concerto’s architectural distinction at street level
Ever since developer Sonny Astani wowed the Downtown community with plans to adorn his twin tower mega-development with Blade Runner-caliber 14-story moving LED graphic panels, it has become the most memorable characteristic of the Concerto project.
Considering the architecture, it makes sense.
Commonly seen renderings released by DeStefano + Partners show us two classy, but vaguely familiar, 30-story glass towers rising at 9th and Figueroa. Angular upper levels customize otherwise boxy designs, making for a nice addition to the Downtown skyline… but where’s the cachet?
Look a little lower.
The other part of phase one, a 6-story loft structure to front Flower Street on the southeast corner of the site, will boast some of Concerto’s most creative facade forms.
Taking elements from the architect’s unbuilt Glass Tower (proposed for 11th and Grand), the smaller building will meet pedestrians with a simple, square glass wall embellished by a “melting” solid mass, skewed window arrangements and contrasting materials — a luring gateway to the development’s 2,500 square-foot interior park component.
If Astani’s vision for neo-noir cinematics doesn’t pan out, it’s good to see that Concerto will have some other design substance to fall back on.
The best part… it’s under construction now.
-south park skyline escalating overnight
-astani realizes ‘blade runner’ concept with concerto
Concerto under construction as seen from Figueroa (May 14, 2008)
View from southeast of Concerto construction site (late April 2008)
Rendering of completed Concerto project, similar view
5 comments
Wow…this just cements my opinion as having this be right behind LA Live for being the most important project for South Park. Just think when 717 Ninth is done, when Concerto, including both towers, is done and when FIDM and obviously Hanover are all done. All those add up to 146 FLOORS all within practically a block of each other. Take the ones u/c right now and you have 97 floors altoghether opening by 2009. Take this, all the people that say LA has no skyline, or that say Downtown is dead from the “slowdown”!!!
nice – very nice – very, very nice. let’s hope tower 2 will happen within a reasonable time.
I was flying in to LAX this weekend and took a look at downtown on our descent, there’s definately a noticible difference and I must say the city is starting to shape up nicely. I hope that the development continues and more importantly more people from the surrounding areas consider making downtown home.
Only took up 100 years
Mr. Astani, we thank you for believing.