In The Los Angeles House, Street-Porter celebrates the city that has shown us more trends in design, architecture, and decoration than any other. He calls the city America's design laboratory, a kaleidoscopic succession of vistas, vegetation, and houses in an almost infinite variety of styles.

This architectural landscape is essentially American, for the architects of Los Angeles - unlike those in the rest of the country, who have looked to Europe for their models - have responded to their own particular circumstances, from the city's topography to a state of mind nurtured by the film industry. In the way the city developed and in its invention, it is the quintessential 20th-century city.

1. Street-Porter presents the cream of L.A.'s houses from all periods and all styles - from Frank Lloyd Wright to Frank Gehry and from Dolores del Rio to Madonna. Here are Modern masterpieces of residential architecture and elegantly mannered studies in Hollywood Regency. Here, too, are examples of some of the best decorators working in L.A. today.