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Renovating L.A. mainstays By Russell Fortmeyer
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Fabric roof for part of the Farmer’s Market, photo courtesy Koning Eizenberg Architecture.
Culver City’s Kirk Douglas Theatre, photo courtesy Steven Ehrlich Architects. Click here for more on this project. |
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Kirk Douglas Theatre, Culver City Steven Ehrlich Architects transformed a faded movie theater into a 300-seat performing arts venue as part of Culer City’s efforts to redevelop its downtown into a cultural hub [click here for more on the Kirk Douglas Theater]. Traditionally home to film studios and postwar neighborhoods, Culver City has in the past decade seen the colonization of its industrial regions by architects, designers, and artists. Steven Ehrlich, AIA, whose office has been located there for eight years, says the theater has become the center of the area’s redevelopment.
Ehrlich approached the project as an adaptive reuse, starting with the demolition of the entire interior down to the slab. The firm then poured new footings and inserted a new interior structure.
The former movie theater, built in 1947, was originally called the Culver Movie Palace. Its steeple and its large white neon Culver signage were restored, while a simple signage and graphics scheme was developed by L.A. firm Sussman/Prezja. Inside, the new theater includes seating galleries on each side to create intimacy, reinforced by the warm tones of the prefinished European plywood on most vertical surfaces. The Center Theatre Group, which operates two theaters at L.A.’s downtown Music Center, operates the theater.
Farmer’s Market, Mid-Wilshire When plans were announced in 2001 to develop the Grove, a new shopping center adjacent to the historic Los Angeles Farmer’s Market, locals accustomed to the sprawling white ranch-house buildings of the original 1934 market were skeptical at best.
To help the 32-acre market retain its original tone but relate to the larger scale of the Grove, Santa Monica–based Koning Eizenberg Architecture executed a $45 million master plan for renovations to the market. Developed for the Gilmore Company, owners of the market and the Grove, the plan includes the addition of a handful of buildings and other subtle interventions throughout the Market.
Firm principal Julie Eizenberg, AIA, says she especially values the effect that the old and new elements have on each other. “The essence of that place is that it had to stay casual and gritty.”
The Farmer’s Market, made up of small shops and restaurant stalls, has always been surrounded by parking lots, with no clear entries. Koning Eizenberg changed that by adding small additions to the perimeter like awnings, patios, and new buildings, made with materials such as wood, glass, and in one case, white Teflon-coated fabric. They also added a large structure along the northern edge of the site that has an oversize pop version of the market’s original clocktower.
May 2006 |
