#187: LOS ANGELES INCOMING: THE HEROIC AND THE AMBITIOUS

In the next few years, half a dozen projects are arriving to Los Angeles. And they are big. I mean BIG.

Architecturally speaking, Los Angeles is young and scrappy, compared to New York’s glamour, here and here, Chicago’s urbanity, San Francisco’s charm, or D.C.’s history. But Los Angeles has not fallen short with architectural wonders, here and here, from historical gems like Griffith Observatory and Bradbury Building, to modern masterpieces like the Getty Center and Disney Concert Hall. And in the coming years, there will be new heroes. Ambition shifts into a higher gear with the projects below.

The New Los Angeles County Museum of Art
This massive LACMA campus has always courted controversy, from its operating budget to visiting hours, from Rem Koolhaas’ proposed enormous glass roof to the elegant yet underwhelming buildings by Renzo Piano. Opening this year, a single $750 million building will replace nearly every aspect of the grounds as we know it. For the Swiss architect, Peter Zumthor, questions remain: the enormous budget, a new museum smaller than the original, where is the rest of program like staff work areas, why cross over Wilshire Boulevard, etc.? Also, is this so-called “blob” really inspired by the nearby tar pits? Regardless, Zumthor’s work will be extraordinary—as always.

Wow! Lucas Museum of Narrative Art
It is no surprise that a museum by the director of Star Wars would offer a 300,000-square-foot building that looks like a spaceship. Engaging Beijing-based designers, MAD Architects, George Lucas has conceived of “the first museum to focus exclusively on storytelling through images, paintings, sculptures, murals, photography, comic art, book and magazine illustrations, and the arts of filmmaking.” Completing in 2025, this $1 billion, 11-acre campus includes theaters (of course!), galleries, educational areas, food, retail, and gardens—all within an ambitious world-building straight out of the most imaginative of sci-fi flicks.

Broad Expands
New York architects, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, already hit a homerun with the 2015 opening of the Broad, a 120,000-square-foot museum dedicated to contemporary works. The architects have returned for a sequel. When the 55,000-square-foot, $100-million expansion opens in 2028, will it be Godfather Part II or Jaws: The Revenge? The existing building, though bizarre and original in personality, was unanimously hailed as a success. For the expansion, the architects have found another strange personality. They explain, “The pair shares DNA, but each has its own distinct character and purpose in constant dialogue with its counterpart.” The final composition hopefully proves that opposites attract.

Green at One Beverly Hills
At a whopping $2 billion, this one is the biggie. Designed by British architect, Norman Foster, One Beverly Hills will occupy 18 acres with multiple buildings including 255 condos, 79 hotel rooms, 30,000 square feet of commercial area, private club, fitness center with indoor pool, basketball courts, botanical gardens, and parking for 1,900 vehicles. When finished in 2028, the two 30-level residential skyscrapers will be the tallest structures in Beverly Hills. Landscape architect, Rios, will green the project top to bottom with an “eclectic collection of over 200 plant species, including palms, oaks, sycamores, succulents, and olive trees, based on nine diverse and distinct Southern California landscapes.”

Gehry Again and Again: Colburn Center
As if completing the Disney Concert Hall in 2003 wasn’t enough, as if completing the $1 billion Grand LA in 2022 across the street wasn’t enough, Frank Gehry has designed the Colburn Center next door—all part of the Grand Avenue Project, a heroic revitalization agenda for Bunker Hill. At $335 million, this new center will feature a 1,000-seat concert hall to join Disney, Ahmanson, Chandler, Taper, REDCAT, and Zipper in offering a multitude of venues for the performing arts, all within a block from one another. Disney Concert Hall is without a doubt considered one of the best works of architecture in history. But Gehry’s follow up Grand LA had a lukewarm reception. When finished in 2027, the Colburn Center aims to support his claim as the world’s greatest living architect.

Learning Center Pavilion, Holocaust Museum Addition
With the 2010 opening of the Holocaust Museum, Santa Monica-based architecture firm, BA Collective (formerly Belzberg Architects), broke creative ground with new shapes, forms, and construction methods—a sinuous, underground building that blurs structure with its landscape. Today, the firm has proposed a 20,000-square-foot expansion, the Learning Center Pavilion, comprising a 200-seat theater, classrooms, exhibit spaces, and a replica boxcar, all topped off by a structurally daring 2,600-square-foot canopy. For this project finishing in 2025, the architects continue their exploration into geometry, digital technology, forms of nature, and new ideas around materials and methods.

Graffiti at Oceanwide Plaza
When CallisonRTKL designed this $1 billion residential project of three skyscrapers—each 40 to 50 floors tall—adjacent to Crypto.com Arena, no one predicted what was to come. After construction went on hold in 2019 due to financial challenges with the developer from China, the nearly completed project fell into a state of limbo. Earlier this year under the cover of night, the towers were tagged in an epic show of graffiti, on a scale never seen before. Grabbing national headlines, the public debated whether such action was criminal or artistic. Was Oceanwide Plaza merely the target of vandalism to be condemned or, as LA Times columnist, Gustavo Arellano, claimed: “L.A. at its finest…transform[ed] something ugly into something far more vibrant.”