The proposed expansion of Farmers Market in Los Angeles raises an important question: Can "theme-park" architecture co-exist with "real" urbanism? By now, everyone is familiar with the coming urban apocalypse known as "Disney-fication" or "the theming of America." Outside of Las Vegas and Hollywood Boulevard, this phenomenon has largely been limited to suburban "entertainment centers," which are usually anchored by multiplex theaters and sell fast food and other "impulse" items amid an atmosphere of dislocated, cinema-like fantasy. Entertainment centers are now in vogue with developers, who want to develop them everywhere. The Grove at Farmers Market is arguably the first large-scale entertainment center to be built in a mature, urbanized area in Los Angeles. But how well will this new project co-exist with the original Farmers Market, a landmark collection of small wooden buildings that has stood here for 60 years? And how well will this themed development fit into the surrounding Fairfax District? Fairfax, after all, is one of a comparatively few pedestrian-oriented streets, bustling with Orthodox Jews, émigré Israelis, and Hollywood types. In other words, Fairfax is one of the unquestionably "real" places in Los Angeles. Alarmists and worst-case scenarists may wish to cite "Unreal America: Architecture and Illusion" by the doyenne of architectural critics, Ada Louise Huxtable. In the introduction, she writes that "surrogate experience and surrogate environments have become the American way of life. Distinctions are no longer made, or deemed necessary, between the real and the false...." Elsewhere, she adds that "themed parodies pass for places now, serving as the new planning and design models, even as real places with their full freight of art and memories are devalued and destroyed." Huxtable's argument is not black-and-white, however. Her view is nuanced enough to admit the originality of Citywalk, a built-to-order shopping street that has long been excoriated by some as a privatized ripoff of a Hollywood street scene. I'm not as worried about the phony vs. the real as Huxtable appears to be. Architecture, in fact, has traditionally retailed in forms and images that are clearly unreal, starting with the bank in the form of a Roman temple, the suburban house in the form of a Tudor cottage, or the public library in the form of a Renaissance Florentine orphanage. Yesterday's phony building often becomes today's landmark. Indeed, the venerable Farmers Market itself is a group of roadside buildings of the 1930s, decked out to resemble a group of barns. That said, the issue of phony vs. real did leap out at me when I took a first glance at the new master plan for The Grove at Farmers Market. Here, the developers - upscale retailing guru Rick Caruso and the long-time owner of Farmers Market, the Gilmore family - plan to create what will be virtually a new urban district made up of ready-made fantasy streets with rows of tarted up, faux-historical buildings. The site plan, designed by the San Francisco-based architectural firm of Kaplan McLaughlin Diaz, certainly looks urbane; it almost could be a miniature city unto itself. But the street grid of this new "city" is not simple or straightforward. Like the streets in a Hollywood stage set, they twist and turn, including a curved with an "endless" vista that could have been borrowed from the backlot of 20th Century Fox. The "center" is Town Square, a well designed and well-scaled urban space of roughly 200 by 300 feet, which has the simplicity, albeit of a self-conscious kind, of an old courthouse square. A pair of parking structures conceals an oil field on the property; at six stories, they are by far the tallest structures in the project. Another constraint of the site is an historic adobe, with existing gardens. The master-plan architects have made the garden into a visual centerpiece for a three-story office building and several restaurants. Another quaint touch is the so-called "Red Cars", which are actually rubber-wheeled jitneys that carry shoppers back and forth between the new multiplex and the original Farmers Market buildings. If the shopping mall is inward looking, the site planners have been conscientious about maintaining an urbane edge on Third Street. The project actually creates a "street wall" of construction where none previously existed, and breaks the monotony every 200 hundred feet or so, when "streets" or passages into the mall open onto Third Street. The site plan seems more intent on framing views or present certain illusions rather than being strictly functional. In this case, creating surprises and enchanting scenes is functional, in a sense: Caruso, the developer, has said that he wants shoppers to stay three or four hours at his centers, rather than rush in, make a purchase, and rush out. Keeping customers on the premises means creating a place where visitors like to hang out. The toughest issue with the scheme is not the site plan but the buildings themselves. These buildings are two cuts above the kind of nostalgic fluff found in many present-day developments. The designers at Kaplan McLaughlin have demonstrated they can design historicist buildings in a literate and witty style. Yet the original Farmers Market buildings, with their naïve detailing, are no match for the sophisticated razzle-dazzle of the new buildings. It's not as if the old buildings are particularly distinguished; they are not. But Farmers Market is a genuine landmark that may appear swamped by the village of fantasy retail that it has engendered. The developers were wise to try and recreate the old Farmers Market. Still, The Grove at Farmers Market does come on a little strong. But The Grove is not Disneyland: the project is designed to fit into a real city street. The project has replaced the long parking-lot frontage along Third Street with some interesting elevations and open spaces. At the end of the day, projects are worthwhile because they provide some of the basic pleasures and functions of good urbanism. That is why The Grove may be successful even after this technicolor project has bleached in the sun for a few years. As for theme-parks and authenticity, we should keep in mind that, two generations ago, Farmers Market was a roadside novelty. Today's fantasy street may be tomorrow's real thing.