Archinect - News

Flea's Michael Maltzan-designed hillside LA compound drops price from $10M to $7M

2024-04-23T12:41:00-04:00

[...] property in the unincorporated community near Glendale has once again resurfaced for sale, per TMZ, this time asking a speck under $7 million. That’s still a lot more than the $4.3 million Balzary paid contemporary artists Lari Pittman and Roy Dowell for the place in 2018, but it does include an 875-square-foot addition that was installed on the land in 2021, as well as a pool and cabin that were tacked on in 2020.

As we wrote in 2022, the Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist listed the property asking $9.8 million, having purchased the property four years previous for $4.3 million. The Michael Maltzan-designed complex contains an outdoor movie pavilion, a redwood cabin, and a smaller two-bedroom house designed by Richard Neutra.

Engel Studios, Cameron Carothers; Associated Press

Artists Lari Pittman and Roy Dowell originally commissioned Maltzan for the single-bedroom addition in 2009, and it has since been featured in several design magazines, in addition to receiving an AIA Award in 2012.

Copper thieves keep unplugging LA's 'Ribbon of Light' on the Sixth Street Bridge

2023-12-23T12:00:00-05:00

A large swath of the 6th Street Bridge, known as the “Ribbon of Light” because of its illuminated arches of color across the Los Angeles River, has gone dark. Copper wire thieves are to blame, city officials said, and it’s unclear when the lights for the Instagram-popular bridge will be fixed.

Other notable incidents include a deadly fall and several social media-driven impromptu street takeovers that caused damages to its road surface just weeks after the Michael Maltzan design opened in July of 2022. The damage extends over a third of the bridge.

Councilmember Kevin de León's office personally phoned in the report and says it adds to a total of $500,000 worth of stolen copper within his 14th District. As the LA Times reported, there were no less than 1,200 active copper capers across the city in the past year alone.

Meanwhile, underneath the bridge, an $82 million public space regeneration is underway from Hargreaves Jones.

Michael Maltzan's finally complete Hammer Museum transformation sets an opening date

2023-03-14T11:24:00-04:00

Michael Maltzan's long-awaited overhaul of the UCLA Hammer Museum has set a date for its public debut after more than two decades of work undertaken at the behest of director Ann Philbin.

March 26th will mark the completed transformation of the 33-year-old Westside institution, with a new facade, lobby, and entrance from Wilshire Boulevard welcoming visitors into its enhanced spaces while acting like a gateway to Westwood Village and the university campus beyond.

Maltzan said: “We had a clear vision of what the Hammer should become, from the moment we began designing the master plan for what was then a cloistered, private museum of historic European painting. That clarity sustained us through a process that demanded extraordinary persistence and inventiveness, because we needed to work in phases as we reshaped, reconfigured, opened, and expanded the Hammer. This was truly a case of building the airplane while you were flying it. I can’t think of any other client that would have had...

Michael Maltzan, Maurice Cox, and Merrill Elam elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters

2023-02-22T12:47:00-05:00

Three architects and planners — Michael Maltzan, Maurice Cox, and Merrill Elam — have been announced as part of this year’s class of newly-elected members to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

They were joined by Oscar-winning actor Frances McDormand and Ukrainian author Andrey Kurkov in the nineteen-member group of inductees which will be honored in a special ceremony to be held on May 24th in New York City. (Kurkov, who is being inducted into Foreign Honorary membership, will also deliver a keynote address.)

The 300-member Academy was founded there in 1898 and has included luminaries such as Mark Twain and Cass Gilbert and currently features 30 member architects including Billie Tsien, Steven Holl, Elizabeth Diller, Meejin Yoon, Walter Hood, and last year’s inductees Mabel O. Wilson, Deborah Berke, Michael Van Valkenburgh, and Thomas Phifer.

Michael Maltzan of Michael Maltzan Architecture

Michael Maltzan. Photo credit: Monica Nouwens.

A contemporary mainstay in his adopted h...

Los Angeles looks to crack down on street takeovers and climbing at its new Sixth Street Viaduct

2022-08-03T18:13:00-04:00

Last Friday, Los Angeles City Councilmember Kevin de León proposed an ordinance prohibiting street takeovers, drag racing, vandalism, and climbing the arches, among others, of the recently-opened Sixth Street Viaduct.

