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Built on a former industrial site, the Stealth building (2001) features
a sunken courtyard (above) for outdoor performances.
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Because the form of the building changes from end to end, the interior
spaces (above, left and right) are highly varied.
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The structures the Smiths and Moss have put up have grown progressively
larger as they've demonstrated their marketplace viability. Although the
Smiths have an undying passion for the aesthetic side of the equation, Moss
maintains that their ability to maneuver within the worlds of bankers, city
planning agencies, and corporate tenants like Kodak and Ogilvy & Mather
is at least as important. "Frederick has always made it clear that
he's more interested in succeeding on the street than in books and museums,"
he says. "And in that context the work has to be plausible to an audience
who will sign leases."
Still Moss is encouraged to indulge in theoretical flights of fancy.
A building called the Umbrella (1999) features an undulating laminated-glass
canopy, a sophisticated piece of engineering akin to Gehry's Condé
Nast cafeteria, but exposed to the elements. "That's an experiment
for a much larger project we want to do in the future," Frederick says.
When preliminary work was being done on the Stealth (2000), it was discovered
that there was a toxic material on the site that had to be remediated. Rather
than refilling the resulting hole, Moss created a submerged garden
that also serves as a 600-seat auditorium.
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Four bridges like this one run across the north facade of Eric Owen Moss's
Pittard Sullivan building (1997).
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The Smiths aren't finished by a long shot. "We will not stop expanding
unless we have some cataclysm," Laurie says. Their biggest project
to date--a pair of 230-foot-tall high-rise towers that will house only twelve
stories, each with 25-foot ceilings--was recently approved by the Los Angeles
city council. "We don't just have one building we're working on with
this architect--we have a whole neighborhood," Laurie says. "Architects
love to talk about all the great designs they did that will end up on a
library shelf because nobody had the guts to build them. We're defying that.
We're giving this particular architect the chance to build his wildest dreams."
Also from Metropolis:
»
Moss Wins Queens Museum of Art Competition
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