Archinect - News

Refik Anadol Studio to open DATALAND Museum of AI Arts at The Grand LA in 2025

2024-09-24T16:24:00-04:00

By the end 2025, Refik Anadol will open a new venture called DATALAND at The Grand in downtown LA. The leading name in artificial intelligence and digital art, Anadol, announced the venture via its YouTube account, adding in a press release that Los Angeles was the "perfect city" for his vision of bringing the intelligence of machines and humans together in a museum setting.

Anadol was considered a prominent thinker at intersection of media and design arts well before his recent Machine Hallucinations series and debuts at MoMA, the Las Vegas Sphere, and 2023 Grammy Awards. (You can read Anadol's thoughts on the subject from his 2022 feature conservation here.)

He now returns to the site of his 2018 installation at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, using his hero Frank Gehry’s architecture as the permanent base of which another experiment, this one to "develop a new paradigm"of museums, can be performed.

Anadol and Erkiliç. Image credit: Dustin Downing

The studio’s long-serving partner, ...

Frank Gehry talks to the LA Times about his ever-expanding vision for downtown Los Angeles

2024-04-12T17:50:00-04:00

Frank Gehry has provided some interesting comments to the LA Times to coincide with last week’s groundbreaking of the new Colburn Center in downtown Los Angeles, a vital lynchpin for the city’s post-COVID economic rebound.

Speaking on the record for an article to the paper’s business section, the 95-year-old Walt Disney Concert Hall designer told reporters about his still-expanding vision for the Grand Avenue corridor and beyond. The neighborhood has been a bit of an obsession of his since the end of the 1990s. Now, he says, "we still have work to do," adding that Little Tokyo, the Arts District, and other neighborhoods near Bunker Hill can and should have their own culture-backed transformations performed to facilitate a revival pushed by LA Mayor Karen Bass and other civic leaders.

The Broad museum also recently announced its own $100 million expansion plans. Our February preview of the new $335 milli...

Frank Gehry's Colburn Center expansion breaks ground in LA

2024-04-10T17:06:00-04:00

Work on Frank Gehry’s new Colburn School expansion has commenced in downtown Los Angeles toward its eventual completion after Q1 2027. His firm Gehry Partners celebrated the groundbreaking with school officials last Friday, April 5th, in sight of his previous Walt Disney Concert Hall and The Grand designs at the intersection of Hill and 2nd Streets.

Nagata Acoustics and TheaterDNA are leading the interior fit-outs for the extension, which will yield a total of 100,000 square feet of new spaces for performance and rehearsals. A 1,000-seat concert hall, 100-seat theater, and four new dance studios will be added through the construction, along with a new public garden that serves as a gateway to the rest of downtown. Costs for the project are reported to be $335 million.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Colburn School (@colburnschool)

Gehry said in a previous statement: “I hope that it will be well-used and well-loved by the students of the Colburn School ...

Four Pritzker Prize-winning architects have recently designed watches

2024-03-28T11:00:00-04:00

There are countless examples of architects expanding beyond buildings and architecture to engage with product design. This month alone, for example, our news coverage has included a swirling whisky bottle designed by a Zaha Hadid Architects director, a lighting product range by Snøhetta, and a series of biophilic design products by ecoLogicStudio.

In particular, the fashion industry has played host to several intriguing collaborations with big architectural names. Late last year, Frank Gehry collaborated with Louis Vuitton on a handbag for Art Basel Miami Beach one year after Louis Vuitton’s Peter Marino collaboration while, in 2022, Amale Andraos debuted a jewelry collection for Judith Ripka. To further explore this relationship between architecture, product, and fashion, we have rounded up four recent examples of notable architects engaging in the design of watches.

Tambour Moon Tourbillon Poinçon de Genève Sapphire. Image credit: Louis Vuitton

Frank Gehry for Louis Vuitton: Tambou...

Frank Gehry's 'Ruminations' comes to Madison Avenue

2024-02-23T18:36:00-05:00

The Gagosian Gallery’s Madison Avenue location has recently opened an exhibition of Frank Gehry artworks titled Ruminations.

On view until April 6th, the gallery will be showing recent works Gehry’s team says are in dialog with the architect’s engagements with fluid aquatic animal forms that date to an inspirational early-80s commission with the Formica Corporation.

