Best of 2013: Christopher Hawthorne picks Citi Bike, L.A.-centric ‘Her’

In this time when news is disseminated ever more quickly, we asked our critics to list the best of culture in 2013 in tweet form:

1) “Building Seagram.� Phyllis Lambert’s book on the great Mies tower is a rare attempt to blend memoir with rigorous architectural history.

2) Citi Bike. Among other benefits, New York’s bike-share system is great for 2-wheeled architecture tours. Too bad L.A.’s is stalled.

3) Cornfield Arroyo Seco Specific Plan. A zoning blueprint without parking requirements? In Los Angeles? I hope this catches on.

4) “Everything Loose Will Land.� Most (only?) daring exhibition of Getty’s Pacific Standard Time Presents series also had finest catalog.

5) 4 World Trade Center. Fumihiko Maki’s elegant design somehow emerged from the WTC rebuilding process with its charisma intact.

GRAPHIC: Best of 2013 | Entertainment and culture

6) “Her.� Cars and NIMBYs alike have been vanquished in Spike Jonze’s mesmerizing L.A. of the near future, replaced by subways, skinny towers.

7) “Invisible Cities.� Opera based on Calvino novel let audience members roam through Union Station and see its architecture from a new POV.

8) “Never Built Los Angeles.� Curators Greg Goldin, Sam Lubell captured L.A.’s rising nostalgia for the days we dreamed bigger civic dreams.

9) Steve McQueen at Schaulager. Show on artist-filmmaker in museum by Herzog + de Meuron was best art-architecture combo I saw all year.

10) Women in Design. Harvard group launched petition to give Denise Scott Brown a Pritzker — and overdue discussion on gender, collaboration.

Worst: Tempted of course to say MOCA’s “A New Sculpturalism.� But losing Goldberg’s Prentice and Astrodome vote were bigger blows.

Twitter: @HawthorneLAT