Los Angeles, CA
2006
2,000 SF
Mixed Media: Drywall, wood framing, steel structure and details, MDF, glass, lighting
Photography: Tom Bonner

Renovation of an existing gallery. This project was designed to respond to its perceived limitations, namely low budget, large area and difficult access. The gallery is accessed through the existing lobby of a historic building, up two levels of a spiral stair and down half a level into the gallery space. Given the minimal budget and large area, the project finds expression through multiple parts in key locations throughout the entry leading into and through the gallery. The parts of the project take the form of individual links of a separated chain, each part makes a suggestive gesture toward the next in an unspoken way-finding and directional system.

Through the generous support of the building owners, the gallery also incorporates a public art piece near the gallery entrance. Given the importance of location and way-finding in the gallery design, the public art component investigates the gallery location is woven into a larger, urban context. The project’s laser-cut stainless steel veins extend across varying wall surfaces and express the gallery’s location within the urban landscape at varying levels of detail. The detail ultimately dissolves to show just the Los Angeles freeway system as it extends from and feeds into the gallery location.