January 18th Redevelopment Meeting
I was there. There were presentations of 4 very diverse projects to the PCA board and audience, leading to very diverse opinions, as usual. There were the new-fangled-folks who appreciate modern architecture, and the just-plain-folks who hate it; those who see downtown density as an unmitigated blessing (just keep it out of their neighborhood), and those who appreciate the scale of existing neighborhoods; business-minded persons who uncritically sympathize with developer's lamentations regarding the difficulty of making a "decent" profit, and those who say "wait a minute... "
First, the latest vision for the Pacific Trade Center site at 255 W Fifth Street - 318 condo units. After 13+ years as a boarded-up eyesore in central downtown, the old highrise is to be demolished, asbestos and all. The PCA board and audience all said get on with it (now!). If there is any site that can accept high-rise residential, this is it. Some said too much glass, too modern. But look south at the ultra-fine Northrup building, and north to the industrial-style POLA home. What do we want here, Art Deco? (Yep, that's what some board members want). My biggest complaint is that it presses up and over Palos Verdes Ave instead of befriending it. How about giving something back to the street, some real pedestrian interest, and set that 166-foot high tower back a little on this 2.4 acre site?
Second, a new proposal for 366 W. 8th Street. Next to the Bank Lofts project, an unobstrusive design provides 20 high-quality condos of 810 to 1290 sq ft with modestly shielded parking. Balconies, big glass, brick and stucco - what's not to like? Maybe a little more front landscaping, please.
Third, a revisit of the project proposed for 281 W. 8th Street. Developer proposes to convert a residential site with a 2-story height limit and a maximum density of 25 units to commercial zoning with unlimited height and a maximum density of 94 units in our Vinegar Hill Historic District. He only wants 72 units now (want to bet that he comes back for more volume later?), and this requires a super-building 7 stories above sidewalk level. This project should be taking its style cues from the new construction along Mesa between 8th and 9th - instead, it looks like an Italian hill city dropped into the site by malevolent forces. Kiss our little historic district hasta la bye bye. And the style? Pure kitsch if you ask me.
Last, a publicly-funded facade improvement at 800 S. Pacific Avenue. All agreed that it's turning out well, but James Allen and a few other PCA board members would have liked to have seen it before the City spent the money. Well, that's LA City SOP.
16 Comments:
Good God, is that what the PTC site building is going to look like? Blecch. What's wrong with Art Deco? (I know, I know...costs too much, eats into the profits. I hope you were joking about the "fine" Northrop building, and the POLA building, the former being a truly hideous piece of shit and the latter being no great shakes either. Those buildings (and the Sheraton) are what we need less of, not more.
What's not to like about 366 8th Street? There are too many fucking condos already, for one. Does the word "apartment" not appear in any of these people's vocabulary? Obviously, the developers want all-condo-all-the-time, because that's where the profit is, at least at this point on the real estate bubble. But shame on the various governmental bodies and advisory boards for not pressing this issue a lot harder. Not everybody wants to play the sucker's game of "homeownership." Doesn't anybody care about diversity?
I like the proposal for the PTC site. It's a great location for a high density residential tower, and one of the few development projects that I feel is really well planned. I'm sure each of us might have wanted to design it differently (If I had my way, every new building in town would be a concrete, heavily armoured survivalist bunker). I'm not seeing any stucco in that sketch, and that alone pleases me to no end.
Red - What was the board & the public's take on the project at 281 8th? That's the only one of these that bothers me. Of course my concern is furthered by the developer's past performance. Is the design description for the proposed expansion, or the smaller, currently approved project?
Doesn't anybody care about diversity?
Now that's funny!
As always, they are concerned with the bottom line, or they wouldn't be building anything at all. Any acquiescence to what the pesky "community" wants is purely for show, and only a tool to get the green light on their project.
But that's no surprise to anyone.
Sheesh, MJP, I know that! I meant, doesn't anybody on any of the advisory boards care about it, and if so, why aren't they saying anything about it?