Frank Gehry, Ruminations, 2024, installation view. Image: © Frank O. Gehry. Photo: Maris Hutchinson. Courtesy Gagosian

Notably, the show features the East Coast debut of Gehry’s "Crocodile Lamp" sculpture besides selected works on paper and other elaborations on the animal theme.

Frank Gehry, Untitled (Black Crocodile New York), 2023. Metal wire, Colorcore formica, and silicone 13 3/8 x 102 3/8 x 51 1/4 inches (34 x 260 x 130 cm). Image: © Frank O. Gehry/Photo: Maris Hutchinson. Courtesy Gagosian

Ruminations follows the 2021 exhibition Spinning Tales, which was staged by the Gagosian in Los Angeles. This is the chance fo...

Frank Gehry's transformative Colburn School expansion will break ground in April

2024-02-20T19:14:00-05:00

An official groundbreaking date for Gehry Partners' $335 million Colburn School campus expansion has been set in downtown Los Angeles nearly six years after the project, now dubbed the Colburn Center, was announced in unison with collaborators Nagata Acoustics and TheaterDNA.

Site preparations and other preliminary construction will begin soon on the project, which will yield a total of 100,000 square feet worth of new performance, rehearsal, and education spaces, including a 1,000-seat concert hall, 100-seat theater, and four new dance studios. A special groundbreaking ceremony will take place on April 5th. The Colburn School says they expect construction to reach “substantial completion” by the end of Q1 2027.

View from Hill Street West towards the dance school entrance, dance studios, and public garden. Image: Courtesy of Frank O. Gehry & Gehry Partners, LLP

View East from Olive Street towards the entrance to the concert hall. Image: Courtesy of Frank O. Gehry & Gehry Partners, L...

Frank Gehry’s new SELA Cultural Center design inches forward in Los Angeles

2023-12-21T17:31:00-05:00

The proposed Gehry Partners design of the new SELA Cultural Center in South Gate, Los Angeles, is moving forward with approvals from the L.A. Board of Supervisors.

The project forms a major part of the Rio Hondo portion of the Lower Los Angeles River Revitalization Plan, which is contained in the larger 51-mile-long master plan designed by Gehry to run from the San Fernando Valley to San Pedro.

According to Urbanize LA, who reported on the recent approval: “The site sits on the south side of Imperial Highway, and near other upcoming Los Angeles River projects such as South Gate's 30-acre 'Urban Orchard.' Additionally, the cultural center would sit a short distance from the right-of-way of Metro's West Santa Ana Branch light rail line.”

SELA Cultural Center master plan. Image courtesy Gehry Partners & OLIN.

The project will be executed at 85,000 square feet with a site plan from OLIN. Details include an outdoor terrace deck and space for cultural events. Another pavilion structure at ...

Frank Gehry designs Louis Vuitton handbag collection for Art Basel Miami Beach

2023-12-12T12:53:00-05:00

The 21st edition of Art Basel Miami Beach, which took place last week, featured a special capsule collection from Frank Gehry for Louis Vuitton. The latest in a string of creative product collaborations that have to date included a special fragrance bottle design and the 2014 'Iconoclasts' series contribution offers a “reinterpretation” of the brand’s iconic Capucines bag designed to encapsulate four themes: 'Architecture and Form,' 'Material Exploration,' 'Animals,' and the 'Twisted Box.'

Image courtesy Louis Vuitton.

“It is hard to adjust the existing Capucines shape, which is very strong. We had been working on that design graphically in 2D, and the images that we had made were compelling. I was skeptical that the architectural shape would be strong enough, though,” Gehry explained in Vogue. “The final bag not only got the sculptural feeling that I was looking for, but it also has the graphic quality that we liked.”

Image © Mario Kroes

The fluid fish motif Gehry has revisited tim...

Gehry Partners and Mark Cavagnero Associates named to design proposed Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall renovation in San Francisco

2023-10-13T18:29:00-04:00

A plan from Gehry Partners, LLP. and Mark Cavagnero Associates to renovate the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra’s 43-year-old Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall building is moving forward after a proposal was made public for the first time.

