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foxymoxynoona · 2 years

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Short: An Unexpected Exhibit

Kim Namjoon x Reader (written as non-idol Namjoon but could be read as idol I guess!)

Summary: You're just trying to enjoy the gala for the new museum wing opening when your art rival shows up. Except this time your bickering takes a different turn. CW: some cursing, nothign else unless you get really worked up about strong art opinions

An Unexpected Exhibit

You stood in the foyer, looking up at the stacked cubes.

“It’s a block tower.”

Your mom sighed beside you, “Y/N… How much did I spend on that degree of yours just for you to blaspheme an entire movement like this? I know you take great delight in taunting me but if you’re going to disparage minimalism as a form of art you could at least use language more advanced than a three-year-old.”

You grinned. A lifetime of disagreements on art had you both well-versed in the ways to needle each other. Your degree in Art History had taught you all the greats, but you had focused more on classical art, particularly Impressionist and post-Impressionist masters –Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Monet, Cezanne, Degas, Mary Casset. Older was good too; you’d written papers and spent hours, days, weeks pouring over art from older movements too: Baroque, Gothic, Renaissance, Neoclassicism. For a while you had thought Folk Art might be where your passion lay, particularly of Central and South America. And yes, you had an appreciation for more than Western Art, despite what one particularly snooty person had accused you of. Japonisme art had been your stepping stone from European Impressionism to a deeper study of Eastern Art schools because you didn’t want to only consume Eastern style art through the lens of Europe. Hiroshige, Utamaro, and Hokusai were plenty familiar to you, though your favorite Eastern art came from the Shin-hanga movement in the 20th century.

The 20th century though was when things got wobbly for you. Impressionism, Post-Impressionism… well, Pissarro and Seurat called to you. Surrealism started to lose you; the absurd as a concept sort of gave you a headache and didn’t feel as remarkable to you as capturing more accurately the things around you. Modernism and Expressionism felt largely bleak and empty. Constructivism was messy. Pop art… ok? So what? At least Art Nouveau was gorgeous and captured that abstraction of real life, its hazy, ephemeral, dreamlike quality without slicing away everything that felt alive about it and leaving you looking at…

Blocks.

“It’s not that I don’t understand modern art,” you frowned, crossing your arms. “I get what minimalism is trying to say and do…”

“Actually…” You flinched at the low voice suddenly near your arm. Of course. Of course he was here tonight. “Judd isn’t trying to say anything. He believed the art he made should simply exist in itself, in the space it inhabits, and in the experience of the–”

“Did you really come here to mansplain art to an Art History major?” you sighed, turning to face him. To look up at him, actually, because he was stupid tall. He always towered over everyone.

He gave you that smug grin, “But you don’t like Modern Art. I thought you might not be familiar with Judd–”

“Of course I’m familiar with Judd.”

“You are right she doesn’t appreciate most contemporary movements, though,” your mother said, and, before you could stop this catastrophe from getting worse, “You must be Namjoon Kim.”

Instead of immediately taunting you with the fact that you had apparently mentioned him before, Namjoon held his hand out, “I’m honored, Ms. [Your last name]. I’m a serious admirer of your work.” Of course he was. You rolled your eyes at what was not surprising to you at all. How many times had you endured the exact same art arguments with Namjoon as you had with your mom? Except that your mom was an actual artist who made art and also not such an asshole when she disagreed with you. Namjoon was just a collector. He didn’t even have your degree, but he sure talked like he did!

“How flattering, thank you. It’s wonderful to meet young people who can appreciate my work since not all do.” She gave you a playfully pointed look and you glared.

“Your art is meaningful,” you defended. “You know I admire your work objectively, even if it doesn’t always resonate with me personally–”

“A scholar,” your mom laughed.

“A scholar, a collector, and an artist,” Namjoon mused, looking between the three of you like there was anything at all amusing about this. There wasn’t. You had known this meeting was inevitable but you were tired from being on your feet all day and had not wanted to deal with … this… today.

You narrowed your eyes at him and prodded, “Don’t you have something to go collect? Go on.”

“Nothing is for sale tonight.”

“Yes, so why are you even here?”

“Why are you here? Your wing isn’t even open tonight. I half expected to see you in there anyway… sneaking under the rope with a flashlight.”

“Well give me ten more minutes around here and I may do it,” you admitted. You had agreed to come to the gala marking the opening of this new Blue Wing of the museum with your mother because that’s what you did, what you had always done, the two of you spending many long afternoons wandering this museum or that, disagreeing on the fundamentals of art. You loved it and she loved it too, because though your views weren’t aligned, there was respect there, even if you also liked to tease and press. Before her career took off, you’d been there at every early showing and helped with those small installations as a little girl; now that she was a big deal, you enjoyed arriving on her arm, well-dressed and ready to share your opinions. But calmly.

Not so with Namjoon, who sometimes got so red in the face with disbelief and frustration when the two of you argued that you thought maybe you ought to throw a glass of water on him, help him cool down. Maybe then he could check himself and see clearly how wrong and offensive it was. What, did he think his views were superior just because he had a shit ton of money from some mysterious place and bought up art like it was going out of business? You wondered if art patrons of old were as insufferable as him.

“Don’t you dare go wandering, Y/N,” your mother warned, and Namjoon angered you with his smile. He didn’t even know what he was smiling about, the moment your mother was referencing (ok, maybe multiple moments) when you would break away from her or tour groups and find a place to park your ass in a museum in front of some larger than life painting and just exist with it.

“I’m sure she won’t, I was only joking,” Namjoon clarified. “That would require breaking rules, and Y/N prefers everything follow a clearly defined tradition, with obvious meaning and clear parallels to real life that are impossible to misunderstand–”

“Ha!” you scoffed. “We only know any of the old painters to this day because they made new rules. Don’t you dare dismiss an entire history like that. Each new movement was a step beyond anything that had come before.”

Namjoon nodded, “Yes, so why do you insist art had to stop evolving? Human experience is so much more complex than anything the older painters every experienced–”

“Well that’s elitist. How can you say that? Maybe our technology has advanced, and our connectedness, but you have no basis to think the depth of our experience is any different!”

“Your beloved Van Gogh, how broad was his world? He traveled to what, two, three countries? Meanwhile I’ve been all over the world–”

“So impressive,” you interrupted, barely suppressing the eyeroll.

“You’d love the National Museums of China and the National Palace Museum in Taipei –and the National Museum of Korea is– well, if there’s room in your head for Asian art, I think you’d love them.”

You sighed deeply and gave your mom a look, “Are all collectors like this?”

“Art students are like that after a summer backpacking around museums…” she said, looking away pointedly.

“I haven’t been around Europe much,” Namjoon admitted. “I mean, England and Italy. Your sweet spot is France and the Netherlands…”

“Yes,” you said, arms crossed. “Not just my sweet spot. The art that came from there was revolutionary at its time– but it doesn’t matter, I can and do appreciate art that comes from Asia as well. I don’t know why you always bring that up, just because I didn’t specialize in it–”

“No, more because you haven’t been yet. I just think you should see some of it in person.”

“Ah, I once believed that about contemporary art too, that if I could just expose her to enough, she’d fall in love,” your mom said. “Turns out her tastes are deeply embedded and it’s hard to change her mind once it’s set. It’s always such a victory to find a contemporary piece that makes her light up.”

