apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

why do so many of the LA entries have such a stuck-in-the-50s retro feel to them?
is there something i'm missing by not having visited LA since i was in 5th grade?
i don't like the aesthetic very much
is there an east coast/west coast design divide that i have been, up til now, unaware of?

My guess is that LA and perhaps CA in general is considered "young" so for them classic design is from the '50's. Plus I think that's just a common style in that part of the country. I like it quite a bit, but I like thing that lean modern for the most part.

There's definitely a regional design divide. California in general -- and Los Angeles in particular -- is the land of Googie, and it's trendy to rediscover it as our past. http://www.spaceagecity.com/googie/

I look at the East Coast entries and find myself bored with gray, blocky sofas paired with blond furniture and white walls. Frankly, all that looks just as retro to me -- just 1960s high-style retro or 1980s industrial instead of 1950s pop.

But the entries are also omitting some known regional styles. Berkeley has a big Arts & Crafts thing going. San Francisco used to have style of its own, along the John Dickinson lines. Hollywood Regency has shown up maybe once, if you define it loosely; there's been maybe one apartment with a beach feel. Victorian Revival used to be a big San Francisco-area thing; where'd it go? The kind of Asian look that's traditional out here -- to the point that Gump's carries it -- also has been pretty much absent from the entries.