Design Competition Focuses on Venice

The annual Real Problems competitions sponsored by the Los Angeles Chapter of the American Institute of Architects are designed as “an exercise exploring problems of a social nature” relating to a specific site but with “universal ramifications.”

In 1989 the competition, which is open to architectural students and graduates who have not yet been licensed as practicing professionals, tackled the thorny problem of the colorful and chaotic area that lies at the core of Venice where Windward Avenue meets the disused pavilion.

Titled “The Venice Stage,” the competition attracted 40 entries from across the U.S., including several from New York City. But the top prizes of $1,000 and $500 were awarded Jan. 12 to entries submitted by Venice residents Warren Wagner and Edward Webb (first prize) and Norman Hilario (second prize).

In addition, six entries received commendations and five more were given honor awards.

Wagner and Webb’s entry, titled “Regeneration and Reclamation,” was the Real Problems jury’s unanimous choice as the winner. Juror Barbara Goldstein, editor of the L.A. Architect newsletter, described the design as “incredible.” City planner Emily Gabel was impressed by the first prize scheme’s creation of “museums of land.”

“Regeneration and Reclamation” plays upon the dramatic seasonal changes that Venice Beach experiences. The design proposes the collection of water from the winter rains to clean and filter dredged sand. The storm-tossed beach is banked into “sand mesas” to protect Ocean Front Walk and the beachfront markets, bikepaths and buildings from the wild weather.

In Wagner and Webb’s imaginative layout, the community arts center called for in the competition program features a series of retracting roofs to respond to the summer need for an open air performance space. Nearby are artists’ studios and lofts mingled with cafes and shops. A police station goes underground to “encourage a low profile of authority,”Webb explained. A floating lifeguard platform anchored out at sea enhances the dynamic character of the design.

“Warren (Wagner) and I live down the street from the pavilion,” Webb said. “We see the seasonal changes, and appreciate the fluid and lively Venetian lifestyle. So we felt that any architectural response to the area should both symbolically ‘heal’ the much-abused bay and also let Venice be free and easy.”

The Venice Pier has had a checkered history since it was first created by Venice developer Abbot Kinney in 1905 .

Destroyed by fire in 1920 and quickly rebuilt, it was demolished by the Department of Parks and Recreation in 1946. The Pier’s once lively roller coasters and boisterous sideshows offering “every sort of freak, tame and wild, trained and untrained, known to the ingenuity of mankind,” as one contemporary account described it, vanished in an attempt to clean up the beachfront.

In the mid-1960s, when Venice was in the depths of its decline, the city built the existing Venice Pavilion. Originally an open air amphitheatre, the Pavilion was roofed over in 1972. Soon it was closed for safety reasons. Today its mural and graffiti-covered brick walls form a backdrop to Ocean Front Walk’s bazaar of outdoor stalls and street performers.

“The entries in this year’s competition were the best overall standard we’ve had in the four years since we started Real Problems,” said committee chairwoman Mignon Stapleton. “I think this was partly because we went national for the first time, and partly because the Venice problem was so engaging. Also, we learned the lesson from past years to keep the program as fluid as possible to allow for the maximum creativity.”

In previous years, Real Problems jurors complained that the programs were both too controlled and too complex. The 1988 competition program, which dealt with the area around the proposed Westlake Metro Rail station at MacArthur Park, was “a mess,” according to juror Jon Jerde. “So the designs were confused and unresolved.”