The City View Ballroom Terrace, seen in a rendering, would look out at Los Angeles. But would this vision for the convention center engage with the city? Credit: Populous / HMC

Christopher Hawthorne from LA Times reviews the new plan of LA Convention Center architecturally and politically. Hawthorne also explains the development of process of the proposed plan with budgets.

The architecture of the new plan, as if to compensate for the sober event-management calculations around which it is organized, tends toward the frenetic, like the second half of a Pixar movie. Its gestures are oversized and occasionally overwrought, its colors perma-bright. Even its attitude toward preservation is skittish: The design rather makes a fetish of saving one of the Freed-Pei glass entry towers, at the corner of Figueroa and Pico, but would demolish the other, near Staples.

In place of the West Hall's existing lobby and meeting rooms would be a covered, open-air ballroom of 70,000 square feet. Above that would be another huge ballroom, covering 100,000 square feet and wrapped mostly in glass. The views from both promise to be dramatic. Colorful new paving and plants, in shades of rust, green and orange, would give Lindsay Plaza an energetic new personality. The open space would extend from there toward L.A. Live, snaking behind Staples. (The landscape firm is Olin.).....Continue Reading

> via latimes.com