On the surface, it feels like an age since California could lay claim to being at the cutting edge of architectural design. The Case Study series might have kick-started an aesthetic, but even though the style of long, low and lithe design persists, it's long since evolved into the default choice of creative-minded hedge fund managers, with price tags to match, rather than the low-cost homes they were originally intended to be. But scratch the surface, and there's an awful lot going on.
The thirty-eight firms represented at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art's new show, 'A New Sculpturalism (opens in new tab)', illustrate the sheer variety of scale and style that characterises contemporary Southern Californian design, from the world-conquering shapes created by Gehry Partners, Greg Lynn, Morphosis and Eric Owen Moss, to the innovative residential and cultural projects of Warren Techentin, RoTo, Coscia Day, Lorcan O'Herlihy, Brooks + Scarpa and many, many more.
Regular readers will be familiar with most of these names from Wallpaper* Architects Directories (opens in new tab) past; suffice to say there's still plenty of fire left in the Californian design community. On the evidence presented, it's not too much of a stretch to lay the credit (and the blame) for much of modern architect's formal adventurousness at the feet of the Californians, as the very analogue, hands-on deconstructivism of early Gehry and Owen Moss blossomed into a digitally designed landscape of swoops, curves, angles and extrusions that would have repercussions all over the planet.
The show takes place in a classic Gehry-designed space dating from the early 1980s, and will feature three specially-designed full-scale pavilions, by Atelier Manferdini, P-A-T-T-E-R-N-S and Tom Wiscombe Design, as well as models and imagery.
Projects represented in the exhibition include the Bergamot Artist Lofts, Santa Monica, designed by Brooks + Scarpa Architects, 1999.
Palms House, Los Angeles, designed by Daly Genik Architects, 2011.
Samitaur, Los Angeles, designed by Eric Owen Moss Architects, 1996.
Interior of Bloom House, Southern California, designed by Greg Lynn Form, in collaboration with Lookinglass Architecture & Design, 2012.
Wild Beast Music Pavilion, Valencia, California, designed by Hodgetts + Fung, 2009.
Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust, Los Angeles, designed by Belzberg Architects, 2010.
Exterior Study for Formosa 1140, West Hollywood, by Lorcan O'Herlihy Architects, 2008.
Formosa 1140, West Hollywood, designed by Lorcan O'Herlihy Architects, 2008. © 2009 Lawrence Anderson/Esto
Cahill Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics at Caltech, Pasadena, designed by Morphosis Architects, 2008.
Alan-Voo House, Los Angeles, designed by Neil M Denari Architects, 2007.
Untitled sketch, by Neil M Denari Architects, 1996.
Drawing for 434 Apartments, Los Angeles, by Saee Studio, 1989.
Interior of Bobco Metals Co, Los Angeles, designed by VOID, 2004.
Proposal for the National Art Museum of China (NAMOC), west elevation, designed by Gehry Partners, 2012.
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