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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.
— urbanize.LA
Image: Gehry Partners/Related Cos.About a decade delayed, the Frank Gehry-designed The Grand development (formerly known as Grand Avenue Project) will finally start coming to life atop Bunker Hill in Downtown Los Angeles. Pre-construction work is scheduled to commence this month on the plot... View full entry
“With every project, no matter how small, act as if it’s the most important one. Make sure it’s technically and economically viable because you’ll be judged on the smallest things.” — Frank Gehry, in Fortune
Frank Gehry looks back on his illustrious career in architecture — from how an architectural drawing class had him hooked at age 17, to his current interest in designing concert halls at the age of 89. Plus, he offers some words of advice. You can hear more from Gehry's chat with Fortune in this... View full entry
Celebrating its 100th anniversary, the LA Phil has put on quite the birthday extravaganza, kicking off over the weekend with performances by Chris Martin and members of the Doors; a special CicLAvia bike ride that stretched from Downtown's Disney Concert Hall to the Hollywood Bowl; and a series of... View full entry
One of the most recognizable buildings in Downtown Los Angeles—the Frank Gehry-designed Walt Disney Concert Hall—will be used as a canvas later this month.
To celebrate the start of the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s new season, colorful patterns will be projected onto the metallic surface of the wavy concert hall for a little more than a week, courtesy of artist Refik Anadol.
— Curbed LA
For the LA Philharmonic projection series, called WDCH Dreams, internationally renowned media artist Refik Anadol dug deep in the digital orchestra archives—nearly 45 terabytes of data—and applied Google Arts and Culture's machine intelligence to it, which parsed the files into millions of... View full entry
Gehry likens his creative process to jazz, a fluid, always-evolving symphony of ideas, as he describes it. A main intention with Disney Hall, he says, was the relationships, or rhythms, between the different entities of people inside the hall, also ever-shifting. [...]
Sherman said that there’s no concrete timeline in place for making such changes to Disney Hall. But that “any changes could potentially be in sync with the opening of the Grand.
— Los Angeles Times
Frank Gehry talks about his early visions for the Walt Disney Concert Hall as well as what future changes — both within and around the landmark — are being planned, especially once his nearly $1 billion mixed-use complex, The Grand, is built. View full entry
After years of uncertainty, the iconic Gladstones seafood restaurant on Pacific Coast Highway near Malibu could be replaced with a new beachfront dining complex designed by Frank Gehry and operated by Wolfgang Puck.
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors cleared the way Tuesday for the Department of Beaches and Harbors to begin negotiations with Puck and his team over development of two new restaurants at the site.
— Los Angeles Times
A proposal submitted by Frank Gehry and celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck was selected for the redevelopment of the iconic Gladstones site. While the lengthy negotiations process is barely starting, some were critical about the Department of Beaches and Harbors' selection process. Nicholas Buford and... View full entry
Frank Gehry's impact on the Grand Avenue cultural corridor in Downtown Los Angeles keeps growing: 15 years after completing the iconic Walt Disney Concert Hall, and with the enormous The Grand mixed-use development right across the street finally coming to realization, Gehry was today also... View full entry
Picture the World Trade Center near the Empire State Building near Fenway Park near London's Tate Modern. Now picture trains zipping past the architectural icons.
That is the vision world-famous architect Frank Gehry and museum developer Thomas Krens are trying to bring to North Adams, in the form of the Extreme Model Railroad and Contemporary Architecture Museum.
— masslive.com
With the aim of developing North Adams, Massachusetts as a cultural destination, Frank Gehry and Thomas Krens released plans last summer for their hybrid Extreme Model Railroad and Contemporary Architecture Museum. The initial concept has now developed into an entire model showcasing more of what... View full entry
WSJ reports that “a person familiar with the matter” claims that Santiago Calatrava and Frank Gehry have been tapped to design buildings for the megaproject’s second phase, due to rise over the west side rail yards [...] There’s little information beyond that, but 2018 is the year that co-developers Related Companies and Oxford Properties Group are due to start work on the platform that will cover the west side yards — Curbed
According to the Wall Street Journal, Frank Gehry and Santiago Calatrava may be joining the star-studded lineup of designers working on the Hudson Yards development, which — so far — includes SOM, Foster + Partners, Kohn Pedersen Fox, Diller Scofidio + Renfro with Rockwell Group, and Thomas... View full entry
Facebook is close to signing a deal for a new British headquarters at the King’s Cross redevelopment in London.
The social media giant is understood to be finalising outline terms with King’s Cross Central, which is majority-owned by the AustralianSuper pension fund. Facebook is expected to take four buildings covering more than 700,000 sq ft, tripling the size of its footprint in the capital.
— The Times
King's Cross is further strengthening its position as London's emerging tech hub, following previous proposed developments like Google's mega "landscraper" HQ, designed jointly by Heatherwick Studio and BIG. According to The Times and Architect's Journal, Gehry Partners is considered as... View full entry
Gehry has completed new — and nearly final — designs for the Grand, an open-air complex of apartments, condominiums, movie theaters, restaurants and shops that promises to enliven a city block that has been mostly dead for half a century. [...]
The delay helped improve the project, Himmel insisted. Five years ago, there was a "disconnect" between what Gehry wanted to build and what Related could pay for [...] Since then, Gehry has found ways to reconcile his vision with costs
— Los Angeles Times
Image: Gehry Partners/Related Cos.But wait, there's more: the LA Times writes that developing the block on Grand Avenue would finally unlock a design feature Gehry himself "baked into his design for Disney Hall" a long time ago — the ability of the concert hall's curvy metallic facade to receive... View full entry
One of architect Frank Gehry’s earliest public buildings collapsed this month as it was nearing the end of a five-year, $55 million renovation, forcing the owners to revise their plans.
The roof of the Merriweather Post Pavilion, a 19,000-seat open-air concert venue in Columbia, Maryland, crashed down in the middle of the night on Saturday, January 13, burying the seating below. No one was injured.
— archpaper.com
The concert pavilion was designed by Frank Gehry, Walsh, and O'Malley in 1967 and is being renovated to maintain presence among other performing arts centers. The design team opted to keep the original roof seeing it as the defining element of Gehry's design and were in the process of raising it... View full entry
An architecture policy sets an aspirational goal for what we value about the built environment, and helps create a framework for that contribution to culture. The Ordre des architectes du Québec (OAQ) is actively consulting with the government on the establishment of a provincial architecture policy. This is a positive move and shows leadership in the preservation of Canadian culture. It is an example that our federal government should follow. — theglobeandmail.com
Canadian architecture needs the support of a national policy in order to survive the global competition. Canada's architecture must be seen under the umbrella of cultural policies that support local arts, culture, and businesses. As it stands, the country has no architectural policy to speak of... View full entry
A developer looking to erect a hotel tower designed by Frank Gehry on Santa Monica’s iconic Ocean Avenue has reworked its plans and released a new rendering of the project.
Originally proposed five years ago as 22 stories, the hotel has been reduced to 12 stories—or 130 feet—to comply with the city’s new development plan for downtown. It’s just one part of a larger project that would also include a museum, shops, ground-floor open space, and 79 apartments.
— Curbed LA
The newly released rendering shows the Gehry-designed hotel tower as a considerably shortened and reworked version of what was originally proposed in March of 2013 — before the city's new height rules and design guidelines for downtown Santa Monica were implemented. For comparison, check out the... View full entry
Among major initiatives announced for the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s centennial year is the creation of a new permanent YOLA center to be designed by Frank Gehry. The famed architect will transform an existing facility, located in the LA suburb of Inglewood, into a central resource for the Youth... View full entry