“Her tastes are very specific,” Namjoon agreed.

You cried, “All right, as if you don’t just buy the same piece of art over and over again!”

“I would be happy to show you the range of my collection if you could give it a chance,” he said, and you could see his face getting red. He could try to sound cool as a cucumber to your mom, but you knew he was as rabid and evangelical about the art he loved as you were. And there was just not enough overlap to your tastes for the two of you to ever get along.

“Yeah, I’ll get right on it,” you said. “I’ll leave you two to fawn over Judd. More champagne, Mom? I’ll get it.”

You did not, just stomped off to get a new glass of champagne for yourself. When you glanced over a few minutes later, Namjoon and your mom had moved onto another work of art together. Namjoon gestured broadly at the piece, clearly talking out of his ass as your mom politely listened. Poor dear, but if she hadn’t wanted to be abandoned with a “serious admirer” maybe she shouldn’t have taken his side. She clearly had, right? Just because they liked the same kinds of art? She knew better than to just make it obvious you had ranted about him, always followed by you bullying her into promising she would keep her mouth shut if and when she happened to run into him someday –which again, you had known was inevitable, because Namjoon had mentioned on multiple occasions how “absurd” it was that you were your mother’s daughter when she was so famous for the type of art you could barely fein enthusiasm for.

Namjoon. Namjoon Kim was so fucking annoying. He’d annoyed you ever since you’d met him through mutual friend Taehyung Kim –who was also very into art, but much more flexible in his tastes, and also not such an asshole when he disagreed. He didn’t seem to care as much about being right. He was open to the ideas that contradicted his own beliefs!

Anyway, it wasn’t fair for either one of them to say you couldn’t appreciate Contemporary Art. That was like saying you hated all people. It was too broad and completely untrue. You didn’t hate all Contemporary Art. You just didn’t like Modernism, Post-Modernism, Minimalism, Post-Minimalism… that… stuff. Performance art made you uncomfortable even if you’d seen a few exhibits that had left you overwhelmed in a thoughtful and remarkable way. Contemporary Artists had lots to say and you recognized and respected that. Not only the messages but the mediums were more varied than at any point in history –not that you would say that to Namjoon, who would take it as victory. He’d insist it was proof that human experience was so much more profound than it had once been.

But you’d published a paper on this even! Maybe only in a minor magazine but still, you had done your research and talked about how some popular Contemporary Art tried to address the overwhelming data received of the Information Age by simplifying it, analyzing it. That’s why traditional art was still so valuable, because it could stop trying to say so much and instead just focus in on some singular aspect of life, and really let you look at that. For a moment, your world could focus on a single thought, a single emotion, a single still life, just like some painter two hundred years ago did, and see how life was still so connected through the generations, even when the whole world seemed to change.

You stared longingly in the direction of the older wings of the museum, but Namjoon was right, they had been roped off for the gala. All guests were supposed to concentrate only on the new wing tonight, and keep their Champagne far away from any of the galleries with exhibits that could be ruined by an overzealous gesture like Namjoon had been making with his empty glass.

Instead your gaze landed on a temporary exhibit in the wing in between this new Blue Wing and your favorite Green Wing. No velvet rope to step over there. The bright colors and bold patterns drew you closer but the faces of the subjects were what kept you present. The blend of contemporary clothing with traditional postures and timeless expressions was powerful.

“Love it or hate it?”

“Why are you always creeping up on me?” you demanded, only glancing over your shoulder as Namjoon once again approached. “Weren’t you talking to my mom?”

“Yes, I think she really likes me.”

“She won’t give you a discount.”

“I don’t need a discount.”

“You’re insufferable,” you sighed. “Who brags about wealth as much as you do–”

“No! I’m… not bragging about wealth. I meant– nevermind.” He sighed and shook his head, and that annoyed you too, the disengagement. He never usually disengaged! About the only thing you could respect.

Before you could press him to just say what he meant, he repeated his question, “Do you love it or hate it?”

“I think Kehinde Wiley is incredible,” you answered. He looked up at the painting as well, a regal woman in Renaissance garb holding a severed head: Judith Beheading Holofernes, a direct reference to a work by Caravaggio. “You may not know this, but this painting is a reference to–”

“Caravaggio,” Namjoon interrupted. “I may be a hobbyist but I do know a lot about art. Besides, you’ve yelled at me about him before.”

Instead of remarking on that, you mused anyway, “This reimagining is glorious. Caravaggio’s painting famously depicts Judith’s ambivalence for what she must do, even though she beheads the invading General Holofernes in order to save her people. Then there’s Artemisia Gentileschi’s version, Judith is all concentrated business… It’s interesting, the ambivalence painted by a man and the concentration painted by a woman… But then you have this, none of the gore, just the glory. She’s not apologetic or disgusted. She had a job to do and she did it and now she looks…” You trailed off, realizing you were rambling, and about two paintings Namjoon couldn’t even see right now and probably couldn’t as easily call to mind as you had. You had always loved seeing the way male and female painters handled the same subject matter, or how different time periods influenced the handling of subject matter. History was a wheel that repeated itself, the heroes in one generation were the demons of the next. The story of Judith was Biblical, after all. Old. An old badass woman.

“I know what your mom means about your face lighting up.”

You failed not to roll your eyes this time and argued, “I love art. Just because I don’t agree with you on what I think makes good art doesn’t mean–”

“Yeah, we don’t usually agree,” he laughed. “We agree about Kehinde Wiley though. It’s not the kind of art I put up around my home but I still think it’s powerful.”

“Hm, too many people, not enough… blank space and columns?”

He snorted and shook his head, “Yun Hyong Keun isn’t the only artist I’ve bought. Thibaud Hérem, he’s French.”

“I’m not familiar,” you admitted.

“What do you think of paintings of flowers?” Namjoon asked. “You only like things with people?”

“No, I like flowers too,” you said pointedly. “I appreciate life in my art, just not…” You gestured but trailed off as he’d pulled his phone out to show you something, then shook his head and shoved it back in his pocket.

“Ah, it would be nice to walk you through what I have in Seoul and see what you actually like from it. Joung Young Ju, do you know her? She paints cityscapes. There aren’t visible people in them, but there are… rooftops and warm lights and you can feel life… that’s what you like.”

“... Yes. That’s the kind of thing I like,” you admitted begrudgingly because you didn’t appreciate Namjoon seeming to take great joy in finally articulating your particular passion. His dumb handsome face lit up now and it annoyed you. He was the kind of man it was far more enjoyable to fight with than make peace with because he was just so… so…

“Ok, look at this,” he said, deciding at last to pull out his phone. He showed you a photo from his gallery, encouraging you to zoom in. “This is my new one by her…” You studied the blue and brown and beige rooftops, buildings stretching off into the distance between the lush green mountains. Spots of bright lights dotted the page, evidence of unseen lives taking place inside the buildings or hidden down on the streets below.

“What do you like about it?” you found yourself asking before admitting that yes, it passed your personal preference tests. You liked it.

“Life is busy and noisy,” he said. “A painting like this, it lets you step back from the individual noise and appreciate the community, the shared human experience. Nighttime is a shared experience.”

“You like to feel like a god?” you asked, quirking your eyebrow.

He literally slapped his hand to his face and sighed, “Why. Why, Y/N? Why is everything I say always the wrong thing with you?”