In the three weeks, since the $588 million Michael Maltzan-designed bridge opened, it has been shut down by the LAPD, including a stretch of four consecutive nights, due to takeovers, rowdy crowds, and other dangerous activities.

Previously on Archinect: The Sixth Street Viaduct is lit, and it’s making people in Los Angeles a little too rowdy

Along with the ordinance, de León also proposed a motion to calculate the cost of periodically closing the bridge to cars for pedestrians and cyclists only. His proposal is as follows (h/t Urbanize Los Angeles):

The Bureau of Engineering to report on the resources and timeline to install cameras, fencing, signage, and traffic control mitigations to increase public safety.
LAPD and the Department of Transportation to report on t...

The Sixth Street Viaduct is lit, and it’s making people in Los Angeles a little too rowdy

2022-07-26T12:42:00-04:00

For the third consecutive night, the Los Angeles Police Department said on Twitter that it was forced to shut down the 6th Street Viaduct, saying it was due to “questionable activity.” [...] The 3,500-foot bridge that connects Boyle Heights to downtown Los Angeles has been open to traffic for just two weeks, but it’s quickly become a popular spot for street takeovers, illegal racing, dangerous stunts and vandalism.

The 'party people' took over Michael Maltzan’s brand new bridge redesign within hours of its July 9th opening. Some reports indicated that at least 250 people gathered last weekend for a second night of what the LAPD called "illegal activity," which resulted in arrests and the attempted bombing of a KTLA reporter live on air. Pro skater Meklo Rivera pulled up later to showcase some risky moves on one of the span’s many inviting concrete arches, but the cops eventually shut it down.

Some are framing this as an organic, car-free outpouring of community. In a hard-line rebuke of their viewpoint, Mayoral frontrunner Kevin de Leon said: "Angelenos deserve architecturally stunning projects in their own neighborhood, and we won’t be deterred by a few scofflaws."

Take a look at new Iwan Baan photos of LA's Sixth Street Viaduct ahead of its grand opening

2022-07-08T15:27:00-04:00

Concluding a multi-year construction effort that began with the demolition of the original 1930s Sixth Street Bridge in 2016 and saw the new structure begin to rise one year later, the City of Los Angeles is set to celebrate the opening of the largest bridge project in its history with a slew of public events this weekend, July 9th and 10th.

Spanning 3,500 feet in length, the new $588 million Michael Maltzan-designed Sixth Street Viaduct reestablishes a vital connection between Downtown LA, the Arts District, and the historic Boyle Heights neighborhood by expanding the focus of transportation from merely car traffic to also prioritize pedestrians and cyclists, offering wide sidewalks as well as 10-foot-wide Class IV protected bike lanes along each side of the viaduct. The opening of the ambitious PARC project (Park, Arts, River, and Connectivity), overseen by landscape architects Hargreaves Jones, is anticipated for 2024-25.

Photo by Iwan Baan, courtesy Michael Maltzan Architecture...

Long-awaited Sixth Street Viaduct is set to open on July 9th

2022-06-16T21:00:00-04:00

Your eyes do not deceive you: after six years, construction is set to come to a close next month for the new Sixth Street Viaduct. The $588-million structure, which spans 3,500 feet across the L.A. River between Boyle Heights and the Arts District in Downtown Los Angeles, will open to the public in a two-day celebration on Saturday, July 9 and Sunday, July 10, 14th District Councilmember Kevin de Leon announced this week.

The largest bridge project in the history of Los Angeles is finally here. Designed by a team including architect Michael Maltzan and HNTB, the Sixth Street Viaduct Replacement Project sees the creation of a new bridge, dubbed “The Ribbon of Light”, to replace the original 1932 structure. The new structure’s distinguishing feature is its LED-lit arches that reference the iconic metal arches of its predecessor. In addition to restoring an important connection between the Arts District on the west side of the Los Angeles River and the historic neighborhood of Boyle Heights on the east side, the bridge provides new sidewalks and protected bike lanes.

