The Ugliest Architecture in Southern California - Part 1: Downtown L.A.
by Tony Chavira
I wrote an article for FourStory a year or so ago about the Coolest Architecture in Southern California. Since then, I’ve been trying to figure out a way to write an article that would summarize The Most Un-Cool Architecture in Southern California, without necessarily coming across as biased (due to myvested interest in saying that every structure in Southern California probably sucks if it wasn’t designed by our firm).
It would, of course, be wrong to be judgmental simply for the sake of being judgmental, since there’s so much amazing architecture out there and a lot of architects really do try their best. But if I need to base my judgments on actual criteria, the article stops being about whether a structure is “uncool” (since I can’t back those assertions up) and instead becomes about whether structures are “bad.” Or, in this case, “ugly.”
But herein lies another problem: there are a ton of ugly buildings in Southern California, as well as a ton of reasons why those buildings are ugly. I couldn’t seem to narrow it down to a list of only ten buildings and still keep this article shorter than several trillion words.
So let’s start in downtown Los Angeles with the first three developments on my list of the Ugliest Architecture in Southern California.
1. L.A. Live
When we first saw the skeletal structure of L.A. Live go up, everyone in our office downtown was generally impressed with the idea of having a plethora of new places to grab lunch and hang out for after-hours cocktails. Slowly, as we’ve seen the design vision solidify into a monolithic reality, I’ve come to feel a sense of disgust whenever I walk or drive past the corner of Olympic and Figueroa. L.A. Live has come to dominate that corner in a particularly overbearing way, taking the design concepts used for the Staples Center facades to their natural, and ultimately arrogant, conclusion.
In fact, arrogance seems to be a design theme, programmed specifically for L.A. Live and its patrons. The office units on the upper floors glow casually as a corporate homage to voyeuristic modernist principles derived from Hawthorne’s studies: you can walk by and watch anyone working diligently at their desk on any floor of the building. Is it artistic? Is it avant-garde? The answers to those questions are “No” and “No.”
Generally speaking, the days of designing vanity architecture are over. The best architecture in Los Angeles is not only innovative, but also takes everything into account in the programming phase: function, location, usage, audience, etc. L.A. Live not only slaps a gigantic box in downtown L.A.; it also does not do any of the things that programming requires. Instead of catering to the outdoor nature of Los Angeles with walkable, open, smartly-designed urban space, it essentially creates a massive mall outside of the Staples Center and Nokia Theater. Let’s be clear: residents move to downtown Los Angeles because they want to walk places and they like the urban atmosphere. In fact, the city of Los Angeles depends on that attitude in order to draw new loft-dwellers into many, many empty units. L.A. Live was not designed with them in mind. It has a ton of parking and is flanked by car-friendly escape routes. The building can be seen easily from the freeway: it’s a giant metal-skinned brick with lights blasting onto it from the front of the Nokia Theater.
Ultimately, the design and concept behind L.A. Live a) counteracts the goals of open, walkable redevelopment in downtown L.A.; b) betrays the quality of our climate condition, which practically begs for more outdoor urban centers; c) masks antiquated design principles in a transparent attempt to develop new modern ones without making any real changes at all (aside from being very large); and worst of all, d) aggressively takes the monolithic concept much too far for the sake of design consistency with only the Staples Center, and not even one other building in the exiting community of South Park in downtown Los Angeles.
2. Vista Hermosa (translation: “Beautiful View”)
I know that this easy target has been hit before, but I want to add the point of view of someone who works, helps to program for, and markets for architects. How did the architectural designers feel so comfortable advocating for this design? I’m sure there was hesitation: the high school placed on this 35-acre site has faced one planning issue after another, and such an erratic color scheme on such a mundane structural design probably isn’t how the LAUSD envisioned the result of this project.
More importantly than the architects' mindset, how was the LAUSD so cavalier with this design? The building on the corner of Beverly and Beaudry conjures a distinct sense of childhood nostalgia. It makes me think, “I’ve done this before ... with Legos!” Yet, aside from the creative metal exterior stairwell, my 12-year old Lego structures had more structural design flair than poor Vista Hermosa. Take a good look at the building and you’ll notice that it’s the standard boxy high school structure you hated back in Minnesota. But this one costs more than $400 million dollars. Moreover, an architect would normally want to complement their building designs with color schemes that accent the best parts; but not in the case of Vista Hermosa.
Or maybe I'm just plain wrong, and city council members Jose Huizar and Ed Reyes and LAUSD President Monica Garcia each have a good eye for design, and everyone else thinks that a light brown, puke green, mustard yellow, and beet red color scheme is the new “it” combination. If this is the case, I think I’d rather be out of fashion.
Thanks for wasting more of the city’s money on terrible design, appointed and elected city officials! Your amazing eye for design consistency will be recapped, recoated, and rebuilt for years to come!
3. Pershing Square
You may already know that I have a deep void in center of my heart. It's called Pershing Square: a lifeless, badly-planned, unused and unnatural nexus, avoided and ignored as it festers in its oxymoronic urban-seclusion.
Pershing Square is a park, more or less, in between the Bringing Back Broadway and the much-hyped Grand Avenue project areas. Pershing Square was another overhyped project. which architect Ricardo Legorreta ultimately came to regret building. It’s not open, it’s not easy-to-use, it’s not at street level, and—despite the fact that L.A. County calls it a park—it’s not green-focused. I find it particularly tragic, because the city of L.A. started with a blank slate. Anything could’ve been in this space, and they chose to place something that had no research or programming involved. They just assumed that people would come, using it like they would a regular park. Except that it was an architectural design space. Design by an architect who was far more interested in his design than in how the space would actually be used (sound familiar, L.A. Live?).
As predicted, hardly anyone uses it. Sad to say, the once highly-touted Pershing Square design is something few residents of Los Angeles have actually seen, if they’ve even bothered to take the time to look for it. The purple, tan and green color scheme is just as disinviting as the fact that there are walls that keep you from entering from any side of the park on which you may be walking. As form tends to follow function, the space is practically useless now. I don’t know a single California Plaza worker who takes their lunch breaks in Pershing Square. I walk through downtown occasionally to get to meetings and, despite being near it, I’ve never found the entrances convenient enough that it would either reduce or enhance my walking time.
It is a dead space. In the center of Downtown Los Angeles.
Up next is West Los Angeles, and a cavalcade of terrible, terrible architecture. Also, in case you know a building that just cannot be ignored, e-mail your suggestions to me at tony@fourstory.org. Or leave a comment below.
Until then, remember the old theater saying: “You don’t have to be different to be good. Sometimes being good is different enough.”
www.racaia.com | tony@fourstory.org
Comments
yeah you hit the nail on the head with this…
2009-08-15 by virg