“I… I was just joking,” you admitted, handing him his phone back.

“I just want to talk art with you. I respect your opinions so much but–”

“Since when?! All we ever do is fight about art and–”

He smiled, “Yeah! I’ve never met someone who has such opposing art views but your opinions come from a place of thoughtfulness and education. It’s awesome. I learn so much every time I talk with you about art.” This stunned you to hear. Stunned you. And it clearly showed on your face because now he looked less certain and asked, “You um… wait, do you hate talking to me that much?”

Your instinct was to say yes, but for a beat you only stared at him, stunned by his answer and by this confession that he looked forward to your arguments. You thought he must be fucking with you, but he looked so earnest right now that it occurred to you maybe he was telling the truth.

“I don’t… hate… it,” you offered slowly, torn now as you tried to contemplate what your own truth was. His loud laughter earned you looks from several other guests walking by; you quickly shushed him.

But he shook his head, still chuckling, “See? I like that about you. Your opinions are blunt, even if… damn.”

Now you felt like an asshole and it made you defensively insist, “You’re just always so… pushy! I enjoy a healthy debate, but it’s like you want me to defend every single opinion–”

“Ya I want you to explain them to me so I can learn what you see.”

He made that sound so nice, you glared harder as you argued, “And you’re always like name dropping and location dropping and wealth dropping–”

“Ah…” Now he looked sheepish and scratched his head, looking uncomfortably away. “Sorry…”

“You think you’re better than everyone–”

“I don’t think I’m better than anyone,” he insisted, “Especially not you. I just, uh…” Damn, he looked so uncomfortable you almost felt bad for him. Almost. “Look, you’re just…”

You crossed your arms and popped your hip out and gave him your iciest glare, “I’m just what?”

“Intimidating. Exactly like you look right now. Intimidating,” he said, gesturing to you not wholly differently than he’d been gesturing to the Judd exhibit earlier.

“I am not intimidating– how is someone like you possibly intimidated by me?”

“Yeah, you’re opinionated and intelligent and… and blunt,” he said, a smile stretching so wide his dimples showed. “You’re a lot to keep up with and I just am trying to keep up.”

“By bragging about–”

“I’m not trying to brag about anything. I mean unless… uh… you think I’m impressive?”

The uncertain look he aimed at you was infuriatingly handsome. Much more handsome than his smug grin or the frustrated sigh or shake of his head you usually saw. Or maybe you were just more open to it now since he was… you know, saying nice things to you. That was unusual for him.

Barely a second had passed before he added, “I think your mom found me impressive.”

“Well go flirt with my mom then,” you snapped and turned to move to another room, literally anywhere but here. “After all, she’s a famous artist–”

“It’s really amusing actually –she and I seem to have a lot of artist appreciation in common.”

You whirled on him, “Are you really saying that you’re hitting on my happily married–”

“No! No no no,” he said, waving his hands between you. “You. Shit. I’m hitting on… you.”

“Here?!”

That wasn’t really your question. Your question was more along the lines of what the fuck? And you? And me?! And maybe another what the fuck? But you had been raised in museums and definitely knew better than to shout that inside of one, especially in the middle of a gala celebrating the opening of a new wing that your mother had helped bring into existence.

“What do you mean, here? In a museum? It’s the only place I ever see you…”

You stepped close, trying to keep your voice low as you insisted, “Are you telling me that everytime you made me want to rip my hair out with your devil’s advocate and your unnecessarily long word choice and your bragging about buying art, you were flirting?”

“Ah…” He licked his lips and looked uncomfortably to the side. “It doesn’t have to be flirting if that’s not– I can see that maybe I was… uh, mistaken…”

“You think I’ve been flirting with you this whole time? You’ve infuriated me! Multiple times!”

“Yeah you infuriate me too! I thought that was the flirting part…”

It was absurd. Never before had that word been so very true and understandable to you. This handsome wealthy man who your friend Taehyung swore was a gentle soul despite you never seeing it, who bickered with you over art, and used the most ridiculous vocabulary even though yours wasn’t even his first language, who seemed eager to stir the shit with you every time you showed up on the scene…

But here you were, causing a scene. You felt eyes on you, and eyes should never be anywhere but the art at a museum. You grabbed his arm, digging your fingers in as you dragged him through the gallery in hot pursuit of a private place for a very weird conversation. He lumbered after you, easily keeping up with his longer stride. There was nowhere though, not until you stepped outside into the cool evening air and let the glass door close behind you. The concrete patio on this side was not a part of the gala, and was probably off limits, but to be honest your mom was a board member for the museum and so you didn’t totally feel like those kinds of rules applied to you. The whole wall of windows wasn’t ideal but at least the window treatments meant lowered visibility from the inside, in order to protect the exhibits of new artists in that hall from any sun exposure during the day.

You stared up at him and tried to remember what you had planned to say before you had dragged him out of there. Something about his ego or his stupid bragging or… or that the way to a woman’s heart was not by making her think you doubted her intelligence or…

“I’m sure my mom found you charming but…”

“Ah,” he said quickly, nodding. “Ok, it’s unwelcome. You can just say that. I misunderstood, my bad. Sorry.” He turned to go and you hadn’t even finished your sentence.

“Yeah can you let me finish my damn thought!”

“Ok ok,” he muttered, planting his feet.

“I don’t always just agree with my mom,” you said. You hesitated but decided to dare admitting, “I thought you just thought I was an idiot.”

“I mean your taste in art is conservative but–”

“For fuck’s sake,” you cried throwing your hands up.

“--but I like it. I think we actually have a lot in common –including a lot of art. And I would uh, like to get to find more of those things. If you want to do that too.”

You stared at him, still trying to catch up that he didn’t actually despise you. You tried to take stock of your own feelings. Did you despise him? He infuriated you. He annoyed you. He antagonized you. But…

But.

But you did sort of enjoy the flush of a heated argument with him. He challenged you in a way no one else in your life really did since college, now that your mom was just used to your views. His appreciation of art did, you had to admit, rival your own, he just had gone about pursuing that love on a different path. He didn’t back down from a heated argument, which was enlivening. Maybe there was a lot mixed into that feeling of anticipation you got when you’d see him walk into an art exhibit or event or auction. You did not want to admit maybe your mom had been onto something when she mused that you talked about him an awful lot for someone you claimed to despite.

“I guess I… do… want to do that to,” you said slowly, half expecting him to just laugh at you, like this was a big joke. You braced yourself. That might be all this was, some low blow final attempt at victory.

Instead, his look of concern melted into a relieved smile, eyes crinkling, dimples out.

“Thank god, you and your mom aren’t going to get me banned from the art world for harassing you–”

“Remains to be seen,” you shrugged. “Depends where you’re taking me for dinner on our date.”

“Depends what kind of food you like. Hm, maybe somewhere traditional… overemphasizes outdated rules– oh! Definitely a place with pictures on the menu, right? So you know exactly what you’re getting–”

“God you are infuriating,” you cried through your laughter because actually that was kind of funny and clever. “I’m not just rule hungry. I appreciate tradition and shared meaning and honesty.”

“Honesty.”

“Nothing deceptive about–”

“Honesty,” he said. “I want to kiss you because you’re all worked up and yelling at me. Do I have to wait for a certain date?”

