Europa, Europa

Staff -- Interior Design, 3/1/2001 12:00:00 AM

The turn of the 20th century marked a period of political and social flux for Central Europe, whose urban landscape was radically altered by the creative fervor-and subsequent fall of-the Hapsburg Empire and the destruction of World War I. A current exhibit at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, Shaping the Great City: Modern Architecture in Central Europe, 1890-1937, recounts the period when architects and city planners "ambitiously took up the ideals of nation-building across a region that contained tremendous diversity of cultures," says Thomas Crow, director of the Getty Research Institute. Otto Wagner, Josef Hoffmann, and Adolf Loos are among the 45 architects represented in the exhibit, on view through May 6th. For information, call (310) 440-7722.