Dreamscape Century City: Architectural Rendering, Mass Media, and the Temporal Imaginary of the Postwar Capitalist Enterprise

Abstract

Although noted for their eye-catching colors and vibrant graphics, project renderings of mid-century modern architecture remain little discussed in the field of architectural history. Through the case study of a watercolor rendering of the Century City urban development in Los Angeles by Mario Valenzuela for Welton Becket & Associates, this essay describes the production of work by commercial illustrators for large architecture firms at the turn of the 1960s. It takes up the use of project renderings in the media by public relations staff and news editors, and examines their reception by the general public in the context of the futuristic imagination of the time. Seen through this prism, project renderings appear as an instrument in the construction of a temporal imaginary of the postwar era in the United States. Widely featured in newspaper real-estate columns, these idealized visions of modern architectural and urban developments helped further the legitimacy of the capitalist enterprise to define and implement dreams of the future centered on technological progress.