New Pershing Square Design Reflects L.A. Microcosm

A design calling for an undulating landscape reflecting the topography of Los Angeles and studded with cafes, sculpture gardens, sitting areas and lush plantings has been selected as the winner of an international competition to revitalize Pershing Square.

The announcement Monday of the winner concludes a 1 1/2-year effort by the Pershing Square Management Assn. in cooperation with the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency to develop a specific plan and a general enthusiasm to lend new life to the scruffy five-acre downtown square.

The winning proposal, submitted by a design team headed by SITE Projects Inc. of New York, will now become the basis of a $12.4-million reconstruction project, Wayne Ratkovich, chairman of the nonprofit association, said. The redevelopment agency has already committed $6 million to the project. The balance is to be provided by the private sector.

Work on the project could start in about a year and be completed by the end of 1988, depending on funding, Ratkovich added. “We are extremely enthusiastic about the design and believe it can ignite the imagination of the city and kick off our fund raising,” he added.

Describing the design, James Wines of SITE said it is “a visual and participatory microcosm” of the city’s natural and cultural landscapes. “What we tried to do was to compress virtually all of the Los Angeles experience into a metaphorical magic carpet.”

Visual Drama

The “carpet” forming the landscape of the park will be rumpled to create visual drama and to shelter a restaurant and other service facilities. Along the edges facing the street will be a series of waterfalls and fountains, designed to reduce city noises.

The redesigned square will be marked with a grid system, creating what Wines called “mini-environments” consisting of botanical displays, artworks, cafes, kiosks, trellis-covered gardens, seating, play and performance areas.

Wines also said the design calls for the grid to be lit up at night “to give the impression of Los Angeles as a tapestry of city lights seen from the air.”

Commenting on the competition that attracted 242 entries, jury chairman and architect Charles Moore declared that the SITE proposal won because “it represented a whole new concept to meet the needs of all the people of Los Angeles who will be using the park.”

“Moreover, the jury liked the way this scheme defined a special thing called a park in the middle of Los Angeles on top of a parking garage,” Moore said.

The jury consisted of six professional members, including Moore, and six public members, including Ratkovich. There also were various advisers, among them writer Ray Bradbury and architectural historian Robert Winter.

When asked by the jury during the judging, which took place in public Saturday, what his advice would be if he was given a choice between preserving history or making history, Winter replied, “Always making history.” His comment was seen as pivotal in the debate over the five finalists, most of whom had presented more traditional, if fanciful, designs.

The Pershing design is very much in keeping with SITE’s commitment to what has been described as a “narrative architecture”--an architecture that tries first and foremost to tell a story, create a mood and make a point. Secondary is what particular forms the architecture might take.

Among SITE’s designs is a series of department stores for Best Products Co., with facades in various provocative compositions. It has also designed numerous exhibitions, including a sculpted 712-foot freeway that has become one of the major attractions at Expo ’86 in Vancouver.

Working with SITE on the Pershing Square submission were Charles Kober Associates of Los Angeles, Delon Hampton & Associates, structural engineers, and the landscape architectural firms of EDAW Inc. of Irvine and Burton & Spitz of Santa Monica.