly’s Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) Fire Institute; architect Scott Uriu; Dustin Bramell, Co-Founder of Case Study: Adapt; LA architecture critic Frances Anderton; architect Michael Kovac; architect and social justice advocate Steven Lewis; as well as Cynthia Siegler and Alex Athenson, founders of the Foothill Foundation Catalogue. He also meets fire survivors Ken and Carol Wood whose home, designed by the Foothill Foundation and constructed by Habitat for Humanity volunteers (including many of their neighbours) is one of the first to be completed in Altadena.

Presenter: Jonathan Glancy
Producer: Michael Umney
Executive Producer: Susan Marling
Mixing Engineer: Chris O’Shaughnessy

A Just Radio Production for BBC Radio 4