‘Whale’ Watchers See Green

The newest jewel on the Pacific Design Center diadem--a $77-million showroom complex clad in glistening emerald-green glass--awaits the fanfare and pyrotechnic display planned for its official debut on Friday.

The event will coincide with West Week, PDC’s annual design conference, which is expected to attract more than 32,000 participants to the new building.

The newly completed structure on the 16-acre PDC West Hollywood site--the first part of a two-phase expansion--becomes another “fragment” of the architectural trio conceived by architect Cesar Pelli with the collaboration of Gruen Associates.

In an earlier interview with Pelli at the start of Phase 2, he admitted having had misgivings about the expansion assignment. “In fact, I was terrified when approached by the late Murray Feldman to do the designs,” he said.

“But I’m happy I was given the chance to rethink the concept and to experience the new feeling of a giant sculpture made up of a collection of fragments such as one might find near the Acropolis--an entablature, a column, other forms linked together as a family of shapes.”

The PDC project, which will have a third major “fragment” in Phase 3, sheathed in rich burgundy glass, is being developed by Birtcher, Laguna Hills; Santa Fe Southern Pacific Corp., San Francisco, and the World Wide Group, New York City. Eventually, when the entire project is finished, PDC will have doubled the size of its 718,000-square-foot contract, interior design and furnishings mart, said Richard Norfolk, the mart’s president and executive officer.

The 9-story, 450,000-square-foot Phase 2 structure was designed to complement the original 6-story “Blue Whale” glass-sheathed structure at San Vicente Boulevard and Melrose Avenue. Floors 7 to 9 are covered by a pyramidal roof that rises about 90 feet above the 7th floor, forming a central space that resembles the Grand Court and Galleria on the 5th and 6th floors of the original building.

Three pairs of floors are interconnected by large openings in the circulation space, and the three upper floors are joined by a central open space below the pyramidal roof that features eight inward curving, tent-like walls. These form atriums to allow the light to permeate the entire structure.

The building contains a conference center with a 400-seat auditorium and space for a restaurant.

Allen M. Rubenstein, partner-in-charge of the project for Gruen Associates, said Phase 2 also includes an adjoining 550,000-square-foot terraced parking structure, a 2-acre public plaza on San Vicente Boulevard, a 6,000-square-foot museum gallery and a 350-seat amphitheater. All except the museum gallery and some of the surface parking areas have been completed.

Leasing of the new building is continuing “at a brisk pace,” Norfolk said. “We are now almost 50% leased, and we currently have about 220 tenants in both buildings, carrying well over 1,000 lines of furniture, floor coverings, fabrics and specialized lighting.” He added that the continued vitality of the West Hollywood/Los Angeles market now surpasses New York in the sale of furnishings.

Friday’s opening celebration, said James Goodwin, PDC’s director of marketing communications, will feature the work of producer Ron Hays, fellow of the Institute of Advanced Visual Studies at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who (in collaboration with June Wayne) will utilize a 20-foot-diameter balloon as a screen for a series of projections ranging from an overview of West Hollywood to views of space achievements. In addition, a musician will give a sky concert from a helium-filled platform 100 feet above the ground.

General contractor for the Phase 2 building is HCB Contractors. The consultant engineering team includes Cygna Consultant Engineers, Flack & Kurtz and Paller-Roberts Engineering.