“You want to kiss me before we’ve even been on a date?!”

“So you do have a rule–”

“It’s not a rule, it’s just– I’m just reeling to go from thinking you hate me to suddenly you just want to kiss me!”

“You said you appreciate honesty! I’m just being honest! Is that too much honesty for you?” You wanted to say no. You didn’t want to just kiss this guy who fifteen minutes ago had been your arch art enemy and now was… whatever… just because he was looking at you like that with that damn handsome smug grin. He was right, you were worked up and yelling at him right now, up at him because he was so tall and… and fine, maybe you’d thought once before about what it would be like to just kiss in the middle of an art argument– but that hadn’t been a real thought or anything!!

Fine, you’d call his bluff.

“Fine, impress me, if you’re so worried about what I think. You want to just jump right to a kiss? There’s not a rule.”

He hesitated, but the transition on his face was immediate. His smile disappeared into a narrower look of concentration. For a moment you believed you had called his bluff after all. He’d been making some weird abstract joke you didn’t get and now he realized his mistake.

But then he did it. Leaned down, gently took hold of your shoulder, and kissed you. It was as clumsy and strong and eager as his art opinions were, for what little space you had to think around it. It was dizzying to go from arguing to kissing in the span of a moment, and before the first date and–

But the feeling was there. Human experience, shared perception, colors and detail and thousands of years of attempts to capture that shrank down to one point of contact: his lips against yours. Lips that talked too much but were sweet with champagne and warm against yours. Big hands circling to your back, holding you close, protecting that fire that transferred so cleanly from argument to kiss.

He was slow to pull away and you just stood there, at a loss for words. For once. This did not make sense to you. Your own behavior didn’t make sense to you. Your own feeling, that the kiss had been too short, was a shock to you. He was crazy! You hadn’t even been on a date yet! And you were crazy to go along with it!

Your eyes took a moment to focus, and the lights from the museum seemed so dizzyingly bright. Behind Namjoon, a painting of bright, bold streaks of color, horizontal, no other shape or form or obvious meaning, briefly seized your attention, gradually guiding you back to life. A sunrise. It looked like a sunrise, but with colors you wouldn’t expect, light blue and white between the red and orange and yellow streaks. It felt perfectly right for this moment and this unexpected kiss. It didn’t make sense. It just felt right.

“I think you’re right,” you admitted quietly. “Maybe we do have some more things in common.”

His eyes went big, jaw dropped, “I convinced you with a kiss? For real?”

“Don’t get smug about it… I didn’t say that–”

“A little smug. You’re impressed. I can see it on your face.”

“Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll find a way to undo it as soon as we walk back in there.”

“Maybe we should just go straight to dinner then…”

“What? Sneak away from the gala? Don’t you have a new wing to fund or something–”

“Oh. You knew I–”

“Oh my god you donated to the new wing?”

“Well… yeah, I–”

“Yeah ok let’s just go right to dinner.”

He laughed, “Seriously? Ok, yeah, I don’t want to risk it, let’s just go… we can get to coatcheck… are we going to get arrested if we sneak around–”

“My mom’s on the board and you’re an investor so…”

“Oh. Your mom’s on the board, huh? Are you… trying to impress me?” he teased.

God, he was infuriating. In maybe a kind of sexy way. Sometimes.

“Keep your mouth shut and maybe you’ll get another kiss before the night is over,” you scoffed. “Maybe.”

“I don’t think keeping my mouth shut is what got me the kiss.”

“You–”

“All right, say you could be at the moment of creation for any painting in the world. What would you choose–”

You took the hand he held out to you and followed. Until you remembered your mom was on the board and took the lead. You were the museum princess and this was your home turf. Namjoon just tugged your hand back to get you to walk beside him.

“Ok, hear me out, I think I would choose…”

#kim namjoon ff #namjoon x y/n #namjoon fanfic #bts fanfiction

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incarnation-of-victory · 5 years

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Bakugou’s Fear of Mediocrity and Human Weakness

It’s interesting to see Bakugou’s inner thought process here as he prepares to fight this villain (from the 1st chapter of the spin-off tie-in manga to the Heroes: Rising movie, “Deku & Bakugo: Rising”), especially knowing what we know now about Bakugou and his fears about him not actually being as great as he thinks he is.

For one, the line about “[m]ost of the top heroes show[ing] signs of greatness even as students” echoes the line Bakugou says in the very first chapter of the manga proper:

Both monologues get across similar messages, but I think the one from the spin-off is a little more revealing/blatant, especially with the line “I’m not just a normal middle schooler. I’ll show them I’m different and rise to the top.” This line from the spin-off suggests that Bakugou doesn’t quite think he’s unique from the rest of his peers yet, and that he’s desperate to use this chance to finally prove himself to everybody. Meanwhile, the line from the manga makes him seem more confident in himself, that he’s sure that he’ll be the only one to succeed, while simultaneously disparaging the rest of his classmates. Of course, his words contradict his actions here: Bakugou isn’t as confident in this outcome as he seems, since he goes out of his way to discourage Deku from applying to U.A. because he actually feels threatened by him. Bakugou being the only one to get into U.A. would be a way of him validating his belief (read: hope) that he’s the best after all. Additionally, Bakugou goes on about being the first and only hero/U.A. student originating from Aldera, which, in theory, would be an easy accomplishment, since the middle school is supposedly devoid of any promising hero applicants. This achievement of him being the only one to succeed would also make him seem all the more impressive and exceptional—a unique case, so to speak. His goal should be guaranteed... if it wasn’t for Deku.

So both scenes carry the same idea, but Bakugou is a little more honest to himself in his head (makes sense, naturally). There’s this kind of sad, desperate urgency I get from the spin-off that I don’t get from the manga. It’s just a weird train of thought to have when hunting down a villain, that he’s using this opportunity to prove to everyone (and himself) he’s the great prodigy they made him out to be his whole life. Even though he still needs to reassure himself that he’s not ordinary and is actually “different.”

This whole idea of Bakugou wanting to rise above everyone else stems from this fear of mediocrity. It calls to mind how the literal translation of “Quirk” from Japanese means “Individuality” (the word “quirk” itself also implies some unique trait). This means that your Quirk is essentially what makes you, you. It's what makes you stand out among everyone else. Because Bakugou does place a lot of faith in his Quirk getting him to the top, distinguishing him as someone special.

The interesting thing is that Bakugou initially wasn’t really aware that he was just more naturally adept—sans Quirk—than other kids his age growing up. The way he comes off in his childhood flashbacks in the manga make him seem more naive, not really understanding why everyone else just can’t as easily grasp the skills he masters so easily:

(I would argue that even current Bakugou doesn’t notice his other good qualities/talents as much, which is probably why it’s so easy for him to twist them into something bad or forget them entirely, and instead fixate solely on his Quirk. This is especially important when it comes to Heroism as a career, and his need to take more things than just raw power into consideration).