In September, the client submitted a proposal to begin the entitlement process for renovations to the SOM and Pietro Belluschi-designed structure. The goal is to make the Symphony “publicly accessible, transparent, and inviting,” according to its press release. The institution says it is still in the exploratory phase of the process and cautions it has yet to commit to a project or submitted any other permits as the concepts are explored further.

San Francisco Symphony Orchestra Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall. Image by Drew Altizer/Courtesy of San Francisco Symphony Hall.

Gehry, whose longstanding collaboration with noted acoustician Yasuhisa Toyota will again take centerstage when the expanded Colburn School of Music campus project breaks ground in ...

Frank Gehry will design a new Gladstones restaurant replacement for Wolfgang Puck in LA

2023-08-23T13:21:00-04:00

After more than 50 years in service, iconic oceanfront restaurant Gladstone’s is slated to close within the next year, making way for a long-anticipated restaurant from some of L.A.’s most recognizable names. In 2024, celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck expects to break ground on a new, Frank Gehry-designed, two-pronged project that will rise in its place. The new operators plan to break ground in early to mid 2024 and expect at least 18 months of construction before a 2025 debut.

The Pacific Palisades site sits on a total 2.8-acre parcel abutting the Pacific Coast Highway and Will Rogers State Beach approximately three miles north of Gehry's now underway Ocean Avenue project in Santa Monica.

Puck promised to deliver an "approachable, high-quality cuisine in a distinct architectural setting" when the redevelopment was first announced in 2018.

Also in Los Angeles, Gehry’s 800,000-square-foot Warner Bros. Second Century studios expansion recently opened, while a buyer is still being sought for the planned mixed-use project at 8150 Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood.

Frank Gehry reminisces on Toronto's past while detailing his Forma design for the New York Times

2023-07-26T12:56:00-04:00

A lot of work has gone into it. It’s like a painting. So the glass is offset in places to take the light a certain way and separate that surface from the rest of the building. A lot of care has gone into organizing that visually. It’ll become apparent over the years. You’ll see it and you’ll say: Oh, that’s what he was doing.

Gehry, whose family left Toronto for Los Angeles in 1947, also detailed his misgivings at the city’s contemporary development. The landscape has taken an even more markedly vertical turn since the beginning of 2021 thanks to a “race to the top” among developers (including the backers of the Gehry-designed Forma scheme, the Great Gulf Group) led by the forthcoming 105-story SkyTower design from Hariri Pontarini Architects for Pinnacle International.

Gehry’s only completed permanent work in his birth country, the 2008 renovation of the Art Gallery of Ontario, is also the subject of a major expansion designed by Diamond Schmitt, Two Row, and Selldorf Architects.

Groundbreaking on Forma’s first tower began last month, with an expected completion slated for 2028. Gehry also expressed an interest in refurbishing Arthur Erickson's Roy Thomson Hall, which still hasn't fine-tuned its acoustics since the last KPMB-led upgrade in 2002.

Frank Gehry’s Forma development begins construction in Toronto

2023-06-12T14:49:00-04:00

Frank Gehry’s biggest-ever contribution to the city in which he was born is now underway after construction began on the two-tower Forma condominium scheme in downtown Toronto.

A total of 2,087 residential units will be constructed as part of the process, filling out the pair of 73- and 84-story towers that, once built, will stand as the tallest buildings the 94-year-old Gehry has completed during the course of his illustrious six-decade career in architecture.

Image courtesy Forma/Great Gulf.

Gehry himself was on hand for last week’s groundbreaking ceremony, where he commented on the project’s significance as a new landmark rising from the busy commercial core of the city that has recently become a battleground for developers looking to surmount the fray of tall building proposals proffered there since the beginning of 2021.

Image courtesy Forma/Great Gulf.

"You think about the buildings in other cities like Rockefeller Center, where there’s an ensemble of buildings that create publ...

Gehry-designed Warner Bros. Second Century expansion is now complete

2023-05-17T13:01:00-04:00

The Gehry Partners-designed Second Century expansion project for Warner Bros. is now complete, Urbanize LA reports. This news comes a year after the exterior finishes of the office complex were said to be nearly done.