Previously on Archinect: Oliver Wainwright on this summer’s most-anticipated infrastructure project

With the new viaduct complete, the Bureau of Engineering will now move on to constructing a 12-acre park underneath the structure. This $40 million endeavor will provide access to the Los Angeles River, public art, recreational programming, a...

Oliver Wainwright on this summer’s most-anticipated infrastructure project

2022-05-26T14:07:00-04:00

Maltzan has taken the twin arcs and multiplied them fivefold across the 3,500ft length, hopping over railway tracks and roads as the viaduct makes its way eastwards. The result is almost surreal: seen from either end, it looks like the traces of two bouncing balls, ping-ponging their way across the valley, the arches rising to different heights according to what they are jumping over.

The Guardian critic took a tour of Downtown LA's soon-to-be-completed new Sixth Street Viaduct with architect Michael Maltzan, who said the $588 million project’s “real challenge” was to “come up with something as iconic as the original.”

Maltzan said the preservation of the bridge’s original iconic arches was a focal point for him and his team (“they were so much part of the civic memory of the city”) and added that the capacity for the project to serve as a bridge for the different social divisions that have long roiled the newly-conjoined neighborhoods was as important as its use as public infrastructure.

LA's new Sixth Street Viaduct is about to change common perspectives on public urban space

2022-03-28T12:34:00-04:00

Once it opens, construction will start on public playing fields, gathering areas, green spaces and a dog park at the foot of the bridge on the Boyle Heights side, and a performance stage and green spaces on the Arts District side. And cyclists can gear up for the fall unveiling of a 10-foot-wide bicycle lane going both directions on the bridge, which they can access from the bike lane at the river via a steep spiraling ramp. It is a ride that will take some energy.

LA architect Michael Maltzan spoke about his desire for the reborn cinematic landmark to be received as a public space that is suis generis within the available Downtown and Boyle Heights vistas, which are mostly blocked by hilly areas and typified by a lack of public space.

“The bridge is really meant to be a civic armature, to turn infrastructure into something that weaves together the city and connects communities. It's really going to be an observatory,” he told KCRW's Frances Anderton. “It gives you a different image, a different picture, a different view, a different vantage of the city that you think you know very well.”

Previously on Archinect: LA's famed 6th Street Viaduct now has its first span in place

Maltzan also discussed his built-in challenge for Angeleno cyclists, a group he counts himself among that has exploded since the beginning of the pandemic and plays a pivotal role in the city’s comprehensive 2035 mobility plan.

“You have to put in a bit of an effort to earn ...

Flea lists his Michael Maltzan-designed hillside LA compound (added bonus: Neutra-designed guest house)

2022-02-14T18:00:00-05:00

Michael “Flea” Balzary no longer has any need for his funky architectural digs tucked away in the La Crescenta foothills. The Red Hot Chili Pepper bassist has now officially listed the pedigreed property in the unincorporated community near Glendale, asking a hefty $9.8 million for the one-of-a-kind refuge he picked up for $4.3 million almost four years ago.

Flea purchased the Michael Maltzan-designed complex, which includes an outdoor movie pavilion, redwood cabin, and smaller two-bedroom house Richard Neutra designed for his secretary Dorothy Serulnic, from artists Lari Pittman and Roy Dowell in June of 2018.

Engel Studios, Cameron Carothers; Associated Press

The pair originally commissioned Maltzan for the single bedroom addition in 2009, and it has since been featured in several design magazines in addition to receiving an AIA Award in 2012. Its sale should clear up some overhead for the 59-year-old bassist, who recently spent $14 million on a home overlooking the Hollywood Hills – a long way away from the youthful underworld of squats and drugs dens he described in his 2019 memoir Acid for the Children.

LA's famed 6th Street Viaduct now has its first span in place

2022-01-12T19:39:00-05:00

A major milestone has taken place in the Michael Maltzan Architecture-led effort to replace Los Angeles’ iconic 6th Street Viaduct.

Construction Drive is reporting that the falsework has been removed and the first of ten spans successfully installed on the $588 million project that will eventually connect Boyle Heights to the Downtown Arts District. The installation paves the way for the disruptive six-year-long build’s much-anticipated completion, which is still on track for the end of the summer.