The theory that he’s just “better than everyone else” doesn’t fully cement until he gets his Quirk. With this, Bakugou seems to think of himself as someone almost godly or invincible, as someone almost more than just... human. Which is why I think he’s so averse to any suggestion that he has any weaknesses—it’s a reminder that he’s indeed human after all. He’s mortal and fallible and need help sometimes. And being human brings him back down to the level of everyone else, but perhaps even further beneath them, which is exemplified in the infamous creek scene where Deku tries to help Bakugou. And again when Deku tries to save him from the sludge villain. And repeated other instances throughout their lives. Because if Deku, someone who doesn’t even have a Quirk or anything that makes him special, is somehow is able to do something for him, then what does that make Bakugou? If Quirkless Deku is somehow better than Quirk-holder Bakugou, then Bakugou’s power—which is something he built his self-esteem around—essentially means nothing in comparison. Bakugou ends up being just like everyone else, but worse: someone so weak that they need help from a “worthless Deku.”

Another important thing to note is that part of why Bakugou neglects to think of himself as human is because most people never really treated him as such. For one, everybody almost exclusively praised him for his superficial or material strengths that it gave him the idea that he was perfect and had no flaws. In turn, he carries himself this way around others, thus perpetuating how everybody else sees him: as someone who never needs help. I could write a whole other essay on its own of how many times people in the BNHA universe assume that Bakugou doesn’t need help, or that he’s stronger than he actually is. The time the heroes left him to fend off the sludge villain is but one example. Even when Bakugou fell off that log as a child, his other friends disregarded the possibility that he might be hurt, because he’s “strong.” In terms of emotional need, nobody, not even his parents, suspected that Bakugou was still suffering emotionally from the Kamino incident, and that he wasn’t handling it as well as everyone thought he was (Talk about a poker face! For someone so outwardly expressive, it’s stunning to see how well he hides his suffering. The greatest hint we get is him being unusually quiet). All Might even points out his failure to recognize this. As much as Bakugou is responsible for his own actions, others have failed him repeatedly too.

I know I said that “people failing to recognize when Bakugou needs help” could be another post on its own, but I want to point out one scene (or rather two) in particular that showcase how much Bakugou really does need emotional and physical help sometimes.

For one, when All Might and the rescue operation break into the LoV’s hideout to retrieve Bakugou, All Might’s first priority is to verbally comfort/reassure him, as per Nana Shimura’s adage to not only save a person’s life, but their heart/spirit as well. He gives the whole “We are here” line and tells Bakugou he’s okay...

Though he outwardly denies it, the truth of the matter is, Bakugou really was in trouble and needed their help, and he truly was scared. This is clear enough by his initial reaction, which he quickly covers up with a defensive response immediately afterwards. I can’t say for sure whether All Might’s words made him feel much better, but I assume it must have given him at least a little peace of mind.

A similar thing happens when Deku and company pull Bakugou out of the following fight. Again, Bakugou is initially grateful to the team because he really did need their assistance to escape the battle grounds. Though he goes back to grumbling and arguing with Iida immediately after, and denies their part in saving him after they’ve fully escaped, his grateful/relieved, perhaps lightly disapproving smile when grabbing Kirishima’s hand reveals his true feelings.

On a somewhat different note, when Bakugou is having issues, people address them in a poor and/or dehumanizing manner: see the way he was chained and muzzled at the end of the Sports Festival. And not to get too much into the Mitsuki discourse, but the way she tries to curb her son’s behavior does not seem to help either.

Because Bakugou is so ingrained in this mentality that he’s supposed to be invulnerable, he isn’t able to interpret basic human concern properly when it’s shown to him, notably when it’s one of the few people who ever treated him like a human being: Deku. Not only that, but Deku knew Bakugou before he got his Quirk, and admired him for his other traits as well, such as his confidence and determination. But Deku never blindly idolized his friend either: he notes several times (to other people) Bakugou’s bad qualities too. The distinction here is that Deku never paints Bakugou as a lesser or bad person for it. Instead, he accepts who Bakugou is as a whole, while still acknowledging him as someone worth looking up to.

An investment in being the best is fine and all on its own, but not when it starts to infest other aspects of your life, especially socially. Bakugou’s antisocial tendencies are probably mostly due to him just deeming activities that don’t allow him to prove himself as a waste of time, but I also feel that some of it is due to his fear of appearing as a normal human being—as someone who sometimes just wants to spend time with his friends purely for the sake of enjoying their company. As someone who needs other people. I think this also kind of applies to his inability to be emotionally vulnerable around others, as well as to accept acts of kindness and affection. It’s what makes him human. This is why Bakugou only comes to Deku when he needs to open up—because Deku is one of the few people who knows him for everything he is, who recognizes him as a flawed individual. And again, Deku never looks down on him for anything (despite Bakugou’s former belief). Not even when Bakugou cries.

All this really comes down to is Bakugou accepting other people’s help and relying more on collaboration than just taking on enemies solo. I think having him participate in other, non-combative activities, such as playing in a band in the School Festival Arc, is a good way to ease him into this methodology. Also, since it seems to be a trend at this point, it’d be nice to see him be hugged at least once without making a face. Though I do think it’s at least good that people are being more attentive to his emotional needs, whether it be in praising him (when it’s warranted), or comforting him (even if he thinks he doesn’t need it). Like yeah, I highly doubt Bakugou will ever be much of a touchy-feely person. But at the very least, he needs to know that other people care about him as a human being, and that this concern doesn’t make him any less of a talented, powerful individual.

#this literally just started with one panel from the spin-off and spiralled into something else #apologies if this is all over the place #bnha meta #i guess?#bakugou katsuki

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thatbangtanbloom · 5 years

Text

cypher, pt. 1 | knj

characters: namjoon x reader

au(s): best friend!yn, idol!namjoon (basically an au where yn likes to tease joon to make him feel better) categories: fluff, slight angst

word count: 882

Namjoon did not have enough fingers to count all the times that he received hate mail, a disparaging remark, or a declaration of him to leave Bangtan. In the beginning, he knew that it was a part of being an idol - it came with the stigma of being considered a sell-out, it all came with the idea of having to give up his true passion - hip hop - to become some cookie cutter, pretty boy who would paint magazine covers and span posters, and in the beginning, he hated every second of it. Not once did he enjoy reading the bulletin boards where the group that he (as well as the other members) sacrificed everything for.

And even though now he was older, experienced the luxuries of being considered a ‘sell-out’, and realized that being an idol was not inherently bad, he began to hone in on his own craft. He found himself making palaces out of paragraphs and sonnets out of soliloquies. Now there was Bangtan on the top of the world. Now, Namjoon was confident in his own skin. Now, he just had one last thing to attain.

Whenever he felt down, Namjoon always turned to the members. It had been their precarious circumstances that had always brought him back to them. Yet, there were times when he wanted more than just roundtable discussions or the seven of them laughing in the dorm to ignore the troubles that they would have tomorrow as the number group in the world. Sometimes, he just needed something simple.

She came immediately when she received the text he had sent her.

joonie [8:24 PM KST]:

i need someone to talk to

ynnnnn [8:26 PM KST]:

I’ll meet you at the Han River in twenty minutes!

ynnnnn [8:26 PM KST]:

Joonie should have triangle kimbap immediately!!!

“I don’t think being an idol rapper is bad at all,” is what reassures him as he sits beside the younger girl at the Han River. Their visits had become less frequent as his popularity rose, but he felt content with her, eating japchae as they look over the Seoul bridge and the lights. “If you stay true to yourself, there’s nothing bad in that.” She whispers before touching his arm and nudging him. “Where’s the confident Rap Monster? The Third generation leader, I’mma lead ya-?” He swears that he would cringe if it wasn’t for how adorable she looked imitating him, but he doesn’t. He only smiles at her, his heart beating a bit faster. He wants to blame it on the biology, that perhaps there is something misconstrued with the neurotransmitters that are sending him into a rush. But he knows the truth. It’s just her.

