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OMA's Audrey Imas Pavilion makes its long-awaited debut on Wilshire Boulevard

2022-01-04T18:38:00-05:00

The wait is over for one of the most hotly-anticipated editions to the cultural landscape of Los Angeles in recent memory.

OMA has announced the official completion of its much-heralded Audrey Irmas Pavilion for the Wilshire Boulevard Temple in Koreatown.

The new building offers a unique center for aging in addition to a rooftop terrace and sunken garden that connect through a series of small meeting rooms that provide users the chance to gather in the topmost example of three distinct voids defined by their separate sacred and public meeting spaces wrapped in gray GFRC panels which form a hexagonal motif geometric facade.

Image by Jason O'Rear, courtesy of OMA New York

Back in September, OMA’s Shohei Shigematsu referred to the project as a potential catalyst for a return to mass-scale social interactions, stating that its completion “comes at a time when we hope to come together again,” and that the pavilion “can be a platform to reinstate the importance of gathering, exchange, an...

OMA’s Audrey Irmas Pavilion nears completion, their first religious building

2021-09-01T16:01:00-04:00

OMA New York have released an update on their Audrey Irmas Pavilion taking shape in Los Angeles, California. The scheme, designed for the Wilshire Boulevard Temple, is OMA’s first cultural building in California, and the first religious institution building in the firm’s portfolio.

Image by Jason O'Rear, courtesy of OMA New York

Having been selected for the scheme’s design in 2015, OMA have progressed construction of the scheme through the COVID-19 pandemic. “The making of the Audrey Irmas Pavilion sustained forward momentum through the COVID-19 Pandemic, a period in which the act of human interaction was questioned and contemplated,” explains Shohei Shigematsu, the OMA Partner in charge of the project. “Its completion comes at a time where we hope to come together again, and this building can be a platform to reinstate the importance of gathering, exchange, and communal spirit.”

Image by Jason O'Rear, courtesy of OMA New York

The 55,000-square-foot pavilion sits adjacent to the cent...

OMA's Audrey Irmas Pavilion at Wilshire Boulevard Temple is taking shape

2021-03-19T15:19:00-04:00

After breaking ground in late 2018 and topping out nearly one year later, the OMA/Shohei Shigematsu-designed Audrey Irmas Pavilion at Wilshire Boulevard Temple in Los Angeles is increasingly taking shape.

The $75 million expansion — OMA's first building in the city — will house a chapel and terrace, a grand ballroom, meeting rooms, performance spaces, and a rooftop sky garden.

Rendering of the new Audrey Irmas Pavilion next to the historic 1929 temple building on Wilshire Boulevard in L.A.'s Koreatown neighborhood. Image courtesy of OMA New York.

Gruen Associates is the executive architect, Studio-MLA designed the sunken garden, and Arup is the structural and facade engineer on the project.

The new building is expected to open in early 2022.

Photographer Hunter Kerhart has shared a few more recent construction photos over at Urbanize LA.

Steel frame of OMA's Audrey Irmas Pavilion for Wilshire Boulevard Temple tops out

2019-08-01T14:35:00-04:00

After breaking ground last November, the steel frame of the $75-million Audrey Irmas Pavilion has quickly taken shape in Koreatown. Located at the corner of Wilshire and Harvard Boulevard, the expansion to the Wilshire Boulevard Temple will house cultural, religious and community events. The three-story, 55,000-square-foot structure will consist of a chapel and terrace, a grand ballroom, a catering kitchen, meeting rooms, performance spaces and a rooftop sky garden.

The OMA/Shohei Shigematsu-designed Wilshire Boulevard Temple expansion in Los Angeles recently celebrated the topping out of its steel structure.

Conceptual model. Image courtesy of OMA New York

On its website, OMA explains that the "structural frame, weighing about 700 tons, is composed of steel beams and columns with buckling restrained braces to resist earthquake loads. The steel framing is designed economically to resist its own weight under gravity, with three sloped elevations. The long transfer girders supporting the upper level columns will accommodate an open, clear-span ground floor event space."

View of the historic 1929 temple building with the new Audrey Irmas Pavilion from across Wilshire Boulevard. Image courtesy of OMA New York

OMA's collaborators on the Audrey Irmas Pavilion project are executive architect Gruen Associates, landscape architect Studio-MLA, and engineers Arup. Completion is scheduled for late 2020.

To get a clearer picture of the current progress, head...

