We asked photographers, curators, and historians to weigh in for the cover story of our December 2016 ”Flashback” issue

If you had to choose one image that defines this city, what would it be? That was the question we posed to our panel of experts. Their answers ranged from the sublime to the ridiculous. We would have expected nothing less.

Julius Shulman’s 1960 photograph of Pierre Koenig’s Case Study House No. 22 in the Hollywood Hills “was self-consciously created to be iconic—epitomizing the architecture, lifestyle, and landscape of Los Angeles in one aspirational image,” says LACMA photo curator Britt Salvesen.