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Architect Neil Denari lands WME talent-agency gig

By Christopher Hawthorne
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Neil M. Denari Architects will be designing the interiors of the new WME Entertainment talent agency in Beverly Hills.

Denari confirmed the news in a phone conversation Friday afternoon, happily calling the commission a ‘recession-buster job.’ WME, recently created in a merger between the Endeavor talent agency and William Morris, will occupy a six-story building designed by Gensler that is under construction on North Beverly Drive. It was originally going to be the new home for William Morris. Denari will design 170,000 square feet of interior space spread over six floors, including a 200-seat screening room at ground level, and will oversee the job without an executive architect.

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The architect previously worked with WME head and Endeavor co-founder Ari Emanuel on the much-acclaimed, virtually all-white Endeavor offices (pictured above), also in Beverly Hills. That fueled speculation that Emanuel might want to work with Denari again -- especially once William Morris Chairman Jim Wiatt left the combined company.

--Christopher Hawthorne

Culture Monster Blog
Christopher Hawthorne

Christopher Hawthorne was the architecture critic for the Los Angeles Times from 2004 to March 2018. Before coming to The Times, he was architecture critic for Slate and a frequent contributor to the New York Times. He is the author, with Alanna Stang, of “The Green House: New Directions in Sustainable Architecture.” Hawthorne grew up in Berkeley and has a bachelor’s degree from Yale, where he readied himself for a career in criticism by obsessing over the design flaws in his dormitory, designed by Eero Saarinen.

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