What happens when a big-time Downtown developer takes urban design cues from Blade Runner, a film set in the apocalyptic Los Angeles of the future?

There’s a push for radical vision.

The LA Times’ David Zahniser describes Sonny Astani’s futuristic plans for his twin-tower Concerto project in South Park and the inspiration drawn from the famous 1982 neo-film noir in which Downtown Los Angeles is overrun with busy noodle shops, crime, pollution and remarkable visual stimuli.

“There’s not one day that I don’t think of that movie,” Astani is quoted as saying. Evidence of his fascination with this futurism is present in early project models for Concerto which feature the same larger-than-life geisha seen in the film clip below.

Here in the real world, however, Astani’s glass towers are much more elegant than the ominously dark skyscrapers depicted in the movie. His vision focuses on the structure’s signage potential, with a proposal to adorn his development with 14-story moving LED graphic panels on the sides of both towers.

With its proximity to the LA Live entertainment district, the DeStefano-designed Concerto is ideally located for such looming cinematic exhibits.

To accommodate his idea, the City has put forward a new “special signage district” plan around LA Live and Staples Center to allow for “massive advertising and colorful light shows” on par with Tokyo’s Shibuya district and Manhattan’s Times Square.

From the Times:

Astani’s plan seeks the creation of a special district where at least two high-rises could be partly covered with rows of tiny panels embedded with LEDs, or light-emitting diodes — a concept viewed by some at City Hall as the next frontier in outdoor advertising.

Although office towers in Los Angeles already have “supergraphics” — enormous vinyl sheets stretched across one side of a building — those images are static. Should Astani succeed, sign companies looking to show animated advertising could view the city’s high-rises as enormous blank canvases.

With new technology that would allow the oversized graphics to utilize lower-wattage diodes, a compromise should be easy to reach with concerned neighborhood activists who see the proposal as nothing more than a tacky billboard.

Astani maintains that tackiness is not his intention. “If this is bright or intrusive, we cannot sell the condominiums [behind the LED facade]. It will have to be so unique and unobtrusive that people will be proud to live behind it.”

It’s probably safe to say we won’t be seeing ten-story versions of those Angus Beef burger ads that recently plagued our subway stations. But whatever the ad content may ultimately be, we support Sonny Astani’s efforts to lead Downtown toward a more exciting future — bring on the geishas!

Now we can’t wait to see the final designs for his 8th & Grand project.

-Concerto Project Website
-Concerto Construction Coverage
-la live-inspired signage will soon spruce up 717 olympic

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Related reading:

1. new york times on concerto’s ‘dark’ inspiration
2. concerto’s architectural distinction at street level
3. flashy lights in south park? let’s do it
4. new 717 olympic billboards mark pre-leasing launch