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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...

The Broad taps Diller Scofidio + Renfro again for major expansion

2024-03-27T18:33:00-04:00

Big news for architecture and art fans alike coming out of Los Angeles today, where The Broad just announced plans for a major expansion project to the tune of $100 million.

The reveal of the new proposal, which will reportedly increase the available gallery space by 70%, comes nearly ten years after the existing building opened to much fanfare on Downtown LA's Grand Avenue arts and culture corridor in 2015 to allow free public access to the vast art collection of philanthropists Eli and Edythe Broad.

For the design of the expansion, the museum has commissioned the original architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R) again, whose initial renderings hint at a continuation of their "veil and vault" concept.

"The exterior of the expansion echoes the surface appearance of the vault — as if this core had been exposed and 'unveiled' — symbolically expressing The Broad’s commitment to access while playfully inverting the visual vocabulary of the current building," the architects describe...

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...

The Grand LA launches new Gehry-designed luxury tower in Downtown LA

2021-12-01T17:48:00-05:00

As part of the architect’s “long-lived dream of revitalizing Downtown LA’s Grand Avenue corridor,” Frank Gehry and Related Companies have announced the next iteration of their co-design for a one-of-a-kind luxury residential complex beset amongst the city’s civic and cultural core.

Billed as a “paradigm-shifting residential center” to pair The Grand LA, a massive new shopping center that is coming to Downtown at a time when the area is still struggling to emerge from the ill-effects of the pandemic economically, the new tower features 549 high-end residencies spread throughout 45 stories at the corner of Grand Avenue and South Olive Street across from Gehry’s Pritzker-winning masterpiece Walt Disney Concert Hall.

Image: Related – CORE

A total of 20% of units qualify in the much-needed area of affordable housing, the development attaches to the rest of the program of retail and office space that was also designed by Gehry.

The structure topped out back in March and is now set to hea...

Watch Frank Gehry's megaproject The Grand top out in Los Angeles

2021-03-11T18:10:00-05:00

Two years after The Grand, the Gehry-designed $1-billion mixed-use development, broke ground in Downtown Los Angeles, construction reached a major milestone this week with the enormous structure officially topping out.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by The Grand (@thegrandla)

A time-lapse video posted on the project's Instagram account documents the construction progress since late 2018 when the parking structure originally occupying the site vis-à-vis the Walt Disney Concert Hall was demolished, followed by a massive 15-hour foundation concrete pour in July 2019 and subsequent vertical construction of the structure that includes a 39-story residential tower and a 20-story hotel.

Rendering of the completed The Grand project. Image courtesy of Related-CORE.

Frank Gehry's Los Angeles megaproject reaches the halfway mark

2020-08-31T13:34:00-04:00

Work on the Grand, a long-anticipated mixed-use complex designed by architect Frank Gehry has reached the halfway mark as construction carries on unobtrusively through the pandemic. The towering collection of apartments, stores, restaurants, movie theaters and a luxury hotel is rising on a full city block across Grand Avenue from Gehry’s famed Walt Disney Concert Hall at a time when few are around to witness its creation.

Roger Vincent of The Los Angeles Times checks in on the construction progress for The Grand, a forthcoming $1 billion mixed-use development taking shape in Downtown Los Angeles across from the Walt Disney Concert Hall.

The project, designed by Gehry Partners, has been in the works for nearly two decades and is finally coming to fruition now, amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Vincent reports that the construction site, which employs roughly 400 workers who are practicing social distancing, is among the largest in Southern California at the moment.

Frank Gehry's The Grand: tower complex construction goes vertical

2019-08-28T14:32:00-04:00

Six months after breaking ground across the street from the Walt Disney Concert Hall, construction has gone vertical for The Grand. Over the past two months, a pair of tower cranes has been raised above the project site, which spans the full city blocked bounded1st Street, 2nd Street, Olive Street, and Grand Avenue.

It has been exactly two months since the Gehry-designed The Grand development in Downtown Los Angeles completed a massive 15-hour foundation concrete pour for the project’s 39-story residential tower, and now, two tower cranes are driving the construction upwards, reports Urbanize LA.