Cali--as sick as I am of stucco, I would actually rather see that than a predominantly glass exterior on anything new built here, especially anything tall. The glassy exterior, IMO, was a terrible wrong turn in the world of architecture back in the 20th century, and is a fad that has hung on way too long and needs to die. Now. It's cold, inhuman, and hubristic, and unlike wood, brick, or stone, it radiates a sort of icy contempt for the neighborhood it inhabits. Perfect for an investment bank in Hong Kong or some such regrettable place; terrible for San Pedro's downtown.
If they absolutely must have their damned let's-get-white-people-to-move-to-Pedro condos, I would actually rather see something like those new highrises on Ocean Boulevard in Long Beach (but not as high) than a blingy glass monster like that pictured in the artist's conception Red posted. Not, heaven knows, because I'm a fan of jumped-up condo development, but because at least they're not the architectural equivalent of one of Donald Trump's pinky rings.
The project at 281 W 8th is a huge increase over the original Moalej proposal. The new density is related to the provision of an afforable housing component, which is pretty complicated and absorbed the PCA's attention. Almost no one is focused on community scale. I would love to post the architect's rendering for your amusement but don't know how to do this in a comment.
Back to the giant, yes, i do like the Northrup bldg, at least the first level (the rest of the facade is completely unremarkable). Nice courtyard and entrance stair design add to the experience of walking down 6th St. I like the industrial design of the POLA bldg too, fortress that it is. A certain amount of diversity in architectural materials and design is a good thing.
And if you were ever to buy into the homeownership game, you'd thank yourself 10 years down the road when your mortgage payment is less than other's rent, and no landlord can tell you what to do.
...or two years down the road, when I'm upside down on my mortgage and thinking of just leaving the keys in the front door and walking away.
Housing is overpriced, period. If this tulip craze ever dies down and the price of a house comes back to a point remotely resembling what it's actually worth, maybe I'll consider it. Until then...anybody wanna buy some Pets.com stock?
You actually like those storefronts at the bottom of the Northrop building? Looks like East Berlin to me. Dank, oppressive, assembly-line. Yeah, architectural diversity is great...so let's get some real architectural diversity happening. Any followers of Hundertwasser out there who want to design us some buildings for Pedro? I'd be all for that. But when diversity is a choice between "cheap, ugly contemporary cookie-cutter design A" and "cheap, ugly contemporary cookie-cutter design B," forgive me if I don't show much enthusiasm.
Hundertwasser, you ask?
Hundertwasser! I would sell my left nut and my right kidney to have something like this on Sixth Street. Say, where the Sheraton is now.
Some of east Berlin is great classic stuff, even if rather somber (life is serious). To contrast this, an occaisional Hundertwasser or Gaudiesque building would be fabulous, but do we have the craftsmen/women/ artisians to do that sort of work now? Actual artists would have to be contracted to produce a building facade of that class - do you think many qualified artists would be willing to hire themselves out at a reasonable day rate?
I meant the postwar Soviet concrete crap. Do we have artisans to do that work now? Do you mean locally? Beats me, but they've got to be out there somewhere, and some of them must be hungry. Hundertwasser only died in 2000, and the building I linked you to was built in 1986. That suggests to me that there must be some architects out there who haven't swallowed the glass 'n' steel Kool-aid, and can be engaged to design buildings that have something to do with human beings and human community.
Concern for the human, whether in architecture, politics, entertainment or damn near anything else, is an anomaly now. "Now" being the past few decades, anyway.
Actually, there are probably quite a few good young architects of character and vision who could design us some very compelling and human giant structures. The problem is, once they get into a design firm and committees of 30 people have to give a thumbs up on a design, all you wind up with is what you'd expect from a committee; bland boxes made of ticky tacky. As the kids say.
A building is a building is a building in the grand scheme of things. Who cares if the buildings are aesthetically pleasing if only trustafarians, infomercial producers and lottery winners can afford to inhabit them?
Well, the rest of us still have to look at them. And we'll have plenty of time to look at them when we're caught in gridlock traffic in the mornings and afternoons as all the inhabitants head to and from their infomercial-producing jobs in the Valley, Coldplay blasting at a medium-high decibel level from the factory sound systems of their BMWs.