“Don’t call me that,” Namjoon groans with a laugh, but he isn’t mad or annoyed with her. He likes hearing her laugh that seems to drag on; not a bit too long, but he’s content. “I’ve grown from that.”

“I know, RM.” She teases with a giggle before nudging him again and taking a bite of the triangle kimbap. “Mr. Yeah, I’m the top of the top of the top-”

“Why was I so brash in those days?” is the only thing that Namjoon can muster out of embarrassment.

YN smiles at him before beginning to talk with her mouth full, “Because you were hungry back then. You all were. It’s what happens when people don’t recognize your worth but you do. I think you did just fine.” She says, a little speck of rice on her cheek and Namjoon wonders if he can brush it of without leaning in to break the distance of just friends and lovers.

. Namjoon’s cheeks turn a bright red as he thinks back to his rambunctious days, but he was always hungry back then. He was hungry for the recognition that he knew the boys and him had always deserved.

“You have a little something here,” He whispers softly as he wipes it away and skims her facial features. He wonders just when did he start to find her so beautiful. Or had he always done it and never noticed?

“Now, look at me and tell me who’s your top five? Rap Monster, Randa, Rida, Rap Mon, ni appa!” And just like that, Namjoon’s day dream ends with a cackle of laughter. He leans back, holding his stomach as he thinks back to how things used to be for them.

“Are you going to sit there and keep teasing me?”

“Will it make you laugh?” YN asks with a slow wink before she leans over to take a bite out of his triangle kimbap. “Because if it does, I’ll do it forever.”

Namjoon likes how the moonlight illuminates her face just right and how his chest twinges ever so slightly. He contemplates telling her that he would like to be with her forever, but he’s too chicken and at least sixty-percent pouty about his triangle kimbap. So he decides to wait for another day. But he’s okay with her right now. Even if it does mean her teasing his verse of Cypher Pt. 1 for eternity. He would just love her all the more, anyway.

- - - - - -

I just really like the idea of being best friends to Namjoon. Double posting in one day?

Make sure to let me know your thoughts! Don’t be a silent reader.

xx,

thatbangtanbloom

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sarinataylor · 5 years

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So this Music And Lyrics AU, I’m seeing washed up John from his Gone To Bali years and sunny moppet Roger as the plant-watering lyricist who bounces into his life, but I can also see Roger as the pop idol who has gone slightly to seed encountering the blend of innocent sweetness and zinger put-downs that is John

oh oh oh roger is defs the pop star gone to seed??? in my og version of this au but now im like hmmmmm. but ok so like

roger was part of a band with.... lets say brian and tim (bc well we need a bad guy, and poor tim is the fall guy). time fucks off with the music that brian and roger had written together and makes it big as a solo artist.

brian well. he’s pissed? but also, kinda wants to get his PhD, ya know? it was fun while it lasted, but. it’s not worth bankrupting themselves trying to prove their case, and the bands clearly over now anyway?

and roger, well. all roger ever wanted to be was a musician, right? and tim and brian have fucked off (and depending on the day he either respects brian’s decision or feels betrayed by it) so he’s.... stuck

and he puts out a solo album but it doesnt do well, and everyone’s comparing him to tim and he just. sort of gets in a rut. the music starts to run out and he’s fucking not gonna be the old time wonder working at fucking Sainsbury’s, okay? he’s not. this is not a pauper to popstar to pauper story, no way, no how.

so he starts.... picking up gigs where he plays their old songs. it’s. it’s not great? but! he gets to play his music, he gets to sing, and he fucks around with his own music back at home but he learned his lesson. he’s not putting out any solo stuff any time soon. it’s fine.

(freddie is his best mate who is, ya know, also a successful musician? he has a brilliant solo career and he’s constantly trying to convince roger to collab with him, or even just come on tour and drum for him? something????? but roger’s got it into his head that that’s not meant for him, that he fucked up his chance. he’s comfortable where he is even if he’s a little bit miserable.)

ANYWAY john comes to water his fucking plants

and john is, it should be noted, terrible with plants? like he does NOT have a green thumb at all, but a friend of a friend needed a favour for a week or so and

so when he walks in he immediately knows who roger is? cause like. his little sister julie? had SUCH a thing for him when they were teenagers. like, cried when the band broke up. was potentially one of the only people who bought his solo album, and definitely the only person who gave it a 5 star review. and johns like...... oh look at this sad sack of shit.

which like. roger is.

and freddie is over too with this lyricist they’ve rumbled up to work with roger for this pop sensations requested song and the lyrics this guy is coming up with are just.... they’re so bad? and freddie is taking a nap on the sofa because it’s so awful, roger looks about three seconds from strangling the guy

and john doesnt even mean to? he’s honestly jut talking to himself really but he comes up with a few lyrics and next thing he knows roger is inviting him to “a small performance tonight” (freddie rolls his eyes so violently he almost falls off of the sofa) and begging him to think about being his lyricist and

john makes the mistake of mentioning it to julie. then makes the mistake of agreeing to take her and. god it’s.... it’s sad okay? like roger is? 35? and doing high school reuinions? it’s just fucking sad.

and what makes it worse is that roger seems to know? like roger isn’t so much as in on the joke as he is.... resigned to it. makes the jokes before anyone else has the chance to.

freddie finds john to the side of the audience and is like....... pls be his lyricist because i dont have the time and, fucking hell, this might be his last chance to escape the clutches of bingo nights and high school reunions. he almost did a bar mitzvah last month.

and john really cant say no to that

and roger’s fun! like john is surprised to find that misery doesnt come easy to him? like he has his self pitying moments, is certainly the first to say something disparaging about himself and his abilities, but! he’s fun??? his music is good! he had stacks of cd’s just wracked up and when john asks about them roger just shrugs and says, oh you know, just songs i’ve played around with over the past few years

he’s fun and he genuinely believes that john’s a good lyricist. he makes contributions, he’s honest. he writes music like it comes to him as easy as breathing and ok

johns not proud but he sorta has a crush on the guy he thought, like three days ago, was a washed up sad sack of shit

look ok! he didn’t know him! he was jusging the book by its cover! it’s a pretty dingy cover. it’s all marked up and the corners are bent, and like yeah it’s pretty but it’s pretty in that way that’s like three vodka soda’s from crying about how sad it is, deep down.

