Hollywood Towers To Be Slightly Less Gargantuan
Plans for Millennium Hollywood, prior to shrinkage. (Millennium Hollywood)
The developer of the two-tower Millennium Hollywood, located just next to the Capitol Records building in Hollywood, has agreed with the city of Los Angeles to limit the buildings’ heights to 35 and 39 stories, reports Curbed LA. The original proposal put forth heights of 485 and 585 feet (that’s roughly 48 and 58 stories). Millennium said that the total square footage of the project—more than one million square feet—and the number of residential (492) and hotel (200) units will not change. The agreement was reached at LA City Council’s Planning and Land Use Management Committee.
This means the buildings will dwarf the iconic Capitol Records building slightly less, although the move probably won’t soothe locals fears about increased congestion. Meanwhile according to the LA Times, the California Department of Transportation has accused city of officials of ignoring their concerns about the project’s impact on the city’s freeways. Stay tuned as this drama unfolds.
Getting Real In The SCI-Arc Parking Lot: Pavilion Construction Heating Up
SCI-Arc and Caltech’s DALE, under construction (Sam Lubell/ AN)
While you might not make a habit of visiting parking lots for the fun of it, if you haven’t been to SCI-Arc‘s parking lot lately, you’re missing out. Installations dot a big chunk of the concrete expanse, including Oyler Wu‘s billowing Storm Cloud installation, which was built for the school’s recent graduation; the steel frame of P-A-T-T-E-R-N-S‘s gigantic League of Shadows installation, which will be done by September, and the wooden frame of DALE, SCI-Arc and Caltech’s entry for the Solar Decathalon, which is being held this year at the Orange County Great Park.
Wim De Wit Stepping Down At the Getty
Wim de Wit is stepping down at the Getty. (Yoshihiro Makino)
Major news in the world of architectural scholarship. Wim de Wit, Head of the Department of Architecture and Contemporary Art at the Getty Research Institute (GRI), is stepping down. He’s moving to Stanford, where he will be Adjunct Curator of architecture and design at the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts. De Wit’s wife, Nancy Troy, has been a professor of art at Stanford since 2010.
Get On The Road This Sunday
The exhibition will take place inside and around several U-Haul trucks. (Courtesy On The Road)
If you’re near LA’s Little Tokyo this Sunday you should check out On The Road, a one day exhibition made up of 17 emerging studios and individuals showing off their in-progress investigations inside and around a caravan of U-Haul Trucks. The location: the corner of Temple and Alameda Streets, a.k.a. the MOCA Parking Lot. The date, June 2, and the location, MOCA, are not an accident. They match the original plan for MOCA’s New Sculpturalism show, which has been delayed until later in the month. “The MOCA show looks at the last 25 years, we want to look at the next 25 years,” explained curator Danielle Rago, who notes that the exhibition will showcase the city’s experimental tradition, but in a completely new way, for instance blurring the boundaries that once divided architecture from other disciplines. Participants’ models, boards, and installations will be grouped three to four in a truck, and some will be shown outside the trucks altogether. Designer Jimenez Lai, for one, will be putting together a “six hour endurance drawing project” on the exterior of the trucks. The show will take place on Sunday from 12pm to 6pm. See previews of the work below.
Los Angeles Architect Planning Best Play Structure Ever
Coolest. Playhouse. Ever. (Shawn Keltner)
LA architect Shawn Keltner, whose day job is lead designer at Los Angeles-based tecDESIGN (the design branch of Swiss firm tecARCHITECTURE), is doing some important work on the side: developing a wondrous play structure for his two young daughters, Kelty and Kree, aged five and two. The irregularly-shaped, 50-square-foot building, which he will put together on his family’s sloped lot in Glassell Park, will be made out of home-made SIPs and clad with Hardie Panels and polycarbonate.
Xavier Veilhan’s “Architectones” Transforms Lautner’s Sheats-Goldstein House
Onlookers admire the Sheats Goldstein festivities. (Elizabeth Daniels)
Yesterday, AN reported on the incredible new entertainment complex that millionaire James Goldstein is building next to John Lautner’s Sheats Goldstein Residence in Beverly Hills. But even without an adjacent nightclub, the house often hosts splashy events, the most recent of which was the latest art/architecture installation that’s part of artist Xavier Veilhan’s Architectones series. As he did at Richard Neutra’s VDL House and Pierre Koenig’s Case Study House 21, Veilhan created several site specific installations for the site, ranging from a life size statue of John Lautner to a series of cords stretching over the home’s pool. The project was curated by architect Francois Perrin and organized by Galerie Perrotin.