So you have to admit it would be nice if the aesthetics of these buildings--again, I'm thinking of the proposed PTC condos--weren't a big middle finger to everybody not living or doing business in them. Just sayin'.
I love glass and steel towers. I'm have to say it. I think they're both totally sensual and nautral materials. It's not like there is some line that divides the nautual & human materials from the unnatural, anti-human ones. It's all in the application of those materials. I'm not saying that I'm ga-ga for the new tower, I'm just saying that it seems like a nice building to me, not particularily ambitious, but not atrocious in its design.
Natural, I'll give you. Glass and steel are, indeed, natural--just like asbestos. But sensual? If one spent one's adolescence whacking off to Robocop movies, maybe. Nothing says "move along, peon" like a flat, predominantly glass and steel exterior on a tall building, which is precisely why banks and other corporations prefer them. That any designer should think this suitable for a residential building boggles the mind.
Although I guess it's possible that when they toured the neighborhood (if this was even done) they only got out of the car long enough to look at the Northrop building, the Sherat--err, Los Angeles Harbor Hotel, and the office buildings on the north side of Fifth street for their cues.
Too bad, really. This could have been a rare chance to not only lower our skyline a bit, but to take a little of the hardness and ugliness of contemporary lowest-bidder "architecture" out of downtown SP for a change.
"[O]ur present, planned architecture cannot be considered art. Our modern buildings are detached and pitiable compromises by men of bad conscience who work with straight-edged rulers."
(That's my boy Hundertwasser talking.)
Something to consider as we pontificate on height, materials, and artistry (or lack of same) in what we want to see built in San Pedro, is that there are lots of people in Southern California, and a serious housing shortage on the near horizon. Some would say, "We were here first, and those not already here are not our problem." I look at our sitation as a big ark, and feel that we need to be responsive to society's needs, and not just our own interests. A well-designed built environment enriches all of our lives, but 700 - 1,000 sq ft of living space at a modest price (and plenty of these) is what we should be trying to acheieve. Let's try not to let arguments over glass vs. stucco and mediterranen vs. art deco take precedence over building a community.
Red is correct - given current public policy, every community has an obligation to absorb more people as the population expands. Increased desity will be both a boon (tax dollars, better environment for business, new people with new ideas) and a bane (traffic, parking, potential for gentrification) to every part of Los Angeles. Since the market apparently is not sympathetic to affordable housing, what can be done to bring thousands of units of affordable housing into San Pedro? Where do they go and what do they look like? What's going on with Villaraigosa's new affordable housing trust fund?
I like asbestos! I spent many an hour cradling two thousand degree casting cylinders in my hands back in college, my tender palms safely protected by an leather gauntlet with asbestos fiber insulation. It brings back memories! Even asbestos has its place in society, it's too bad our white cells can't process it. Comparing asbestos to steel or glass is ridiculous. It was rarely used as a structural building material, It was usually added to other materials to make them more fire resistant or better insulators.
Although I won't comment on the massive depth of my enthusiasm for Paul Veerhoven's Robocop, I think nothing breaks down the barrier of inside and outside like well used glass in buildings. And I like steel structures, I like hard angles and lines, there is good and bad architecture in every school, I'll agree. For example, I really dislike both the Nortrop building and the Harbor Hotel. There's a reason their ground floor units are largely under/unused.
I wasn't comparing asbestos with steel or glass, you big silly, I was using it to gently ridicule the argument that steel and glass are good exteriors for residential buildings because they're natural. Asbestos is natural, radon is natural, skunk juice is natural. See what I'm getting at?
Actually, skunk juice is a much better metaphor. Diluted and carried on a breeze from afar, it actually smells kind of interesting and not-bad. Right up in your face, it makes you want to jab a red hot poker up your nostrils. Ditto steel and glass exteriors in buildings.
I like that Robocop shit too, but the reason it succeeds is because it's scary and inhuman.
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