Please join us on Thursday, May 23, 6:30-8:30 pm, for the book launch of The Atlas of Never Built Architecture by Sam Lubell and Greg Goldin, with a discussion moderated by Frances Anderton.

In collaboration with the Helms Bakery District and the Cal Poly SLO LA Metro Program in Architecture and Urban Design

Helms Design Center        
8745 Washington Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232

Free Parking is available at the corner of Helms Ave. and Venice Blvd.

Lecture is Free and Open to the Public. The book will be available for purchase during the event, courtesy of our friends at Arcana: Books on the Arts.

A Romp Through Great Architectural Ideas That Never Were (But Inspire What Might Still Be)

The Atlas of Never Built Architecture features hundreds of the most spectacular unbuilt projects of the 20th and 21st centuries in a comprehensive, geographically arranged survey. Imaginative and ambitious, the projects reveal the incredible diversity of ideas that have emerged from the world’s most influential architects—and many you’ve never heard of. Spanning nearly 80 countries, the book presents concepts for projects of all types: museums, art galleries, cemeteries, churches, bridges, skyscrapers, hotels, theme parks, casinos, opera houses, government buildings, and even a floating theatre boat that resembles a UFO. Seen together, the projects conjure a strange and wonderful new world while simultaneously offering insight into how architectural projects have been conceived and developed (and dashed) over the last 100 years. The book also includes previously unpublished prints, paintings, drawings, etchings, preparatory sketches, and images that bring these alternate histories to life.

Sam Lubell is Editor at Large at Metropolis. He has written more than ten books about architecture for Phaidon, Rizzoli, The Monacelli Press, Metropolis Books, and Oro Editions. He writes for The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Fast Company, Architectural Digest, Wallpaper, Dwell, Architect Magazine, and other publications. He has co-curated four major architecture exhibitions and taught as an adjunct professor at Syracuse University School of Architecture, Columbia University GSAPP, and Arizona State University The Design School.

For more than a decade, Greg Goldin was Architecture Critic at Los Angeles Magazine. He has written a half dozen books about architecture for Phaidon, Rizzoli, and Metropolis Books. His work has appeared in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Metropolis, and the Architect’s Newspaper. He co-curated the museum exhibitions Never Built Los Angeles and Never Built New York, and has taught as an adjunct professor at USC, UCLA, Syracuse University School of Architecture, and Columbia University GSAPP. He resides in Los Angeles where he continues a family tradition of being a thorn in the side of the rich and powerful.

Frances Anderton covers Los Angeles design and architecture in print, broadcast media and public events. She is the author of Common Ground: Multifamily Housing in Los Angeles, which won the 2022 Gold award for best Regional Nonfiction from Foreword Reviews. She is co-author of Awesome and Affordable: Great Housing Now, a multimedia project produced in 2024 by Friends of Residential Treasures: Los Angeles (FORT: LA). She has co-produced short films for the nonprofit housing developers Community Corporation of Santa Monica and Venice Community Housing. Anderton writes a regular newsletter about design and architecture for KCRW public radio station. For many years she hosted the KCRW show DnA: Design and Architecture, and produced the current affairs shows Which Way, LA? and To The Point. She teaches an urban housing seminar at USC architecture. Honors include the Esther McCoy Award, from the Architectural Guild of USC architecture school, for her work educating the public about architecture and urbanism.

Preorder The Atlas of Never Built Architecture here

Introduced by Stephen Phillips, FAIA, PhD, Principal of Stephen Phillips Architects (SPARCHS) and professor, director, Cal Poly LA Metro Program in Architecture and Urban Design (California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo).

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