Skip to main content
Back to Show
Lost LA

Rose Parade Floats and the History and Craft Behind Them

Erik C. Andersen brings us backstage for a first look at Burbank’s 2026 Rose Parade float. As a symbol of horticultural abundance, Burbank’s first float included a cornucopia of fruits and vegetables. Now, 111 years later, foraged bougainvillea, roses and other flowers are preserved using new methods able to protect up to 80% of their color.

Support Provided By
Season
coded geographies
25:06
See how the many restrictions many Angelenos had to navigate, exposing Los Angeles as a place of coded segregation and resistance.
press image for lost la season 2
23:50
Los Angeles is often identified with Hollywood, but there's more to the entertainment industry than its facade of movie stars and blockbuster films.
Steel frame of building being erected
25:32
Wood, iron, steel, concrete -- these are the materials that gave form to Los Angeles and shaped its identity in the national imagination. This episode also questions the cultural legacy and environmental costs of the city's relentless growth.
Calle de los Negros, Los Angeles, 1871
26:12
Long before Hollywood imagined the Wild West, Los Angeles was a real frontier town of gunslingers, lynch mobs, and smoke-belching locomotives.
Pio Pico
26:50
American history has long been told as a triumphant march westward from the Atlantic coast, but in southern California, our history stretches back further in time.
Reshaping L.A.
28:32
In this episode, "Lost LA" examines how the modern metropolis has reshaped its own topography. The program explores downtown L.A.'s lost hills and tunnels, as well as the vanished canals of Venice Beach.
Before the Dodgers
20:57
In this episode, "Lost LA" explores the various ways Southern California's inhabitants have used the hills around Dodger Stadium.
Wild L.A.
23:28
In this episode, Lost L.A. explores the complicated relationship between the city and its natural environment.
Active loading indicator