Related Companies, the developer behind the $1-billion mixed-use project, hopes to have The Grand completed in late 2021.

Rendering of the completed The Grand development vis-à-vis Gehry's Walt Disney Concert Hall. Image courtesy of Related-CORE.

What about the developers who love—and love to donate to—Donald Trump?

2019-08-12T17:02:00-04:00

The billionaire real estate developer whose support for President Trump sparked calls for a consumer boycott is also behind one of the flashiest redevelopment projects coming to downtown Los Angeles.

The Los Angeles Times points out that Stephen M. Ross, the controversial real estate developer and investor behind Related Companies, luxury gyms Equinox and SoulCycle, and other business interests, is also a driving force behind The Grand, a Frank Gehry-designed mega-project slated for Downtown Los Angeles.

Ross's business interests have recently taken a hit as news of the developer's plans to host a $250,000-a-seat fundraiser for President Donald Trump came to light just days after a white suprematist gunman evoked the president's own words before killing 22 people in El Paso, Texas. Nearly all of the victims in the shooting were either Mexican Americans or Mexican nationals, according to The Los Angeles Times, and the tragedy is widely seen as a direct and racially motivated attack on those communities, as a result.

Ross's political activities—and the consumer-focused business investments that fuel those activities—have come under fire as other elements of society, particularl...

Frank Gehry's The Grand: watch this time-lapse video of the massive 15-hour foundation concrete pour

2019-07-02T14:11:00-04:00

Construction is ramping up on a major mixed-use development in Downtown designed by Frank Gehry. Over the weekend, the one of two concrete pours was completed at The Grand, laying down the foundation for the project’s 39-story residential tower. When finished, the Bunker Hill tower will hold 400 housing units, 20 percent of them affordable units.

Photo: Weldon Brewster, image courtesy of Related-CORE.

Curbed Los Angeles reports that the first of two mat foundation pours for the residential tower of the enormous Gehry-designed The Grand project took "15 hours, and required about 140 workers and 1,348 trucks," installing 13,478 cubic yards of concrete, roughly 27,000 tons, altogether.

Photo: Weldon Brewster, image courtesy of Related-CORE.

"The mat foundation pour is an incredibly important construction milestone as it marks the beginning of the vertical construction," said Rick Vogel, project lead and senior vice president at Related Urban, the mixed-use arm of the developer behind the project, Related Companies.

Photo: Weldon Brewster, image courtesy of Related-CORE.

"We are honored to have celebrated the momentous event alongside The Grand’s workforce on Friday, as this is a project with an important purpose – it will further connect Grand Avenue, offer an array of unique experiences to visitors, and truly enhance the current...

Watch Frank Gehry talk about his $1-billion The Grand development which recently broke ground in LA

2019-03-01T14:44:00-05:00

Construction work on the enormous The Grand development (formerly known as Grand Avenue Project) is finally underway in Downtown Los Angeles. Delayed for years and nearly believed dead, the $1-billion mixed-use complex vis-à-vis the Walt Disney Concert Hall and The Broad museum recently celebrated its official groundbreaking ceremony with city officials and the project's architect, Frank Gehry, in attendance.

Courtesy of Related - CORE.

"With The Grand, we’re not just building buildings, we’re building places," said Gehry at the ceremony. "My dream is that from time-to-time, we will be able to close Grand Avenue and have street parties with projections on Walt Disney Concert Hall. The project is meant to complement and enhance the Walt Disney Concert Hall, the Colburn, The Broad and the other buildings that make up the rich and exciting cultural district that is emerging on Grand Avenue."

Courtesy of Related - CORE.

Gehry, who turned a crisp 90 years old yesterday, also talks about hi...

Work on Frank Gehry's The Grand towers to kick off this month

2018-11-07T13:52:00-05:00

With a $630-million construction loan in hand, Related Cos. will begin site preparation this month for The Grand, a long-awaited Frank Gehry-designed tower complex in Downtown Los Angeles. The approximately $1-billion development, slated to replace a parking structure across the street from Walt Disney Concert Hall, was conceived more than a decade ago as a public-private partnership between Related and various city and county agencies.