Big Bang Beat L.A.

Inside a white geodesic dome, slides glow across the triangular panels: a pale tower against blue sky, a face in profile, a sunlit street. Floor cushions and low stools wait on green carpet in the dim blue light.
At night a two-story stucco building glows amber and sea-green behind a row of arches, a vintage car at the curb beside a parking meter. A poster in one arch stacks the words ENVIRONMENTAL COMMUNICATIONS under a 66¢ sign, and the lettering EC 62 runs across the arch at right.
Title
Big Bang Beat L.A.
Artist/Creator
Environmental Communications
Description
An exhibition at the Art, Design & Architecture Museum, UC Santa Barbara, drawn from the archive of Environmental Communications (EC), a 1970s Venice Beach collective of architects, artists and sociologists who argued for an architecture of whole urban environments rather than single buildings. Through photographic slides, booklets and videos distributed to architecture schools and libraries across the country, EC documented consumer society and the counterculture that resisted it, with Los Angeles, its smog, suburbs, street art and Pop architecture, as a central subject. The exhibition also reflects on the 2025 fires in the Palisades and Altadena.
Event Type
Exhibition
Date
September 13 – December 8, 2025
Location
Art, Design & Architecture Museum, UC Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, California
Organizer
Organized by the AD&A Museum, UC Santa Barbara; coordinated by Silvia Perea, Curator of the Architecture and Design Collection
Affiliated Organizations
UCSB Art, Design & Architecture Museum
Geographic Scope
City / Municipality
Climate & Ecology Themes
Urban Landscapes and Infrastructures
Air and Atmosphere
Fire
Discipline / Field
Arts & Design
Concepts
Memory and History
Place and Belonging
Ecological Domain / Habitat
Urban
Audience / Engagement Type
Public / General Audience
Methods & Approaches
Collaborative / Co-Creation
Rights
Rights held by artist or creator
Website
museum.ucsb.edu
Item sets
California Art & Climate Archive
UC Santa Barbara
Media
Inside a white geodesic dome, slides glow across the triangular panels: a pale tower against blue sky, a face in profile, a sunlit street. Floor cushions and low stools wait on green carpet in the dim blue light.Environmental Communications, Big Bang Beat L.A. 1
At night a two-story stucco building glows amber and sea-green behind a row of arches, a vintage car at the curb beside a parking meter. A poster in one arch stacks the words ENVIRONMENTAL COMMUNICATIONS under a 66¢ sign, and the lettering EC 62 runs across the arch at right.Environmental Communications, Big Bang Beat L.A. 2