The bridge is one of the largest such construction projects to ever take place in the city and is seen as an important step in the connectivity improvements of the Boyle Heights community. Engineers will now begin work closing the superstructure before they can start on the installation of hangers for the next span, according to a press release from the international engineering concern COWI, that is leading the process.

“If you consider each arch span as an individual bridge, then this...

Construction update: Maltzan Architects concrete arches are coming together on the new Sixth Street Viaduct

2021-09-02T21:27:00-04:00

Concrete arches along Los Angeles’s iconic Sixth Street Viaduct are rounding into shape as one of Michael Maltzan Architecture’s signature projects nears completion.

Images courtesy City of Los Angeles Bureau of Engineering via Facebook

The $500 million project offers an update to the original span, which had to be demolished in 2016 owing to concerns related to its ability to withstand earthquakes due to the degradation of concrete in the original 1932 structure. (An arch from that structure was able to be preserved by the city later that year as over 1,000 components were given away in a promotion titled “Rock Day LA”.)

Images courtesy City of Los Angeles Bureau of Engineering via Facebook

The soon-to-be-completed replacement recently went on display at this year’s Venice Biennale will feature added green space in addition to the pedestrian walkways and the 40-foot high arches, which are now about 50% completed based on photos recently published by the city and Urbanize LA.

Images c...

Michael Maltzan Looks to Inuit Art as Inspiration for a Canadian Museum Project

2021-03-27T13:28:00-04:00

It was a trip to the Arctic that gave a Los Angeles-based architect the inspiration for the new 36,000 sqft expansion of the Winnipeg Art Gallery opening this weekend in the nation's seventh-largest city.

Qaumajuq, the Inuit art centre at the Winnipeg Art Gallery. Michael Maltzan Architecture with associate Cibinel Architecture. Photo Lindsay Reid.

Michael Maltzan's design for Qaumajuq, a center for Inuit art almost a decade in the making sprang out of an excursion he took in 2013 with the museum's director Stephen Borys.

Qaumajuq, the Inuit art Centre at the Winnipeg Art Gallery. Photo by Lindsay Reid.

After being tapped the year before for the design and completion of the IAC, Maltzan began studying both the artistic traditions and topographies endemic to the Inuit people in areas hundreds of miles to the north.

Qaumajuq, the Inuit art Centre at the Winnipeg Art Gallery. Photo by Lindsay Reid.

“It changed everything,” Borys told the New York Times. “When he got back to L.A., Micha...

Online architecture event recommendations for the week of March 3-10

2021-03-03T09:10:00-05:00

This week's list of featured online events from Archinect's Virtual Event Guide includes lectures, presentations, discussions, a conference, an award presentation, and a symposium.

Are you hosting a virtual lecture? Presentation? Tour? Interview? Happy Hour? Submit it for consideration by clicking here.

Are you an expert in an arena that's especially important right now? Let us know if you would like to work with Archinect to host an online event.

Lecture: Mark Lee | JOHNSTONMARKLEE
Wednesday, March 3, 2021 | 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM PDT
Since its establishment in 1998 in Los Angeles, Johnston Marklee has been recognized nationally and internationally with over 40 major awards and numerous publications. Projects undertaken by Johnston Marklee are diverse in scale and type, spanning fourteen countries throughout North and South America, Europe, and Asia.
Click here to attend and/or register

Mabel O. Wilson: Studio&: A Black Study
Wednesday, March 3, 2021 | 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM PDT
Mabel O. Wilson ...

Michael Maltzan Architecture announces plans for new Goethe-Institut headquarters in Los Angeles

2020-06-12T17:14:00-04:00

Michael Maltzan Architects has announced it is leading the design team for a new headquarters facility for the Goethe-Institut Los Angeles.

The forthcoming headquarters is slated for a site in the city's rapidly gentrifying Westlake neighborhood just outside Downtown Los Angeles, where many market-rate and affordable housing developments are currently in the works and where cultural organizations, including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, have expanded their footprints in recent years.