Construction on OMA's Audrey Irmas Pavilion kicks off in Los Angeles

2018-11-12T13:59:00-05:00

The oldest Jewish congregation in Los Angeles, Wilshire Boulevard Temple, broke ground on its anticipated $75 million OMA-designed expansion over the weekend.

Named after the project's lead donor, the new Audrey Irmas Pavilion will rise right next to the Temple's historic sanctuary and will house spaces for multi-use cultural and religious purposes.

Image courtesy of OMA New York

The expansion effort is led by OMA partner Shohei Shigematsu and Rem Koolhaas as Partner-in-collaboration. Gruen Associates is the executive architect, Studio-MLA oversees the landscape architecture, and Arup is the engineering partner on the project.

View from across Wilshire Boulevard. Image courtesy of OMA New York

“Focusing on communicating the energy of gathering and exchange, the pavilion is an active gesture, shaped by respectful moves away from the surrounding historic buildings, reaching out onto Wilshire Boulevard to create a new presence," said Shohei Shigematsu. "We are thrilled to break ground ...

OMA's Audrey Irmas Pavilion to break ground next month along Wilshire Boulevard

2018-10-26T15:57:00-04:00

The Wilshire Boulevard Temple's high-profile expansion will break ground next month, according to Urbanize.LA. Designed by OMA New York, the new Audrey Irmas Pavilion will include a main event space, a smaller multi-purpose room, and a sunken garden designed by LA-based Mia Lehrer, with whom OMA is also collaborating on a park design in downtown LA.

Renderings for the landmark's expansion were released earlier this year, showing a contemporary design that leans away from the historic building, in terms of both aesthetics and positioning. "The pavilion is an active gesture, shaped by respectful moves away from the surrounding historic buildings, reaching out onto Wilshire Boulevard to create a new presence," said OMA Partner Shohei Shigematsu back when details of the project were released.

The $75 million expansion is expected to complete in 2020. Most of the funding has come from the project's lead donor for whom the pavilion will be named after. Back in 2015, Audrey Irmas, a lon...

First glimpse: OMA's Audrey Irmas Pavilion design for the Wilshire Boulevard Temple

2018-04-02T13:31:00-04:00

Late last week, the Wilshire Boulevard Temple in Los Angeles revealed one rendering so far of the new Audrey Irmas Pavilion by OMA New York, who won the design competition for the building back in 2015. As an addition to the Temple's Erika J. Glazer Family Campus, the Pavilion is OMA's first commission from a religious institution and their first cultural building in California.

Designed by OMA Partner Shohei Shigematsu with Associate Jake Forster and Executive Architect Gruen Associates, the Pavilion was named after its lead donor Audrey Irmas, a longtime congregant who gave $30 million to the Wilshire Boulevard Temple after she auctioned off a Cy Twombly painting in November 2015.

Expected to break ground later this year, the slanted building will include a main event space, a smaller multi-purpose room, and a sunken garden. The three spaces are interlocked and stacked on top of each other to create vantage points and framed views.

“We wanted to focus on communicating the energy...

Sale of Twombly painting to help fund OMA-designed addition to the Wilshire Boulevard Temple

2015-09-16T20:59:00-04:00

It's something like cultural alchemy: the sale of a single painting is set to pay for half of a new OMA-designed annex space for the Wilshire Boulevard Temple, according to an announcement made today by the congregation. Donated by the philanthropist Audrey Irmas, the painting is a 1968 "blackboard" painting by the artist Cy Twombly.

Actually, according to predicted figures, the sale of the eight-foot-wide, grey-and-white painting would just about cover the $60 million price tag of the new building. As reported by the New York Times, the sale of a similar, but smaller, painting last year at Christie's brought in $69.9 million.

Irmas is a long-time congregant at the Wilshire Boulevard Temple, the oldest in Lost Angeles and a historic center for the Jewish community.

“I am thrilled and honored to be a part of the new addition designed by the world renowned Rem Koolhaas and the Office for Metropolitan Architecture at Wilshire Boulevard Temple," Irmas stated.

According to the press release...

Rem Koolhaas tapped to design Los Angeles Temple expansion

2015-04-24T12:54:00-04:00

Wilshire Boulevard Temple, famous for its ornate 1929 synagogue, is trying to create another Los Angeles landmark, negotiating with the Pritzker Prize-winning Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas to design a building next door for special events. It would be open for use by the public as well as by congregants. “Architecture is a form of prayer,” said Rabbi Steven Z. Leder of the Reform congregation, which is in Koreatown.