Frank Gehry slots next piece into LA’s cultural quarter
NewsThe Colburn School, across the road from Walt Disney Hall, has broken silence on a ‘transformational 100,000-square-foot expansion designed by Frank Gehry.’
The new building, known as the Colburn Center, will be located adjacent to Colburn’s Grand Avenue campus in Downtown Los Angeles, and will dramatically increase the school’s training and performance facilities for music and dance. It will also provide performance space in a mid-sized hall for the region’s established and emerging arts organizations. Site work is scheduled to begin in the coming weeks and a groundbreaking ceremony will take place on April 5, 2024. The Colburn Center is expected to reach substantial completion in Q1 of 2027.
The expansion will create the largest concentration of Gehry-designed buildings in the world. It will be located next to two other buildings by the renowned architect: Walt Disney Concert Hall, which celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2023, and The Grand by Gehry, a $1 billion mixed-use retail and residential development that opened in 2022.
“This is an exciting contribution to the cultural and civic life of Downtown Los Angeles. Colburn has shown a commitment to making education accessible to youth of all ages at their school,” said LA Mayor Karen Bass. “With projects like this and Colburn’s commitment, Grand Avenue will continue to grow into an energetic cultural district while also creating more opportunities to collaborate with renowned local and touring artists.”
It looks ridiculous. Like a cross between a greenhouse and a chicken farm.
I’m so happy with these down thumbs! I love that design, I would be very happy to live in it, and watch the plants grow and look at the traffic through the bars, sipping my coke and listening to Boulez.
Sally
The Coburn claims to be a top-tier music school. They don’t, however, have a voice department or an opera department.
Touch grass
Now if only the students can find jobs once they leave the building. Maybe the funding should have been spent creating those jobs.
Great, so they’re taking away the last public parking lot in the Music Center area. I hate subterranean parking especially in an earthquake zone. I don’t believe Frank Gehry is a big miusic lover he just likes to see his name plastered on all the buildings.
He is a huge music lover and connaisseur and a huge donor of the LA Phil.
In light of recent SF Conservatory sex scandal, is Colburn doing any better in that department? I attend their concerts often and would hate to see these young talents abused.