Frank Gehry Selected to Design Colburn School Campus Expansion in Los Angeles

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Last week, Sel Kardan, the President and CEO of the Colburn School, announced that Frank Gehry has been selected to design a campus expansion, adjacent to its existing facilities in Downtown, Los Angeles. The expansion site, located on Grand Avenue, will become the newest neighbor to other notable projects including Diller Scofidio + Renfro's Broad Museum, Gehry's Walt Disney Concert Hall, Isozaki's Museum of Contemporary Art, and just a few blocks away from Moneo's Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, and Coop Himmelb(l)au's High School #9. Gehry's contribution to the school will make this area of Los Angeles one of the world’s largest sites for performing and visual arts programs.

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The design, which will include the construction of three indoor performance halls and an outdoor performance venue in addition to classrooms, a rehearsal center, and housing for both students and guest artists. The 1,100-seat concert hall, designed to hold orchestra performances, 700 seat studio theater, and 100-seat cabaret performance hall will be open to a wide range of partner institutions so that performances can be open to the public.

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Slated to Collaborate with Gehry Partners on the project, are Yasuhisa Toyota of Nagata Acoustics, who provided acoustic engineering for the Walt Disney Concert Hall and Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, and Michael Ferguson, principal of TheatreDNA, who consulted on Gehry's New World Center and Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College.

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Commenting on the selection to design the school, Frank Gehry said, “The expansion of the Colburn School fills an important addition to the long-held dream to create a cultural district in downtown Los Angeles. The school is already an incredible asset and major player, and the expansion is a great opportunity to add breadth to this dream. I am honored to be chosen for this task, and I feel that it is an opportunity to further increase the school’s relationship to other cultural venues like The Music Center, Walt Disney Concert Hall, The Broad, and MOCA. The young musicians, dancers, and performing artists will add to the vitality and excitement of the existing cultural organizations. What we all dreamed about twenty years ago is now becoming within reach, and we will do our best to make it a proud addition.”

News via: The Colburn School.