wHY's new Los Angeles arts campus for David Kordansky Gallery
Mid-City's David Kordansky Gallery expands to a design by wHY's Kulapat Yantrasast, spanning a three-volume arts campus that allows for flexibility in cultural programming

Elon Schoenholz - Photography
Loyally rooted in the California culture, yet with a pulse on the international conversation, David Kordansky Gallery is expanding with an arts campus at the corner of Edgewood and S. La Brea Avenue in Mid-City. Since its humble beginnings in Chinatown in 2003, followed by two different Culver City homes, the gallery has developed into one of the most dynamic venues for contemporary art in Los Angeles.
The renovation was carried out by Los Angeles-based architect Kulapat Yantrasast and his firm wHY, who also designed the original gallery on site, which opened in 2014. The new complex comprises three structures, joined by a central landscaped courtyard that will allow visitors to flow between the spaces, creating one dynamic art compound where it’s possible to mount a trio of shows simultaneously.
According to Kordansky, ‘the extended campus gives us a range of new possibilities – intimate exhibition space (an alternative to our larger gallery spaces), an exterior courtyard for outdoor sculpture – and when we can gather safely again – screenings, performances, and events, space for photography, additional storage, etc. We've never had this much flexibility for programming before.'
The Three Fates (2020), an enamel on bronze sculpture by Will Boone, installed near the terraced entryway to David Kordansky Gallery’s new expansion in Mid-City, Los Angeles, designed by wHY. Courtesy of the artist, wHY, and David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles.
The courtyard provides access to the two new exhibition spaces with natural light flooding each space via a centrally cut portal in the ceiling. ‘Kulapat has an ability to highlight the most curious features of a structure while adding clean, focused lines to accentuate art-viewing experiences,' said Kordansky. ‘He respects art as much as architecture.'
The residential scale and feel of the new arts campus is in tune with the neighborhood. Subtle details soften the space, from coved ceilings to an exterior with a series of monolithic fig-covered site walls that conjure a seamless movement between indoors and outdoors. Dark asphalt bordered with succulent plants and gray gravel create a subdued setting.
Yantrasast drew from the unique aspects of the local art community for inspiration. ‘Many great cultural exchange and art moments in LA happen in wonderful backyards where people feel at home,' he said. ‘The art scenes in LA are very down-to-earth, and personal, and I think the gallery spaces should reflect that, rather than try to appear commercial or corporate.'
The courtyard space is designed with drought resistant planting, gravel and wooden trim by wHY’s Landscape Workshop to provide a contemplative place for visitors, artists as well as gallery staff to enjoy. ‘The courtyard also comes alive as gathering place for openings and many art events, just like a good LA garden,' adds Yantrasast.
Courtesy of wHY, and David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles
Courtesy of wHY, and David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles
Courtesy of wHY, and David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles
Courtesy of wHY, and David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles
Custom wallpaper by Mai-Thu Perret installed in the restroom of David Kordansky Gallery's new wHY-designed exhibition space. Perret's wallpaper was originally designed and printed for her 2007 solo exhibition Land of Crystal at the Bonnefanten Museum, Maastricht, Netherlands. Courtesy of the artist, wHY, and David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles.
Courtesy of wHY, and David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles
INFORMATION
Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox.
Carole Dixon is a prolific lifestyle writer-editor currently based in Los Angeles. As a Wallpaper* contributor since 2004, she covers travel, architecture, art, fashion, food, design, beauty, and culture for the magazine and online, and was formerly the LA City editor for the Wallpaper* City Guides to Los Angeles.
-
Boathouse Zaka is the radical renovation of an ageing structure into a light-filled workspace
OFIS Architects turns a traditional boathouse into a lakeside laboratory on one of Slovenia’s best-loved bodies of water
-
Mercedes streamlines the CLA Shooting Brake to create an aerodynamic electric load lugger
The new CLA Shooting Brake is the first ever electric estate car from Mercedes-Benz, a tour-de-force of quiet technology and elegant lines
-
Willy Chavarria: ‘We’re still so stuck in fashion‘s old guard’
As part of the August 2025 ‘Made in America’ issue of Wallpaper*, we invited three creative powerhouses to comment on the state of the States. Here, award-winning American fashion designer Willy Chavarria speaks on creative resilience, uniting with activist groups, and shaking up fashion’s old guard
-
The dynamic young gallerists reinvigorating America's art scene
'Hugging has replaced air kissing' in this new wave of galleries with craft and community at their core
-
Meet the New York-based artists destabilising the boundaries of society
A new show in London presents seven young New York-based artists who are pushing against the borders between refined aesthetics and primal materiality
-
Mystic, feminine and erotic: the power of Penny Slinger’s bodies as landscape
Artist Penny Slinger continues her exploration of the sacred, surreal feminine in a Santa Monica exhibition, ‘Meeting at the Horizon’
-
Photographer Geordie Wood takes a leap of faith with first film, Divers
Geordie Wood delved into the world of professional diving in Fort Lauderdale for his first film
-
New book celebrates 100 years of New York City landmarks where LGBTQ+ history took place
Marc Zinaman’s ‘Queer Happened Here: 100 Years of NYC’s Landmark LGBTQ+ Places’ is a vital tribute to queer culture
-
A major Takashi Murakami exhibition sees the world in kaleidoscopic colour
The Cleveland Art Museum presents 'Takashi Murakami 'Stepping on the Tail of a Rainbow', exploring outrage and escapist fantasy
-
Ai Weiwei’s new public installation is coming soon to Four Freedoms State Park
‘Camouflage’ by Ai Weiwei will launch the inaugural Art X Freedom project in September 2025, a new programme to investigate social justice and freedom
-
Leonard Baby's paintings reflect on his fundamentalist upbringing, a decade after he left the church
The American artist considers depression and the suppressed queerness of his childhood in a series of intensely personal paintings, on show at Half Gallery, New York