NowLos Angeles

Architecture

Architecture in Los Angeles

Los Angeles builds in single objects rather than in streets, and most of them are meant to be read at a distance or from a car. Its houses carry as much of the city's architectural history as its public buildings.

• Petersen Automotive Museum

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  Completed 2015

  Kohn Pedersen Fox

  A car museum on Wilshire Boulevard, rebuilt inside a department store from 1962. Kohn Pedersen Fox wrapped the existing box in ribbons of stainless steel held off a red painted skin, so the building appears to be moving while standing still. The ribbons are structural only to themselves and do nothing for the rooms behind. It is a facade that argues its subject rather than describing its plan.

• Caltrans District 7 Headquarters

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  Completed 2004

  Morphosis

  A state transport department office at the south end of the civic centre. Morphosis clad it in perforated aluminium panels that open and close with the sun, so the elevation changes through the day with nobody operating it. The entrance is a slot cut through the mass, and the circulation is pushed outside as exposed stairs. It made a government office into a civic object at a time when downtown had few of them.

• Walt Disney Concert Hall

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  Completed 2003

  Frank Gehry

  A concert hall for the Los Angeles Philharmonic on Bunker Hill. Frank Gehry wrapped the auditorium in curved stainless steel sails that carry no structure and enclose the lobbies and gardens around it. Inside, the hall is a vineyard plan in Douglas fir, with the audience seated around the orchestra on every side. The acoustician and the architect worked the room out together, which is why the interior is not a version of the exterior.

• Getty Center

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  Completed 1997

  Richard Meier

  A museum and research campus on a ridge above the freeway. Richard Meier broke the programme into separate pavilions on two grids, one following the ridge and one turned to the road below. Everything is clad in travertine cut so it splits to a rough face, and in white metal panels on a fixed square module. The plan is a hill town rather than a building, held together by the grid instead of by a facade.

• Eames House

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  Completed 1949

  Charles and Ray Eames

  A house and studio in Pacific Palisades, built as Case Study House number eight. Charles and Ray Eames assembled it from catalogue steel sections and factory sash ordered off the shelf, then set the infill panels in colour. Two boxes sit against a retaining wall with a courtyard between them, tucked into the meadow rather than placed on it. Industrial parts were meant to make housing cheap, and this is the version where they made it delicate.