Previously on Archinect: "Michael Maltzan's Winnipeg Art Gallery Inuit Art Center set for late 2020 opening" Image courtesy Winnipeg Art Gallery.

According to an announcement published on the Goethe-Institut Los Angeles website, "The goal is to transform the setting into an interdisciplinary venue for art exhibitions, lectures, performances, film screenings, and other cultural events."

The statement continues: "MMA's projects cross a wide range of typologies, from housing to city infrastructure...

Los Angeles's fancy new bridge falls further behind schedule

2019-08-26T12:30:00-04:00

The Michael Maltzan Architecture (MMA)-designed Sixth Street Viaduct project in Los Angeles, a new $488 million span considered the largest bridge project in the city's history, is taking longer to complete than originally expected.

Although the bridge has been under construction for over three years, work on the forthcoming serial concrete arch spans that make up the massive project has slowed down in recent months. Curbed reports that a recent project update from the Los Angeles Bureau of Engineering (BOE) expects the bridge project to be completed in March 2022, roughly 20 months later than previously estimated.

View of the below-bridge areas that will include pedestrian and park spaces. Image courtesy of Michael Maltzan Architecture.

In a statement explaining the reasoning behind the delay, BOE, writes, "The project has experienced construction challenges in the installation of temporary shoring and falsework to support the bridge while under construction, the development of c...

Hammer Museum releases new renderings by Michael Maltzan for multi-year expansion

2018-02-23T19:45:00-05:00

The Hammer Museum, housing Los Angeles' 3rd largest collection of artistic innovation, has announced a public launch of a $180 million capital campaign in their multiyear expansion plan. A masterplan to improve every facet of the museum has been underway since 2000 lead by Michael Maltzan. Renovations began last summer with preliminary renderings of his designs for transforming the space.

Elevated bookstore rendering. Image: Michael Maltzan Architecture.

With a $30 million lead gift from L.A. philanthropists Lynda and Stewart Resnick (the largest in the museum's history), the facade design will now reflect the building's name dedicated to the Resnicks. Additional renderings have also been released along with a timeline of phases to be completed in 2020.

New contemporary gallery interior rendering. Image: Michael Maltzan Architecture.

Construction began in 2017 on renovating the third-floor exhibition spaces, now featuring a 10,000-square-foot contiguous gallery that accommodates ma...

ArtCenter College of Design presents 15-year master plan designed by Michael Maltzan Architecture & Tina Chee Landscape Studio

2017-11-06T14:12:00-05:00

The ArtCenter College of Design continues to move forward with a 15-year master plan for its two Pasadena campuses, with the release of a draft environmental impact report for the project. At completion, the Michael Maltzan- and Tina Chee Landscape Studio-designed expansion would increase the school's total enrollment from 2,000 full-time students to 2,500 full-time students, and its total staffing from 753 faculty to 994 faculty.

The City of Pasadena informs on its web page dedicated to the master plan project: "The ArtCenter College of Design (ArtCenter) proposes a 15-year Master Plan (the Project) that focuses growth on its South Campus, while providing for infrastructure improvements and building renovations on its Hillside Campus. The Project would be implemented in two phases, with Phase I occurring in the first five years of the Master Plan and Phase II occurring in the final ten years."

Image: Michael Maltzan Architecture, via artcenter.edu

More information can also be found on the school's ArtCenter Master Plan page.

Michael Maltzan's renderings of the expanded Hammer Museum reveal cautious, yet possibly ebullient design

2017-01-26T14:42:00-05:00

After transforming from a cramped adjunct space to a fully fledged L.A. cultural hotspot in just a few decades, the Hammer Museum is expanding again thanks to Michael Maltzan, who has been gradually increasing and renovating the Hammer over the years via The Billy Wilder Theatre, the expanded public courtyard (featuring Heatherwick Studio's ever delightful spool chairs), and the John V. Tunney Bridge. Based on his past work for the museum, he's able to create aesthetically powerful spaces in fairly constrained circumstances. The new renderings, while not mind-blowing in of themselves, promise a continuance of his detailed, culturally attuned work.