Breaking ground in early 2020, the 800,000-square-foot structure, resembling staggered icebergs through its glass façade, now rises in full view above the 134 freeway in Burbank, California. It comprises two buildings, one seven stories high and the other nine, atop a large underground parking space.

Previously on Archinect: Exterior finishes of Gehry's Warner Bros. Second Century expansion nearly complete

The project was built through a joint venture between Worthe Real Estate Group and Stockbridge Real Estate Fund. It forms part of a major expansion of Warner Bros.’ headquarters, which includes the acquisition of the surrounding Burbank Studios.

The complex will house around 4,500 Warner Bros. employees. The completion of this endeavor coincides with the 100th anniv...

'You just have to want to do it': Frank Gehry profiled in TIME Magazine

2023-04-06T14:54:00-04:00

[...] standing on the third floor of the Guggenheim during its 25th–anniversary celebrations in October 2022, even Gehry seemed a little awed. “When you look at your old buildings, you’re very critical of every little detail,” he says, looking around. “And I love it, I think. I find I love it.”

In a recent profile on Frank Gehry, TIME met up with the 94-year-old architect at one of his most celebrated buildings, the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. As Gehry revisited the halls his team designed more than three decades ago, he opened up about design principles, technical challenges, and his thoughts on movement in design.

Video via TIME on YouTube

The plot containing Frank Gehry's 8150 Sunset mixed-user is up for grabs in Hollywood

2023-01-19T12:22:00-05:00

This month, listings appeared on multiple websites advertising the 2.5-acre property at 8150 Sunset Boulevard as being for sale. The now vacant lot, which sits at Sunset's intersection with Crescent Heights Boulevard, is the former site of the Garden of Allah, and more recently, the Lytton Savings Building.

The amended plan includes a retail center and residential tower with 38 total units of affordable housing divided into two sculptural volumes that straddle a 2.5-acre plot. Once developed, it will join Gehry’s similarly-designed Ocean Avenue Project and the 45-story The Grand LA as the latest Gehry Partners mixed-use projects to grace the Los Angeles area this decade. The assessor’s estimate for the Sunset property was $14.75 million.

Frank Gehry gives Harvard Business Review a masterclass in delivering on time and on budget

2023-01-03T11:38:00-05:00

Archinect’s editorial is no stranger to covering project delays. In the second half of 2022 alone, we covered news of construction setbacks at the International African American Museum, the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. However, such high-profile examples are far from outliers but are instead representative of an endemic issue in the AEC industry.

According to research by University of Oxford professor Bent Flyvbjerg, whose team analyzed 16,000 construction projects around the world, only 8.5% of projects are delivered on time and on budget. In search of an explanation, Flyvbjerg and his colleague Dan Gardner turned to what at first seemed an unexpected resource: Frank Gehry.

At first glance, Gehry’s spectacular, unorthodox exercises in form and materiality should inevitably lie within the 91.5% of projects that fail to meet their time or budget...

Frank Gehry & OLIN break ground on new LA River revitalization Headwaters Pavilion

2022-11-21T17:28:00-05:00

In Canoga Park, a groundbreaking ceremony held on November 7 by City and County officials marks the official start of work on a new entry pavilion to the Los Angeles River Greenway. The new pavilion will consist of two buildings, framing an entrance to the river greenway, each featuring public restrooms. The new structures will support a shade canopy displaying public art. Other components include picnic tables, bike racks, and a drinking fountain.

The pavilion is the spearhead of the new “kit of parts” LA River revitalization master plan that was adopted by the county in May and includes the $1 billion-plus Taylor Yard G2 site and a total of 22 other new projects spread along the 51-mile-long course stretching from the San Fernando Valley to its southern terminus in San Pedro.

Previously on Archinect: Frank Gehry gets back in on the LA River action with a new Headwaters Pavilion design

OLIN is a collaborator on the project, which provides restrooms and a shade structure to frame the park's entrance at Bassett Street and Alabama Avenue. Total estimated costs for the design is $5.1 million.

Maya Lin's second academic building will deliver a new performing arts studio to Bard College

2022-10-26T14:19:00-04:00

New York’s Bard College has announced a new commission from architect Maya Lin that will deliver a performing arts studio building to its 540-acre Annandale-on-Hudson campus.

