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.
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 headline the $1 billion megadevelopment when it makes its long-awaited debut next year. Each apartment featured interiors designed by Ingrao, Inc. The Grand by Gehry is about to begin accepting lease applications for a move-in date sometime in late 2022 or 2023.
9 Comments
I showed this pic to my non-architect friend and he said,
"wow, everybody gets a window."
massing looks pretty interesting and relatively tame for gehry.. but what's with the bad 2000s brick-and-glass trope?
The tameness is probably driven by the developer-level budget. Curves and applied doodads cost too much. The architecture here is a wrapper for the real estate "product" inside. That said, I don't mind these at all. A mild Gehry effort still blows the wheels off of the work of most "experienced" and "specialist" high rise residential firms.
Excellent work. Gehry understood the context of the mall correctly and I hope that people value their new civic residence option.
Related... (not the developer.)
https://archinect.com/sleeples...
For a Gehry project, it's actually not that bad. Contextually, it might work there. I have to have a better sense of the particular location to see the context of the area better. I can recall the downtown LA area but mostly from around 25-30 years ago. Even then, it might be something that could work although back then, it might have been a little more harder to accept but if there is a slew of architecture of the pomo era and what not built in the contextual area then perhaps... the work could be considered acceptable especially in an area that isn't really all that historic. Additionally, Gehry taming down some of his design approach makes it more palatable.
There may be some elements that could be criticized a little but it seems like the lower right area of the building in the second picture seems a little blah.
For those of you not from or familiar with LA, it isn't just one big cluster of tall buildings in the center. If you stand atop this new building and look around, you see several different clusters of skyscrapers in different directions, and when you visit them, you see they are individual.
This array fits in this neighborhood, and The Walt Disney Concert Hall and the Music Center across the street feature aggressive architecture which compliments it. I live in a tract house out in the Valley, and I love coming here to concerts, and this new development pleases the Angeleno in me.
For you true city dwellers, and depending on where all the entrances are, it is about 1½ blocks from the Civic Center Red Line (subway) station. The Metro is good and continues to grow, and you can get around much of LA on it.
Thank you for adding the info. I just haven't been there in awhile so the context wasn't that clear to me in terms of present context so it was kind of a guess as to whether or not it fits the context but yeah, as you describe the context and associated buildings, I can see it being potentially fitting the context of location. I also am pleased that it isn't too "Gehry"-ish.
Taking a look at the street view of the area where they even show partial construction of the building, I agree. With what is adjacent, it's actually not bad at all. Stylistically, it isn't too outlandish and it's more subtle stylistically than the less 'subtle' Walt Disney Concert Hall by Gehry. I recognize the scale and mass differences but I'm less concern about that in the downtown L.A. area which has numerous high rises in the visual context area.
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