Frank Owen Gehry,, FAIA is a Canadian-born American architect and designer. A number of his buildings, including his private residence in Santa Monica, California, have become world-renowned attractions.
Michael Graves was an American architect, designer, and educator, and principal of Michael Graves and Associates and Michael Graves Design Group. He was a member of The New York Five and the Memphis Group – and a professor of architecture at Princeton University for nearly forty years. Following his own partial paralysis in 2003, Graves became an internationally recognized advocate of health care design.
The Walt Disney Concert Hall at 111 South Grand Avenue in downtown Los Angeles, California, is the fourth hall of the Los Angeles Music Center and was designed by Frank Gehry. It was opened on October 24, 2003. Bounded by Hope Street, Grand Avenue, and 1st and 2nd Streets, it seats 2,265 people and serves, among other purposes, as the home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic orchestra and the Los Angeles Master Chorale. The hall is a compromise between a vineyard-style seating configuration, like the Berliner Philharmonie by Hans Scharoun, and a classical shoebox design like the Vienna Musikverein or the Boston Symphony Hall.
Postmodern architecture is a style or movement which emerged in late 1950s as a reaction against the austerity, formality, and lack of variety of modern architecture, particularly in the international style advocated by Philip Johnson and Henry-Russell Hitchcock. The movement was introduced by the architect and urban planner Denise Scott Brown and architectural theorist Robert Venturi in their book Learning from Las Vegas. The style flourished from the 1980s through the 1990s, particularly in the work of Scott Brown & Venturi, Philip Johnson, Charles Moore and Michael Graves. In the late 1990s, it divided into a multitude of new tendencies, including high-tech architecture, neo-futurism, new classical architecture, and deconstructivism. However, some buildings built after this period are still considered postmodern.
Diane Marie Disney-Miller was the elder daughter of Walt Disney and his wife Lillian Bounds Disney. Diane co-founded the Walt Disney Family Museum alongside her family. She was president of the Board of Directors of the Walt Disney Family Foundation. The museum, which opened in 2009, was created to encourage and inspire creativity and innovation, as well as to commemorate and research Walt Disney's life.
Roy and Edna Disney CalArts Theater (REDCAT) is an interdisciplinary contemporary arts center for innovative visual, performing and media arts in downtown Los Angeles, located inside the Walt Disney Concert Hall complex. Opened in November 2003 as an extension of CalArts in Los Angeles.
The Grand Avenue Project is currently under development in the Bunker Hill neighborhood of Downtown Los Angeles along Grand Avenue. The project consists of a revitalization of Grand Park and surrounding lots administered by the Grand Avenue Authority, a joint powers authority consisting of Los Angeles County and City. The first project was the 12-acre (4.9 ha) Grand Park in 2012. It is currently constructing a two-tower complex on the southeast corner of Grand Avenue and 1st Street, designed by Frank Gehry.
Contemporary architecture is the architecture of the 21st century. No single style is dominant. Contemporary architects work in several different styles, from postmodernism, high-tech architecture and new interpretations of traditional architecture to highly conceptual forms and designs, resembling sculpture on an enormous scale. Some of these styles and approaches make use of very advanced technology and modern building materials, such as tube structures which allow construction of buildings that are taller, lighter and stronger than those in the 20th century, while others prioritize the use of natural and ecological materials like stone, wood and lime. One technology that is common to all forms of contemporary architecture is the use of new techniques of computer-aided design, which allow buildings to be designed and modeled on computers in three dimensions, and constructed with more precision and speed.
Daniel Leonard Dworsky was an American architect who was a longstanding member of the American Institute of Architects College of Fellows. Among other works, Dworsky designed Crisler Arena, the basketball arena at the University of Michigan named for Dworsky's former football coach, Fritz Crisler. Other professional highlights include designing Drake Stadium at UCLA, the Federal Reserve Bank in Los Angeles and the Block M seating arrangement at Michigan Stadium. He is also known for a controversy with Frank Gehry over the Walt Disney Concert Hall.
The organization of the artist is a method used by architect Frank Gehry that places the artist in control of the design throughout a building construction and deliberately eliminates the influence of politicians and business people on design.
The USC School of Architecture is the architecture school at the University of Southern California. Located in Los Angeles, California, it is one of the university's twenty-two professional schools, offering both undergraduate and graduate degrees in the fields of architecture, building science, landscape architecture and heritage conservation.
Grand Avenue is a major north–south thoroughfare in Los Angeles, California. Lined with museums, concert venues, and theaters, this urban center on Bunker Hill attracts millions of people a year. Grand Park stretches between the Los Angeles City Hall and the Los Angeles Music Center on Grand Avenue. In 2007, a $3 billion Grand Avenue Project was proposed to revive Downtown Los Angeles.
Hervé Descottes is a French lighting designer, business owner and author. He established the lighting design firm L'Observatoire International in New York City in 1993 after eight years of design practice in Paris, France. Descottes personally creates the lighting concepts for all projects designed by L'Observatoire International, and oversees project development through project completion. He is the author of Ultimate Lighting Design and co-authored Architectural Lighting, Designing with Light and Space with Cecilia E. Ramos. Mr. Descottes has been recognized numerous times by the lighting design and architectural community. He has received awards from the International Association of Lighting Designers, the Illuminating Engineering Society and the New York City Illuminating Engineering Society, the American Institute of Architects, the American Society of Landscape Architects, D&ADAD, the Municipal Art Society of New York City, and the GE Corporation. In 2008, Descottes was named Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French Minister of Culture for his work in lighting design.
Belzberg Architects is an architecture and interior design firm located in the City of Santa Monica, California founded by Hagy Belzberg, FAIA OAA.
Cosentini Associates is an engineering firm that provides consulting engineering services for the building industry.
Wing on Wing is a single-movement composition for two sopranos and orchestra by the Finnish composer Esa-Pekka Salonen. The work was commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic for their inaugural season at the Walt Disney Concert Hall and was premiered June 5, 2004 by the orchestra under Salonen. The piece is dedicated to the architect Frank Gehry, the acoustician Yasuhisa Toyota, and the L.A. Philharmonic CEO Deborah Borda.
Ball-Nogues Studio is a design and fabrication practice based in Los Angeles, California. Founded by Benjamin Ball and Gaston Nogues, the studio's work falls between the categories of art, architecture and industrial design. The practice is known for creating site-specific architectural installations out of unorthodox materials such as stainless steel ball-chain and spheres, paper pulp, garments, and coffee tables. The studio focuses on the process of creation, with an emphasis on the research and exploration of materials and fabrication methods. Much of the studio's work involves expanding the potential of materials and manufacturing techniques.
Hagy Belzberg, FAIA, OAA, is an American architect based in Santa Monica, California. He is the founding partner of the architecture and interior design firm Belzberg Architects.
Marc Eugene Schiler is a professor of the USC School of Architecture at the University of Southern California. He is a Fellow of the American Solar Energy Society and a winner of the Passive Solar Pioneer award in 2015. Schiler completed an undergraduate degree in architecture at USC School of Architecture and a Master of Architecture at Cornell University. He was an Assistant Professor of Architecture and Landscape Architecture at Cornell for four years prior to returning to USC in 1982. He was invited for a year to do research at the EMPA. He served as a Fulbright Senior Scholar to the Middle East in 2002-2003 at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa and the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Sede Boqer. He has published more than 100 peer-reviewed scientific papers and authored or edited six books on environmental controls.