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial designer will team with Bialosky and acoustic specialists Charcoalblue to deliver a 25,000-square-foot space just west of the school’s Frank Gehry-designed Richard B. Fisher Center.

According to Bard, the sloping green-roofed building will contain five separate “state-of-the-art” studios connected by a series of “gathering hubs” that will host the school’s Fisher Center LAB residency program while doubling as a font for creative exploration for Bard students and faculty.

Lin is in the midst of a banner year following two high-profile commissions for the new Museum of Chinese in America in Manhattan and the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago. The school notes this will...

Issey Miyake, the feted 'architect' of high fashion, has passed away in Tokyo aged 84

2022-08-09T21:10:00-04:00

A remarkable intellectual titan of contemporary fashion and high culture has passed away as multiple outlets are reporting the death of iconic Japanese fashion designer Issey Miyake on Friday, August 5th after a battle with cancer.

A pioneer of the pleat and use of technologically-driven design, Miyake became a symbol of radical interventions in fashion. He was championed by photographer Irving Penn, Artforum, and many other art world mainstays who formed his early client base, which would later famously include Apple founder Steve Jobs.

In an industry ruled by form, proportion, and silhouette, Miyake used a complex understanding of architectural concepts to design garments that were sculptural in structure and unrepeatable in their unique ability to convey movement and the fluid body. Noted as the first Asian designer to "storm Paris runways in the '70s," his work continues to transcend contemporary fashion. His research-based Pleats Please and later Homme Plissé Issey Miyake lin...

Frank Gehry gets back in on the LA River action with a new Headwaters Pavilion design

2022-08-08T18:04:00-04:00

A few short weeks removed from the greenlighting of its proposed Ocean Avenue project in Santa Monica, Gehry Partners has revealed a new design for a Headwaters Pavilion to the LA River Greenway located within a city-owned plot in the San Fernando Valley neighborhood of Canoga Park.

Image courtesy Gehry Partners, LLP

Urbanize LA is reporting the firm will present its proposal to the city’s Cultural Affairs Commission on Wednesday. It was designed in collaboration with OLIN and will reportedly entail a sculptural shade canopy and public restrooms which frame the park entrance from the north-facing Bassett Street and Alabama Avenue. The total estimated cost of the design is $5.1 million.

Image courtesy OLIN

Pedestrian improvements and added seating amenities are planned for the site as well, along with added water retention infrastructure. Both entities have been involved in the LA River project since its inception seven years ago. Gehry’s role in the project has been heavily-scrutiniz...

The Guggenheim Bilbao announces $129 million Basque country expansion

2022-08-02T15:34:00-04:00

The Guggenheim Bilbao’s long-gestating plans to expand to a Spanish natural reserve may finally come to fruition. Earlier this week, officials with the government of the Biscay province, whose capital is Bilbao, revealed that they were planning to put €40 million toward an expansion in Urdaibai, an estuary to the east of Bilbao that has hundreds of plant species and thousands of human residents.

The new expansion will be connected to Frank Gehry’s original museum complex via a tunnel, according to the local outlet El Correo. The Guggenheim has been promoting the idea on and off since 2008 while it forged ahead with its other either failed or repeatedly-delayed (and not to mention politically-tinged) satellite projects under the leadership of outgoing Director Richard Armstrong.

As ARTnews reported, the Bilbao expansion will be an adaptive reuse design split between two former industrial sites in Guernica and Murueta. The total €127 million ($129 million) construction is expected to add at least 900 jobs and 148,000 annual visitors to the local economy in a hopeful repeat of the original expansion's famous effect. In a press statement, Armstrong said it will potentially be the "first important museum of the 21st century" and would not be "an architectural icon but a landscape one."

Frank Gehry's Equinox Towers scheme is one step closer to reality in Miami Beach

2022-07-22T13:08:00-04:00

A Gehry Partners proposal to redevelop Miami’s historic Deauville Beach Resort into a luxury hotel and condominium dubbed Equinox Towers is gaining traction after officials there agreed to move the plan to public vote on Wednesday.

The firm’s initial concept model of the project revealed to the Miami Beach City Commission during the hearing indicated a 125-unit condo design to stand beside a taller sculptural hotel with 175 rooms, potentially bringing another big-name architectural design to an undiscovered portion of the city’s gilded 35-mile-long coast.

