Q & A : Don’t Blend In

A few months back, the Beverly Center went from chocolate brown to, well, a lighter shade of chocolate brown, its first overhaul since the landmark mall opened in 1982. We spoke with the building’s architect, Avner Naggar of the Taubman Company, about the change.

The Beverly Center’s original paint job generated a lot of debate. Why did you choose that early brown?

Initially it was mauve, to be the same color as the tile. Because of the particles in the air and all the soot L.A. has, it became darker. It wasn’t exactly what we expected.

Were you upset by the response?

The building was dull before, I’ll admit it. We weren’t happy about the initial color. We wanted to freshen it up, make a statement.

Why stick with another shade of brown then?

We hired a color consultant and tried a lot of different combinations, maybe 15, at various times of the day, since the sunlight hits in different directions.

Were you looking for a shade to help the center better blend in with the neighborhood?

That’s exactly it. We talked about blues, and a pink, very much the same as the Cedars-Sinai building. That didn’t work. We decided on this fairly neutral color so we could do wall paintings depicting products sold in the center.

How much paint did it take?

Well, it’s not a paint. We changed the whole image by using a material called Dryvit, which is plaster-like and comes in a variety of colors. It’s troweled onto gauze which has been applied to the insulation. We’ve cocooned the building.

Eight stories of Dryvit? How much is that?

I don’t know. It’s probably the biggest blot on the cityscape.