Los Angeles Official Visitor Guide 2008 - (Page 20) SEE & DO They Built This City: LA’s Cutting-Edge Architecture Santa Monica Mountains, with a series of interconnected buildings built of concrete and steel with travertine cladding. The surrounding landscape provides a welcome complement to the building’s grandeur, with sprawling gardens, plazas and terraces created to prevent erosion but also to integrate the building with its natural setting. The Getty Center has just installed 28 major sculptures from the collection of the late Fran and Ray Stark. Works include masterpieces by many of the 20th century’s greatest artists, including Calder, Magritte and Miró, among others. of fame is the Broad Contemporary Art Museum (BCAM) at Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). Standing three stories tall, BCAM serves as the new focal point for arriving visitors as it welcomes guests to the venerable institution. Clad in travertine panels joined as a sheathing over a steel skeleton, the building fits perfectly into the existing surroundings. On the third level, a louvered roof system brings natural light to interior spaces in a way that also protects the art. The entire LACMA expansion project is being overseen by Renzo Piano, including the design for BCAM. The following buildings are all located Downtown, within easy walking distance of one another. Los Angeles’ reputation for being a hotbed of innovative architecture is on the rise. Several new buildings have been completed in Los Angeles within the last 10 years, earning worldwide accolades for achievement in design. Several more are either in development or on the drawing board. All of the architects mentioned in this story have earned the Pritzker Prize, including Frank Gehry, Thom Mayne, Richard Meier, José Rafael Moneo, I.M. Pei and Renzo Piano. Most of the buildings in this article are public institutions of one form or another, but not all of them offer tours. The Getty Center Architect: Richard Meier Opened: 1997 Address: 1200 Getty Center Drive Features: Home to the J. Paul Getty Museum, this building took more than a decade to build, and sits above LA as a $1.2 billion investment in the Los Angeles art scene. It occupies two ridges in the Broad Contemporary Art Museum at LACMA Architect: Renzo Piano Opened: 2008 Address: 5905 Wilshire Boulevard Features: With its February 2008 opening, the newest star on LA’s architectural walk Caltrans District 7 Headquarters Architect: Thom Mayne/Morphosis Opened: 2004 Address: 100 S. Main Street 20
For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.