Perhaps the most exciting element of the new design is the pronounced pedestrian entrance on Wilshire Boulevard. Currently, museum goers often enter through the frankly unimpressive subterranean parking garage, or the staircase-heavy entrances on Lindbrook or Wilshire. This nod toward greater accessibility will hopefully not only perk up th...

One of the iconic arches of the old Sixth Street Bridge in LA will be preserved

2016-10-11T13:48:00-04:00

Earlier this year, the Sixth Street Bridge, which spans the Los Angeles River and connects the Arts District to Boyle Heights, was demolished due to a structural issue known as “concrete rot”. Built in 1932, the bridge held an iconic status in the collective imagination of the city, particularly due to its easily-recognizable silhouette, formed by two swooping, steel arches. Now officials report that one of these arches will be preserved and placed somewhere in the new, 8-acre park that will soon be beneath the new viaduct, which is designed by Michael Maltzan and features ribbon-like, Y-shaped columns. The city also gave away around 1,000 pieces of the bridge as commemorative objects.

h/t the Eastsider LA

For more on the Sixth Street Bridge, check out these articles:

Michael Maltzan proposes greening L.A.'s 134 freeway

2016-07-07T14:13:00-04:00

Christopher Hawthorne, in keeping with his exploration of the ever evolving urban identity of Los Angeles, reached out via the L.A. Times to Michael Maltzan to see if the architect had any ideas about transforming L.A.'s freeways from noisy polluting agents into civic amenities. Maltzan has responded pro bono with an idea to place a 3/4 mile stretch of the 134 freeway into a tunnel which would not only reduce noise and annually absorb 516,000 tons of carbon dioxide, but double as a site for rooftop solar panels and vegetation walls.

Drivers in the tunnel would still be able to see their Pasadena surroundings through the lattice-like exterior, although residents near the just south of the Rose Bowl portion of the freeway would experience a significant traffic noise reduction thanks to the tunnel's acoustically insulated walls. As the L.A. Times notes, Michael Maltzan "describes the proposal, produced in collaboration with the Los Angeles office of the engineering firm Arup, as 'an env...

Bridging Downtown: Michael Maltzan on Archinect Sessions One-to-One #15

2016-03-14T17:29:00-04:00

This week's One-to-One guest, the Los-Angeles based architect Michael Maltzan, may be best known for his multiple residential projects with the Skid Row Housing Trust, and the longer-than-the-empire-state-building-is-tall residential mixed user, One Santa Fe. But Maltzan’s office is also designing Los Angeles’ new Sixth Street Viaduct, a since-demolished infrastructural icon of the city that bridged the Los Angeles River between downtown and Boyle Heights. Michael shares his relationship with the growing identity of downtown Los Angeles, and his perspective on the style of urbanism arising on LA’s westside in the “Silicon Beach” neighborhood of Playa Vista. We also discuss the effect of China’s ban on “weird” architecture for LA-architects practicing there.

Listen to One-to-One #15 with Michael Maltzan:

iTunes: Click here to listen and subscribe to the new "Archinect Sessions One-to-One" podcast
SoundCloud: click here to follow Archinect
RSS: subscribe with any of your favorite podcasti...

Archinect's front runners for the 2016 Pritzker Prize

2016-01-08T15:41:00-05:00

Next Wednesday, January 13, the 2016 Laureate of the Pritzker Architecture Prize will be announced. The winner will receive the Pritzker's bronze medal, $100,000, and an avalanche of "what does this mean for architecture" media attention.

Check back here for the winner announcement first thing Wednesday, but until then, revel with us in the contentious practice of Pritzker-Predictions! Our top 6 picks follow:

Steven Holl: the perennial prediction

↑ Sifang Art Museum in Nanjing, China

Holl seems like an obvious choice, and his name has certainly echoed before in prediction lists. His work is known for its impressive light choreography and has a far-reaching global roster of projects, most recently including the Reid Building expansion at the Glasgow School of Art and the Nanjing Sifang Art Museum in China.

DS+R: the buzziest

↑ The High Line in New York City.

If buzz were the judge, DSR would be a shoe-in. Their work on the High Line received criticism veering on rapturous, and whil...

