As an architecture student on the East Coast in the mid-1960s, Hodgetts studied with James Stirling at Yale University, and he includes three essays about his British mentor. A profile published in 1976 in Design Quarterly shows that Hodgetts had embedded himself with Stirling at his home and office in London, observing the idiosyncrasies of the character who loomed large in his life. The other pieces provide a measured retrospective look: one, a critique of the Ayala Science Library at the University of California, Irvine, completed in 1994, two years after Stirling’s death, alternates between Hodgetts praising the solidity of the design and reluctantly recognizing that it was not one of Stirling’s best works.

Other writings include assessments of the Los Angeles residential architecture of John Lautner, the Santa Monica house that Frank Gehry designed for himself and family in 1977, and even ruminations on a car Le Corbusier designed in 1936. Yet an urban thrust underlies Hodgetts’s contributions. In the essay from which the book draws its title, the author crafts a love letter to Los Angeles, the city he has inhabited for the better part of four decades (he was born in Cincinnati). Hodgetts finds that the city’s streets and freeways have a logic, while knowing that the beach is its soul. All considered, the collection, including fiction, collages, and designs for film sets, proves that whatever the medium, his all-encompassing energy translates into impressive production.