ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the historical forces shaping the emergence of the dingbat apartment as a housing type in Los Angeles, and the current forces shaping its future use and reuse in the city. Dingbats are the crystallization of pure real estate development rationale, the result of a particular alchemy of regulatory, market and cultural agendas all promoting investment as a path to prosperity. These low-rise “stucco box” structures were mass-produced across large swaths of the LA Basin from the late 1950s through the 1970s, addressing significant housing demand, but without the character, amenity and intimate scale of earlier housing types. While the dingbat played an important role in the development of the city, it has become a maligned product type, negatively perceived for its cheap construction, blank walls and prominent parking. The future conservation of dingbats, either singularly or as whole neighborhoods, will require the expansion of their original goals beyond real estate investment, refashioning them to better serve their residents, their neighborhood communities and the public realm.