Low-income housing in Los Angeles: A look at the past, present and future

2015-04-08T18:30:00-04:00

The phrases "public housing" or "low-income housing" do not generally conjure thoughts of architectural innovation. [...] But it doesn't have to be that way, as several recent housing developments in Los Angeles prove. Instead, they pose the question: What if low-income housing was perceived as leading the vanguard of innovative, responsive architecture?

Michael Maltzan Looks to the Future

2015-02-27T19:30:00-05:00

Los Angeles is a place that is “conducive to making ideas and forms at the same time,” asserted Michael Maltzan during a talk yesterday at the A+D Architecture and Design Museum in Los Angeles. Part of the museum’s ongoing lecture series inCOLLABORATION, Maltzan’s talk focused on the relationship his projects hold to their infrastructural, urban and social contexts, as well as his conception of the role of contemporary architecture in the future of American cities.

The talk was divided into three categories: housing, civic or landscape design, and infrastructure. Yet as Maltzan moved from one to the next, he noted the conceptual permeability of these categories. On the one hand, he asserted that the movement between a house and an infrastructure project, for example, can be radically divergent. This is a fact with which Michael Maltzan Architecture has become intimately acquainted as they have greatly expanded their reach both programmatically and geographically in recent years. On t...

New St. Pete Pier – Finalists 2.0

2014-12-30T17:51:00-05:00

Second time's the charm — that's what the eight finalists of the New St. Pete Pier competition must be thinking.

After the first attempt of an architectural competition to redesign the iconic pier in St. Petersburg, FL was off to a bad start (remember? Michael Maltzan's entry "The Lens" was first crowned as winning entry and, after a heated debate, quickly fed to the sharks and never realized), the City of St. Petersburg launched a second RFQ for the pier's redesign.

The latest brief incorporated one of the core arguments brought forward against "The Lens" by the group Concerned Citizens of St. Pete — the preservation of the signature Inverted Pyramid structure built in 1973.

Eight finalists have now been presented to the public; each team equipped with a $30,000 stipend to develop initial design concepts, cost estimates and detailed reports.

↑ Discover Bay Life by VOA - View concept (PDF)

↑ The Pier Park by Rogers Partners Architects+Urban Designers, ASD, Ken Smith - View concept (PDF)

↑...

Michael Maltzan's One Santa Fe tries to make density appealing in Los Angeles

2014-10-13T14:45:00-04:00

It is a fractal of contemporary Los Angeles architecture, the fragment that both contains and helps explain the whole. [...] What gives the $165-million project its unusual symbolic power is that it takes the generic stuff of a typical L.A. apartment building — a wood frame slathered in white stucco and lifted above a concrete parking deck — and expands it dramatically to urban scale. [...] The design takes banality and stretches it like taffy in the direction of monumentality.

Wild architecture makes German cinema come alive at LACMA

2014-09-24T14:05:00-04:00

Movies can be great. Art can be great. But put them together in a museum exhibition, and the combination can be not-so-great. [...] A new exhibition of early 20th-century cinema at the L.A. County Museum of Art (LACMA), however, rethinks that equation. [...] Designed by Amy Murphy, a professor of architecture at USC, and Michael Maltzan of Michael Maltzan Architecture, the exhibition design is the antithesis of the traditional framed-stuff-on-a-wall model.

Interview with Michael Maltzan, ForumFest 2013 Honoree

2013-11-08T10:59:00-05:00

This Saturday, the Los Angeles Forum for Architecture and Urban Design will hold its annual ForumFest fundraiser, this year honoring Michael Maltzan. Operating as both educational and artistic platform, the LA Forum has helped shape the critical perspective on Los Angeles urbanism since 1987. In line with the Forum's impact on the city, Maltzan has contributed to L.A.’s theoretical urban identity as well as its physical one -- producing many critical writings on the city, along with projects on a variety of scales.

In anticipation of ForumFest, I spoke with Michael about his relationship to the city of Los Angeles, why he makes himself write, and the models for successful future cities.

Amelia Taylor-Hochberg: How is writing useful to architectural practice, and when considering urbanism?

Michael Maltzan: The thing I like so much about writing is that I find it very hard, and because of that, because it's not the most immediate way that I express what I'm thinking about, ...