The architect is developing the newly-named plan alongside Related Companies CEO and Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross, who told the Miami Herald the idea of having a second Gehry project in the neighborhood where he grew up “held a special place in his heart,” adding that it will “rebuild and lift a whole community.”

The Deauville Beach Resort as it appeared in 2016. Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons user VM (CC BY-SA 4.0)

There h...

Frank Gehry's Ocean Avenue Project gets the final go-ahead in Santa Monica

2022-07-19T13:23:00-04:00

After nearly a decade of planning and design changes, Frank Gehry’s proposed Ocean Avenue mixed-use development has finally been given the go-ahead by the Santa Monica City Council.

Gehry Partners says it will be characterized by a “full-service hotel, world-class exhibitions and programs in a new space for cultural institutions, affordable and market rate housing, and a variety of publicly accessible spaces including a new pedestrian mall,” and come along with a LEED Silver certification. The estimated cost of the project is around $243 million, and the firm says it will include a cultural program and employment package that will deliver an estimated $53.3 million in economic benefits to the Westside community.

Image courtesy Gehry Partners LLP

“The Frank Gehry Project is unique, brings new amenities like a cultural institution to the Downtown, and will provide one-time funds to deliver City services including transportation infrastructure, parks, re...

New Gehry-designed Children's Institute campus to officially open later this month in Watts

2022-06-09T19:15:00-04:00

The new 20,000-square-foot Children’s Institute (CII) campus in Los Angeles designed by Frank Gehry is set to open later this month. This is the non-profit’s first-ever purpose-built home in the community of Watts.

Located at Success Avenue and East 102nd Street in South Los Angeles, the $25.79 million campus functions to centralize CII’s operations in the area. It will provide space for 150 CII staff members and will house a range of therapeutic programs and free services for children and families, including toddler socialization, individual and group counseling, youth development activities, parenting workshops, workforce development/employment support, and Project Fatherhood sessions. The facility will also be home to community-based organizations Watts Gang Task Force and the LAPD Community Safety Partnership.

Children’s Institute Watts Campus, aerial view. Photo by Oltmans Construction Co. Courtesy of Children’s Institute

One of the primary goals of the project was to help stre...

Almost there for Frank Gehry's proposed Ocean Avenue Project in Santa Monica

2022-05-17T19:35:00-04:00

Ahead of this week’s scheduled planning commission meeting in Santa Monica, Gehry Partners has revealed updated renderings for the proposed Ocean Avenue Project that would install a new mixed-use cultural campus in the heart of Los Angeles’ beachy Westside.

The proposal calls for the creation of a new 120-room hotel, 100 deed-restricted apartment units, 36,000 square feet of retail and dining accommodation, and a 35,000-square-foot museum to be contained within an existing two-acre plot, with two additional landmarked structures being included as bookends for the cultural entity. If approved, construction is expected to take place over a period of 34 to 36 months with a total budget of around $350 million for the entire project.

Image courtesy Gehry Partners LLP.

Renderings appear to show a vibrant pedestrian scene punctuated by two undulated forms reminiscent of Gehry’s recent LUMA Arles Tower and the Building 32 design he completed for the Massachu...

Toronto's Art Gallery of Ontario announces major expansion project led by Selldorf Architects, Diamond Schmitt, and Two Row Architect

2022-04-28T14:35:00-04:00

Fresh on the heels of Selldorf Architects’ most recent museum upgrade, the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) announced its selection of a team led by Annabelle Selldorf's firm to oversee its new AGO Global Contemporary expansion beginning in 2024.

Two Row Architects will join Diamond Schmitt on the project that will give the institution an extended footprint for the first time since its last Frank Gehry-designed expansion opened in the fall of 2008.

The museum has undergone a total of seven renovations since first opening in 1900, and is now looking to add about 50,000 square feet of new galleries that reportedly comes in the form of “flexible volumes suited to the varied media of contemporary art.”

The AGO’s director Stephan Jost also said “we want the work we show to reflect the city that we serve,” and that the expansion should be responsive to the institution’s new targets for audience development and community involvement. Plans are for a six-story tower to be constructed along the...

