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Money just isn't coming in like it used to. At least, that's the case for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, where efforts to raise $650 million to fund a new Atelier Peter Zumthor-designed expansion have hit a rough patch. Christopher Knight, American art critic for The Los Angeles... View full entry
The Transamerica Pyramid, San Francisco’s second-tallest building and an icon of the city’s financial might for four decades, is being marketed for sale for the first time.
“Right now, San Francisco has a very robust office real estate market,” Jay Orlandi, chief administrative officer at Transamerica, said in a statement. “We are exploring options for a possible 100% interest sale of the property, with Transamerica retaining naming and branding rights.”
— The San Francisco Chronicle
The 853-foot, William Pereira-designed pyramidal skyscraper reigned as San Francisco’s tallest tower for more than 30 years before it was dethroned by the Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects-designed Salesforce Tower in 2018. Built in 1972, the Brutalist-style Transamerica building features a... View full entry
There are uglier airports and airports with fewer amenities; there are airports that are older and airports that are more rundown; there are airports with ruder staff and airports with cruder passengers. There are, without doubt, by almost all measures, worse airports in this world. Except by one measure—an exceedingly crucial measure. In fact, behind safety, it’s almost certainly the most important measure: getting in and getting out. — Fodors.com
Fodor's Travel Guide has ranked Los Angeles International Airport as the worst airport in the world, due in large part to the "improbably stupid design of its catastrophic horseshoe motor-loop." The airport's design is attributed to noted Los Angeles architect and urban planner William Pereira... View full entry
The 378-page recommendation report filed by a group of preservationists, including preservationist Richard Schave and architect and 20th century architectural historian Alan Hess, calls on the city to protect the three most iconic structures of the Los Angeles Times complex [...] Purely from a design perspective, preserving The Times complex — once known as Times Mirror Square — is a difficult proposition. — latimes.com
The Los Angeles Times complex consists of three iconic structures which preservationists are pushing to make historic monuments. There is the 1935 building by Gordon B. Kaufmann featuring “The Times” neon sign and the grand Globe Lobby, Rowland Crawford’s late moderne style Mirror Building... View full entry
As the museum turns 50 this year and debate continues about LACMA Director Michael Govan's plan to replace the Pereira buildings (and a later addition by Hugh Hardy) with a giant new wing by Swiss architect Peter Zumthor, it's worth remembering how the original LACMA campus was greeted — as well as a few things about the Los Angeles into which it was born. — latimes.com
Related: Christopher Hawthorne dissects Zumthor's inkblot with LACMA Director Michael Govan View full entry
It’s easy to forget that Irvine, the minutely planned southern California city awash in tract housing and shopping complexes, was regarded as a pretty radical place at the time of its 1971 incorporation. Almost entirely ranchland up until the mid-1900s, the area that would become Irvine... View full entry