(he tells this to roger, one day, once the song is released and they’re a collab team and, y’know..... just a team. roger is so offended. he’s never even had a vodka soda in his life. give him like one and a half gin and tonics, however)

anyway they work together and get closer (john shares his own Dark Backstory: basically the same as in the movie, he got taken advantage of by a professor at his university who then went on to write a book about it.) and then.......... roger’s a dick

they run into the professor and roger is. he’s projecting. he’s projecting his own issues onto john. like roger needs to confront tim (and not so much confront, but clear the air with brian) but he cant and the root of john’s own issues is standing right in front of them and so he.... basically forced john to confront him

and it goes badly

it goes really badly

and so john is embarrassed and angry at roger for making him do that, and roger is frustrated because it wasn’t meant to go like that (in all his fantasies, he and brian are friends again at the end of it and tim is humiliated in the corner and.... that’s how it was supposed to go for john). and so they both start saying things they.... both mean and dont mean (because the worst things you can ever say to someone are the things just rooted enough in truth to hit home and scrape at their insecurities, but exaggerated enough that you create little pinpricks of paranoia that actually those little truths aren’t so little at all.)

and, well.

john shows up to see their song performed and

roger sings a song for him

and song that roger wrote

which is a huge, big deal. because it’s not a joke. roger isn’t making a joke with this song, he’s not laughing at it before anyone else can. he’s singing it for john and he means it. and that’s

#joger hc's #headcanon ask #lo talks #Anonymous

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apsbicepstraining · 7 years

Text

A ‘radical alternative’: how one guy changed the sensing of Los Angeles

In the 1960 s, British architectural critic Reyner Banham said his love for the city that his fellow intellectuals disliked. What Banham wrote about Los Angeles redefined how the world realized it but what would he think of LA today?

Now I know subjective opinions can vary, the reporter Adam Raphael wrote in the Guardian in 1968, but personally I calculate LA as the noisiest, the smelliest, the most unpleasant and most uncivilised major city in the United States. In short, a smelling sewer …

Three years later, Raphaels words appeared in magazine again as an epigraph of Reyner Banhams Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies “the worlds largest” exuberantly pro-Los Angeles book further written. Ever since booklet, it has shown up on registers of enormous volumes about modern metropolitans even those being prepared by people who consider Los Angeles anything but a great American city.

Somehow, this notebook that attracted so much better of its initial advertising with shock ethic( In Praise (!) of Los Angeles, gibed the New York Times refreshes headline) has obstructed its relevance through the decades, such that newly arrived Angelenos still read it to familiarize themselves. But what can it school us about the Los Angeles of today?

An architectural historian a decade into his vocation when he first visited, Banham knew full-well that his fellow scholastics hated Los Angeles. How and why he himself happened so avidly to appreciate it constitutes the core question of his work on the city, which culminated in this slim volume.

The many who were ready to cast doubt on the worth of the enterprise, he reflected in its final chapter, included a discriminated Italian inventor and his wife who, on was found that I was writing this work, doubted that any person who has cared for architecture could lower himself to such a project and walked away without a word further.

The project began when Banham wreaked his shaggy whisker and wonky teeth to Los Angeles and was indicated that he desired the city with a fervour, in the words of novelist and Bradford-born Los Angeles expat Richard Rayner. Learning at the University of Southern California, who applied him up in the Greene brethren architecturally adored Gamble House in Pasadena, Banham had a privileged basi from which to explore. But what “hes been gone” looking for, and the route he wrote about what he saw and seemed, redefined the acces the intellectual world-wide and then the wider world realized the city.

Reyner Banham with his shaggy whisker and wonky teeth in 1968. Image: Peter Johns for the Guardian

Not that he affirmed his love right there on the tarmac at LAX. Banham initially received the city incomprehensible a reaction said that he shared numerous reviewers, wrote Nigel Whiteley in the study Reyner Banham: Historian of the Immediate Future.

Banham first attempted to publicly explain this cutting-edge metropolis, saturated across its enormous cavity with electronic devices, synthetic chemicals and televisions, in four 1968 BBC radio talks. He told to seeing how “hes come to” tractions with LAs embodiment of the experimental: its experimental shape and infrastructure, the combinations of cultures it accommodated, and the experimental lifestyles to which it gave rise.

But even an appreciator like Banham had his qualms with research results. In Los Angeles you tend to go to a particular lieu to do a specific thought, to another to do another thing, and finally a long way back to your dwelling, and youve done 100 miles in the day, he deplored in the third largest talk. The distances and the reliance on mechanical transportation leave no room for accident even for joyous accidents. You strategy the day in advance, curriculum your activities, and waive those random meetings with friends and strangers that are traditionally one of the reinforces of city life.

Nevertheless, to Banham this un-city-like municipality nursed out a promise: The unique significance of Los Angeles what provokes, plots and sometimes repulses me is the fact that it volunteers progressive alternatives to almost every urban thought in unquestioned currency.

In his subsequent landmark book, Banham enumerated Los Angeles leavings from conventional urbanism, as well as from all the rules for civilised living as they have been understood by the scholars of modernity, with obvious satisfy. It seemed to legitimise a modeling he had already, in a 1959 section, recommends to change the age-old perception of a single dense core surrounded by a wall.

Civilised living in suburban LA. Photograph: University of Southern California/ Corbis via Getty Images

Banham foresaw the city as scrambled egg, its shell burst open, its business yolk mixed with its domestic white-hot, and everything spread across the landscape, its evenness perturbed exclusively by occasional specialised sub-centres. A visitor to Los Angeles today might discover the city was indicated in merely the same way: as a network of nodes, a constellation of urban villages, an exercise in postmodern polycentrism.

Banham employed another paw in the eye of diehards who insisted that a city should have just one strong centre with his short chapter A Note on Downtown, which opens with the words, … because that is all downtown Los Angeles deserves.

From its fetishised formations such as the Bradbury Building and Cathedral of Saint Vibiana to its brand new office towers in their standard livery of dark glass and steel, Banham wrote that everything stands as an unintegrated scrap in a downtown situation that started to deteriorate long ago out of sheer irrelevance, as far as one can see.

The notebooks contrarianism indicates the contrarianism of Los Angeles itself, which, insofar as it acts the functions of a great city, in terms of size, cosmopolitan form, imaginative vitality, international influence, peculiar way of life, and corporate temperament[ substantiates that] all the most admired theorists of the current century, from the Futurists and Le Corbusier to Jane Jacobs and Sibyl Moholy-Nagy, have been wrong.

Filled with photos and sketches, Banhams book on Los Angeles fractions its subject up into the four ecologies of its subtitle: the beaches and beach townships of Surfurbia; the Foothills with their ever more elaborate and expensive palaces; the utilitarian Plains of Id( the only parts of Los Angeles flat enough and standing sufficient to are comparable to the cities of the Middle West) and the famous, then notorious, freeway organisation he dubbed Autopia: a single intelligible home, a coherent state of mind in which Angelenos invest the two calmest and most rewarding hours of their daily lives.

The 1893 Bradbury Building in downtown LA was an unintegrated scrap in Banhams gazes. Photograph: Michele and Tom Grimm/ Alamy

Between sections on the citys ecologies, Banham examined the buildings found in them. Populist, stylistically promiscuous, tradition-agnostic and often deliberately impermanent, Los Angeles architecture has, of all the citys ingredients, gleaned distain the longest. There is no reward for aesthetic virtue here , no penalty for aesthetic crime; nothing but a vast cosmic apathy, wrote the novelist James M. Cain in 1933.

More than 40 year later, Banham met a stylistic reward of Tacoburger Aztec to Wavy-line Moderne, from Cape Cod to unsupported Jaoul vaults, from Gourmet Mansardic to Polynesian Gabled and even in extremity Modern Architecture.

He discussed at length the LA building known as the dingbat a two-storey walk-up apartment-block … improved of timber and stuccoed over, all identical at the back but inexpensively, elaborately, decorated up-front, decorated with an aspirational appoint such as the Capri or the Starlet.