Exterior finishes of Gehry's Warner Bros. Second Century expansion nearly complete

2022-04-18T14:08:00-04:00

Just north of the SR-134 Freeway in Burbank, vertical construction is all but finished for the Warner Bros. Second Century expansion, and exterior finishes are climbing the hulking concrete buildings.

In August of last year, it was reported that the concrete frames of the Frank Gehry-designed project had risen. Now, as seen through new photos, the exterior finishes of the Warner Bros. Second Century expansion, which resembles staggered blocks, look to be reaching completion. The project is set to be complete in 2023 and will consist of two office towers, one seven stories high and the other nine, spanning 800,000 square feet atop a large underground parking structure.

Previously on Archinect: Concrete frames of Frank Gehry-designed Second Century Project have risen

Frank Gehry reveals an upgraded design for Downtown LA's transformational Colburn Center

2022-03-16T21:27:00-04:00

The musical fabric of Los Angeles is about to get a significant boost from one of its most famous creative backers after Frank Gehry’s updated plans for the Colburn School were made public for the first time in a live-streamed ceremony at its downtown campus earlier today.

Renderings reveal a 100,000-square-foot expansion of the school’s existing facilities into what will be called the Colburn Center, a dynamic new set of interlocking performance venues and public spaces that will couple with a generous set of scholarship programs to further enhance the 72-year-old school’s educational and artistic offerings.

The project is an integral part of the architect's mission to transform the Downtown Los Angeles landscape beginning with his iconic Walt Disney Concert Hall up the street and culminating with his latest, directly adjacent mixed-use addition called The Grand. Gehry worked together with longtime collaborators Michael Ferguson and Yasuhisa Toyota of Nagat...

Frank Gehry's twin crocodile sculptures will star in Bonhams' upcoming LA auction

2022-02-23T18:53:00-05:00

Two sculptural pendant crocodile designs that once formed the centerpiece of Frank Gehry’s most significant mid-career designs are now for sale at Bonhams as part of the auction house’s first Modern Designs | Art sale of the year.

Frank Gehry, Illuminated Pendant Crocodile, 1983, custom-designed for Rebecca's Restaurant, painted metal and glass. Image courtesy Bonhams.

The pair is predicted to fetch somewhere in the $50,000–70,000 and $30,000–50,000 range respectively when the hammer drops in Los Angeles on March 8th.

The sculptures were created as part of Gehry’s 1983 commission from restaurateurs Bruce and Rebecca Marder for the design of the interior of their then-new Venice, California restaurant called Rebecca’s.

Related on Archinect: 'I think the fish form is architectural': Watch Frank Gehry talk about his latest sculpture exhibition in Los Angeles, Image: Spinning Tales, 2021, installation view. © Frank Gehry. Photo: Joshua White. Courtesy of Gagosian

Gehry’s design instantl...

The Frank Gehry-designed YOLA Center is a key cog in the transformation of LA's Inglewood suburb

2021-12-27T15:09:00-05:00

It is one of the most vivid examples of efforts by major arts organizations across the country to bring youth education programs out into communities, rather than concentrating them in city centers or urban arts districts. For Inglewood, the new YOLA Center is a notable addition to what has been a transformative wave of stadium and arena construction, which has spurred a wave of commercial and housing development.

The Beckmen YOLA Center opened in October on the site of a former Burger King restaurant as the latest iteration of a wave of high-profile projects tied to a larger plan being pursued by Inglewood Mayor James T. Butts Jr. which are reshaping the community of 109,000 in spite of advocates’ criticism that similar developments are fueling a wave of gentrification.

Previously on Archinect: 'LET IT RIP!': Photos of Frank Gehry’s new LA Phil Youth Orchestra Center opening ceremony. Photo: Joshua White/JWPictures.com © LA Phil

For his part, Butts Jr. says the satellite venue, which is as much the vision of Gehry as it is of LA Philharmonic director Gustavo Dudamel, provides a balance in an area known to outsiders for its sports stadiums and past economic woes.

“We’ve never been known for cultural enrichment,” he told The New York Times. “That is why this is so important to us. What’s happening now is a rounding out of society and culture: we will no longer be known for just sports and ente...