The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) has traditionally been known for two things: its status as the largest encyclopedic art museum in the western United States, and its schizophrenic campus.
Bolstering the former and addressing the latter, LACMA has unveiled a long-awaited free-standing addition to its collection: the Broad Contemporary Art Museum (BCAM), designed by Renzo Piano Building Workshop in conjunction with executive architect Gensler. — Published 2008.0507
Public urban open space. In the course of one L.A. day, those four little words inspired comparisons to a dining room table, descriptions of a "third revolution," arguments for spatial justice, historical tales of the search for an R-1 residential paradise, and an examination of what being "green" means in a desert. — Published 2008.0123
The Rice Residence, on a hillside above Los Angeles, expresses an idyllic Southern California lifestyle with daylight saturating every room, a floor plan that encourages casual indoor-outdoor living, and spectacular views of the Pacific Ocean in the distance. — Published 2007.0516
The new Center for Embedded Network Sensing (CENS) building designed by Culver City-based Studio Pali Fekete Architects (SPF:a), is unlike the red brick edifices that grace most of the University of California, Los Angeles campus. Surrounded on all sides by 1960s buildings and occupying a formerly neglected courtyard, the glass and steel structure is like a diamond in the rough. — Published 2007.0117
From her desk, Dena Primary Center principal Patricia Romero can watch children playing in the central courtyard. She also uses the vantage point to admire this new campus that is nestled in a densely populated neighborhood of East Los Angeles. Rachlin Architects have designed an elliptical amphitheater-style courtyard bordered by an administrative complex and two multipurpose buildings. — Published 2006.1018
The Hollywood Bowl amphitheater became a site for world-class performances over 80 years ago. It was the backdrop for romantic memories and a reflection of the growth of the Los Angeles metropolis. And while the sentimental attachment of Angelinos to this hillside entertainment venue in Bolton Canyon has remained strong, the theater itself has actually changed character many times in the intervening decades. — Published 2004.1020
Crowning Bunker Hill in downtown Los Angeles, the stainless steel curves of the Walt Disney Concert Hall (WDCH) by Frank Gehry shine in the Southern California sun. They shine in quick flashes glimpsed through nondescript high-rises, throwing fortuitous reflections among the shadows. The taller forms stretch up and out toward the city, while the lower forms bend down toward passersby. — Published 2003.1217
In the early 1980s, Brenda Levin was one of the chief engineers of a collective epiphany that the city of the perennial future had a past. Fresh from Harvard's Graduate School of Design, she was the right architect in the right spot at the right moment to restore a succession of historic buildings in Los Angeles. — Published 2003.0108
Several blocks along San Julian Street in downtown Los Angeles are home to many of the city's homeless. One would expect a sense of hopelessness to pervade that stretch of road, but instead it is vibrant and lively.
This is due to the presence of the Downtown Drop-In Center, a facility designed by Michael Lehrer, AIA of Lehrer Architects and operated by Volunteers of America, an offshoot of the Salvation Army. — Published 2001.0411
Architecture Design and Building in Los Angeles, California, USA