In defining dingbats as the real indication of Los Angeles metropolitan id, trying to be dealt with the unprecedented form of residential concentrations too high to be subsumed within the apparitions of homestead living, Banham diagnosed the center and persistent tension, then as now, between wanting to grow outward and needing to grow upward.

Banham attracted out the implications of Los Angeles ostensibly disposable structures not by idolizing them , nor disparaging them, but simply by ensure them as they were. Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown and Steven Izenour would preach the same approaching in their own city classic, Memorizing from Las Vegas, produced the following year: Withholding ruling may be used as an instrument to draw later judging most sensitive. This is a way of draw lessons from everything.

Still, even appreciators of Los Angeles might take issue with this method when Banhams non-judgmental attitude at the least toward the esthetics of American commercial culture starts to look like advocacy for bad taste.

The self-absorbed and perfected Watts Towers. Image: Hulton Archive/ Getty Images

Non-appreciators of Los Angeles certainly did. The painter and critic Peter Plagens, columnist of an 11,000 -word excoriation in Artforum magazine entitled The Ecology of Evil, travelled thus far as to name Banhams book dangerous: The hackers who do shopping center, Hawaiian restaurants and savings-and-loans, the dried-up civil servant in the separation of superhighways, and the forces of showbiz fringies will sleep a little easier and undertaking a lot harder now that their enterprises have been authenticated. In a more human civilization where Banhams doctrines would be measured against the subdividers assault of the territory and the pas specks in kids of my own lungs, the author might be stood up against a wall and shot.

Uncowed, Banham followed the book by starring in Reyner Banham Loves Los Angeles, a 1972 video documentary that followed him through one day in the city that obliges sillines of history and interruption all the rules, and inspired within him a passion that goes beyond appreciation or rationale. Stops on the tour included Simon Rodias handmade Watts Towers( a entirely self-absorbed and perfected headstone) to Los Angeles characteristic fantasy of innocence( prominently commemorated on all the delineates in his notebook ); the overgrown regions of the old-fashioned Pacific Electric Railways rusting runways that once tied the whole immense metropoli together; the decrepit canals and beachside bodybuilding facilities of Venice; and a Sunset Boulevard drive-in burger joint.

There, Banham questioned the painter Ed Ruscha, plainspoken and painstaking observer of American metropolitan cliche, what public buildings a guest should examine. Ruscha recommended gas station.

Banham pre-empted objections to Los Angeles metropolitan sort by claiming the word contents very little, had now been written that Los Angeles has no city figure at all in the commonly accepted feel. Yet whatever it does have, he bickered, has made a fascinating, and sometimes even efficient, placed of emergent city phenomena.

Come the day when the smog destiny ultimately descends, he narrated over aerial shoots of Wilshire Boulevards double row of towers and frame-filling vicinities of detached residences, … when trafficking in human beings grinds to a stall and the private vehicle is banned from the street, quite a lot of craftily targeted citizens will be able to switch over to being pedestrians and detect no pain.

Cyclists on Venice Beach … though often of LA is not bike-friendly. Photo: Alamy

The end of the car in Los Angeles? Bold terms for the man who announced Wilshire Boulevard one of the few enormous streets in “the worlds” where driving are particularly pleased after having, like earlier generations of English eggheads who learn themselves Italian in order to read Dante in the original, learned to drive in order to read Los Angeles in the original.

But just as its own language hear on wall street of Los Angeles have multiplied, its own language of mobility has changed there, as has much else besides. How readable would Banham, who perished in 1988 , now find it?

The smog that theorized bane of the citys postwar decades which he always minimise has all but faded. The era of apparently boundless room to gratify an obsession with single-family residences “ve been given” style to one of interpretation cranes sprouting to satisfy the brand-new is asking for high-density horizontal living. They stand not just over a downtown risen miraculously from the dead, but the specialised sub-centres sown all over greater Los Angeles.

Though the ban on private cars hasnt come yet , no recent development stuns any Angeleno who was there in the 1970 s more than the citys new railing transit network, which started to rise nearly 30 years after the conclusion of its Pacific Electric. It grades as such as a success of financing, planning and implementation( at least by the globally unimpressive American standard) that the rest of the two countries now seems to Los Angeles as an example of how to build public transportation and, increasingly, public seat in general.

Readers might scoff at Banham calling the Los Angeles freeway network one of the greater labors of mortal but he has demonstrated more of an ability to see beyond it than many current commentators of Los Angeles. Even though it is vastly better than any other motorway structure of my relationship, he wrote, it is inconceivable to Angelenos that it should not be replaced by an even better structure nearer to the perfection they are always seeking.

Banham detected downtown Los Angeles simply deserved a short assembly devote to it. Photograph: Alamy

Banham also foresaw the rise of the self-driving gondola, so often mooted these days as an alternative solution to Los Angeles traffic woes. But cars that drive themselves( as distinct from Baede-kar a then-fantastical singer sailing method dreamed up for Banhams TV doc, that countenances an uncanny resemblance to those every American driver uses today) come with problems that Banham also prophesied all those years ago. The marginal amplifications in efficiency through automation, he wrote, might be offset by the mental deprivations caused by destroying the residual misconceptions of free decision and driving skill.

Under each outwardly celebratory sheet of Banhams book lies the notion of change as Los Angeles merely constant: no matter how excitingly modern the car and the route, the working day will come to an end; no matter how comfortably idyllic the detached house, it very must fall out of prefer, or into impracticality, sooner or later.

Some of these components that reaped Banhams attention have, after their own periods of infamy, moved fashionable again. Even the humble dingbat has observed a residence in the future of the city, becoming the object of critical analyze and architectural contender.

Banham also determined the future of Los Angeles in other unprepossessing houses, especially one striking and elegantly simple-minded stucco casket on La Cienega Boulevard. Its inventor? A particular Frank Gehry, then virtually unknown but now one of the stronger influencers of the constructed surrounding in not just Los Angeles( his current high-profile job concerns re-making the citys famously dry, concrete-encased flow ), but other municipalities as well. The Toronto-born starchitect became his adopted hometowns architectural emissary only one of the myriad channels in which Los Angeles has influenced the rest of the city macrocosm.

These epoches, the rest of the urban world also influences Los Angeles. No longer struggling under the deceptions of total exceptionalism which prevails in Banhams day, it has, with its towers, develops, ballparks and even bike-share organizations, cleared strides toward the liveability so demanded by 21 st-century urbanists. It now even resembles( if faintly) New York, Boston, London, and Paris those thoroughly schemed , non-experimental metropolitans where, Banham lamented, warring pressure groups cannot get out of each other hair why i am pressed together in a hallowed labyrinth of cultural shrines and real estate values.

In its impressive attempt to incorporate older metropolitan moralities and play by the rules of good urban issues, modern Los Angeles dismisses the opportunities offered by becoming a similarly sacred labyrinth at its jeopardy. Continuing Banhams Los Angeles: the Architecture of Four Ecologies on its syllabus will hopefully protect against the terrible fate of losing its rule-breaking experimental metropolitan spirit.

The engineering-trained columnist regarded Los Angeles as a kind of machine. Though it has come in for a severely necessity modernise of its interface in recent years , nobody has yet written a customers manual more engaged in the city on its own terms as Banham did 45 years ago.

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