Follow this tag to curate your own personalized Activity Stream and email alerts.
Forty years after "Reyner Banham loves Los Angeles" another architect with the gaze of the foreigner takes us on a ride through the City of Angels, or as the Turkish architect Orhan Ayyüce likes to refer to it: "La Citta Capitalista". [...]
An ‘exclusive industrial town,’ Vernon borders on the cosmopolitan downtown of Los Angeles... Are alternative forms of housing, agriculture, and nature imaginable in a town that relies solely on industry and transport?
— IABR
Los Angeles architect Orhan Ayyüce takes a weekend drive through a vacant Vernon, in the following short film for the International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam. Submitted by the LA Forum for Architecture and Urban Design and run by Ayyüce, The Vernon City Project is being featured in... View full entry
The flagship museum of the billionaire financier and art collector Eli Broad, still under construction, has filed a $19.8 million lawsuit against a German company for what it describes as delays in fabricating the building blocks for its unusual latticed facade. — nytimes.com
Baumgartner+Uriu looked to none other than Mother Nature for their Apertures installation, which was publicly displayed at the SCI-Arc Gallery in Los Angeles this past spring. If B+U's Apertures sound familiar, perhaps you may recall their "Animated Apertures" Housing Tower that was exhibited at... View full entry
Kahn was one of three founding members of IDEA Office, formerly the Central Office of Architecture. He originally opened the office in 1987 together with fellow architects Ron Golan and Russell N. Thomsen. In 2009, he renewed his long-standing partnership with Thomsen to form IDEA Office. Their work includes design at all scales, from graphic design to installations and industrial design, to architecture and urban planning — sciarc.edu
Sad news today from the SCI-Arc and LA architecture community. Eric Kahn, teacher and architect, has passed away at 58. Related: Y-House Showcase feature, by IDEA Office View full entry
It was an artistic collaboration delayed by some 25 years: The London architect Zaha Hadid responded as much to Frank Gehry’s Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles as she did to “Così Fan Tutte” when she designed her undulating all-white set for the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s performance of Mozart’s opera this week (it closes on Saturday). “We were responding to the context, to Frank’s design,” Ms. Hadid said in a telephone interview from London. — nytimes.com
The jury is in and the Los Angeles River's future seems to be bright. After more than six months of intense lobbying by the city, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Army Corps) has announced that it will be recommending a more ambitious $1-billion plan to restore an 11-mile stretch of the Los Angeles River from downtown through Elysian Park. — kcet.org
The registration deadline for the first ever AA Visiting School Los Angeles is inching closer and closer — applicants have until Sunday, June 1 to apply for what promises to become one of the West Coast's standout events this summer.Read on for more information and how to apply.AA Visiting... View full entry
On May 17, the yearlong series' final event, inspired by L.A.'s most prominent icon, the Hollywood sign, is being staged. Six projects will be installed on the Hollywood sign trail, where all of Los Angeles is laid out before hikers. Details are still being finalized, but the event could feature imaginary viewfinders designed by Elly Ward and mini-monuments erected by Elizabeth Timme, co-director of design office LA-Más. — latimes.com
Trek to the Hollywood signWhat: Installations along a trail near the Hollywood signWhere: Hollywood sign trail. Park in the Greek Theatre Parking Lot G in Griffith Park or at Griffith Observatory and take the shuttle to the Hollywood sign viewing area.When: 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. May... View full entry
Though Piano has taken several passes at the sphere, it hasn't coalesced into a convincing set of architectural ideas. The theater design remains gimmicky, alienated rather than emerging confidently from its site, as Piano's best museum projects do.
By refusing to budge on its construction timeline, the academy is doubling down on the least-promising elements of the design. Sure, some refinements might smooth out some of its more obvious wrinkles. What they won't do is salvage the design...
— latimes.com
Six years ago, Los Angeles politicians imposed new limits on the size of new and renovated houses, promising to rein in what they called "homes on steroids" dwarfing blocks of smaller buildings.
But as the housing market rebounds and construction picks up, many homeowners complain that "mansionization" has revved up — reigniting long-standing policy battles and sometimes bitter fence fights over the face and feel of L.A.'s neighborhoods.
— latimes.com
Was it: Possible for a group of architects, artists, educators, writers, publishers to fly to Shenzhen and start a dialog and call it a Los Angeles Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism, a.k.a. LAB A/U? (Yes) A first for architecture and urbanism for Los Angeles? (Yes) Possible to bee line... View full entry
It was 75 years ago—the year Gone With the Wind and The Wizard of Oz were released and World War II began—that Los Angeles's lovely Union Station first opened for business. There was a big Downtown celebration on May 3, 1939 to mark the opening of what is viewed as the nation's last great rail station, and Ward Kimball, an award-winning Disney animator and part-time rail nerd (one of Disney's Nine Old Men and the man who created Tweedledee/Tweedledum and Jiminy Cricket), filmed the occasion. — la.curbed.com
If Brougher and other academy leaders can compel the architects to reconcile the clear potential of the new wing's interior spaces with its unconvincing, unwieldy exterior, they may be able to salvage the design before construction begins.
If not, they may well have an architectural flop on their hands when the museum opens in 2017 — not to mention the third disappointing Piano building within a quarter-mile radius.
— latimes.com
Co-presented by Hennessey + Ingalls, the A+D Museum and the Cal Poly LA Metro Program, Ma Yansong lectured last night on MAD's history and the trials of Chinese architecture. Now with offices in Los Angeles and Beijing, MAD is poised to fulfill the high expectations bestowed on it as a Chinese... View full entry
It may not seem like it when you’re stuck in traffic on the 110 Freeway, but Southern California is home to some of the least-sprawling metro areas in the country.
That’s according to a study out today from Smart Growth America, which attempted to measure the concept of urban sprawl in 221 metro areas nationwide. The study ranked the Los Angeles, Orange County and Santa Barbara regions in the 25 least-sprawling.
— latimes.com