Los Angeles Mayoral Race: Who Will Help Architects?
In case you’ve missed it (and you certainly wouldn’t be alone), Los Angeles is voting for mayor tomorrow. And if you’re an architect, planner, or design lover, you probably want to know who will serve your interests. There are a number of resources, starting, of course, with the candidates’—Eric Garcetti’s and Wendy Greuel’s— web sites. You should also have a look at the AIA/LA’s groundbreaking candidates’ forums, moderated by city planning commissioner Bill Roschen and LA Times architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne. Among so many other debates, another favorite was this one, hosted by KCRW radio host Warren Olney.
MOCA’s “New Sculpturalism” Show Moving Forward
Rendering of Surface-to-Volume by Tom Wiscombe Design, part of the PST show.
AN just heard from MOCA that their embattled show, A New Sculpturalism, Contemporary Architecture in Southern California, is moving ahead. The date has been pushed back from June 2 to June 16, but it will still take place inside MOCA’s Geffen Contemporary, presumably featuring the same roster of both emerging and star architects, minus Frank Gehry, of course. The show had been put on hold for several weeks for reasons that vary according to whom you ask. Curator Christopher Mount had blamed mismanagement at MOCA, while others had blamed apprehension about the show’s direction, and Gehry’s withdrawal.
And They’re Off! Hollywood Park Race Track to Be Redeveloped as Neighborhood
A vintage postcard view of Hollywood Park. (Metro Transportation Library and Archive / Flickr)
Less than two weeks ago, the “Most Exciting Two Minutes in Sports” sent 20 thoroughbreds racing around the track at the Kentucky Derby, but across the country, Inglewood’s Hollywood Park race track has announced that it will be ceasing all races at the end of this year. Forever.
The race track is set to be replaced by about 3,000 homes, more than 600,000 square feet of retail space, 75,000 square feet of commercial space, a renovated casino, about 25 acres of parks, and and a 300-room hotel.
Petition Launched To Save MOCA’s New Sculpturalism Exhibition
Rendering of P-A-T-T-E-R-N-S’ Pavilion for MOCA’s New Sculpturalism. (Courtesy P-A-T-T-E-R-N-S)
Los Angeles architect Arshia Mahmoodi, founder of the firm VOID, has launched an online petition to try to help save the troubled exhibition, A New Sculpturalism: Contemporary Architecture in Southern California at MOCA. The show, scheduled for a June 2nd opening, is currently in a holding pattern, and its curator Christopher Mount told AN he feared it would be cancelled. Mount blames mismanagement at MOCA, while several news reports have pointed to general apprehension about the show, and the recent withdrawal of Frank Gehry. Mahmoodi released the petition—directed to MOCA director Jeffrey Deitch—yesterday.
San Francisco Passes Major Earthquake Retrofit Measure
Soft story building damaged after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. (Courtesy California Watch)
A big one hasn’t hit California for a little while, which means it’s the perfect time to enact more stringent retrofit legislation. Just in case, you know… Near the end of last month San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee signed into law the city’s new mandatory soft-story retrofit program, which calls for retrofits to buildings with large openings for storefronts or garages. There are quite a few in the city: 2,800, home to about 58,000 people and 2,000 businesses, according to the Mayor’s office.
Where’s the Money, MOCA? Questions surround the possible cancellation of A New Sculpturalism
Frank Gehry’s Walt Disney Concert Hall. (Courtesy Gehry Partners)
The intrigue continues at MOCA, whose upcoming show A New Sculpturalism: Contemporary Architecture in Southern California, is close to being cancelled, according to multiple sources. The show’s curator Christopher Mount has told AN that Frank Gehry’s withdrawal is not the cause for the exhibition’s possible demise, as was suggested yesterday in the Los Angeles Times. The real reason, he said: MOCA director Jeffrey Deitch, who halted installation of the show a few weeks ago, claiming that money for the undertaking had run out. Mount, however, says there is plenty of money left in the show’s budget. Read More
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