397AR

Konrad Wachsmann

California City Civic Center

1966–1971

Konrad Wachsmann’s late-1960s project for a civic center in California City, which featured a strong, light fiberglass roof strung with high-tension cables between massive abutments, had a formal simplicity. The space below could be configured in almost unlimited variations. Rem Koolhaas also presented a proposal for a new Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) that united the museum’s encyclopedic collections under a scrimlike roof to create a more fluid floor plan that would force viewers to view art in a completely different way. Though it won a competition, it never garnered enough support, financial or otherwise, to move forward.

California City Civic Center
California City Civic Center
California City Civic Center
California City Civic Center
California City Civic Center
California City Civic Center
California City Civic Center
California City Civic Center
California City Civic Center
California City Civic Center
California City Civic Center
California City Civic Center
California City Civic Center
California City Civic Center
California City Civic Center
California City Civic Center
California City Civic Center
California City Civic Center
35°07'33.0"N 117°59'09.0"W

Location: California City CA, USA
Type: Civic Centre, Public Space, Unbuilt

Collection: Konrad Wachsmann Archiv - Akademie der Kunst, Berlin
Text: The New York Times, Los Angeles Architecture, as it might have been, 2013


Posted: June 2018
Category: Architecture

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