A Sculpturally Inclined Education
If you happen to be driving on the 101 through downtown Los Angeles, you've probably
noticed this big tower on the north side of the freeway at Grand Avenue. Did you know it belongs to the city's newest high school? Central High School #9 was completed last month and opens in September. The complex of 7 structures was designed by Wolf Prix and COOP Himmelb(l)au as a schoool for the visual and performing arts.
The entire project has been controversial from the get-go. At a cost of $232 million, a lot
of people felt that trying to make an architectural statement at the expense of the student population was ridiculous. And given the cut-backs the LAUSD is facing, the construction expense seems even more foolhardy. The problem with that argument is that the funding source came from voter approved bond issues, meant specifically for school construction.
Another controversy arose when Los Angeles philanthropist Eli Broad got involved in
the project early on. For those of you who aren't from LA, or know much about downtown, I'll fill you in on a little history of Grand Avenue. The school sits at the intersection of Grand and the freeway, the northernmost corner of the Grand Avenue cultural district. A hop, skip and a jump over the freeway bridge is the architecturally looming Our Lady of the Angels Cathedral, designed by Jose Rafael Moneo. In the next block sits the Music Center complex which spans the architectural modernism of Welton Beckett's 1964 design, to Frank Gehry's 21st century Walt Disney Concert Hall. In the next block sits the Museum of Contemporary Art, designed by Arata Isozaki and the Colburn School of Music. So, it makes sense that the city would want to build an arts school in this area.
Broad has been a mover and shaker in the move to create a very grand Grand Avenue.
To that end, he worked hard to get the site of the school district's former headquarters turned into an arts school. He also played a big role in making sure that the building wouldn't end up looking like a stucco box. It ruffled a lot of feathers, so he ponied up $3.1 million toward the cost of construction, but there are a lot of people out there who aren't happy with the result.
Whether or not the COOP group succeeds in providing a good facility for the students
remains to be seen. But, given the architectural heritage that has become Grand Avenue, I have to agree that the school complex's architecture fits in better than the hideous, stucco boxes of the district's nearby Roybal Learning Center. That disaster story of planning, construction and community discord, resulted in the most expensive school building project in the history of the United States - and would require a posting all to itself. But back to Central High #9 and its landmark tower, you can have the school named after you, for a cool $25 million.
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