A Remodel Out of Necessity Builds New Image

Blair Graphics gained its name in Santa Monica as a printing business that catered to architects. Now, Blair’s longtime building has become a virtuoso display of avant-garde architecture in itself.

Formerly a dowdy, red-brick warehouse, the Blair Graphics building is now wrapped in diagonal walls of galvanized metal that make the building appear something like a bird in flight.

The metal on the exterior continues into the lobby and the work spaces of the building, where new walls of glass and metal seem a fitting backdrop for the new technology of digital laser printers.

Blair President Robert N. Blair said he did not necessarily start out with the intention of commissioning a landmark from Los Angeles architect Randall Stout.

Last year, Blair decided to keep pace with the rapidly evolving reprographics technology. The designer’s primary task was to remodel the interior to accommodate Blair’s new machinery and work patterns alike.

Stout, however, went beyond functionality and created a new image for Blair that both emphasizes the industrial nature of the business, while providing a visual metaphor for Blair’s new “tech.”

To keep the building’s industrial flavor, Stout left the original wood ceiling in place, sandblasting the paint from the double-barrel vault to reveal the original surface. The architect also took pains not to entirely obscure the red-brick facade.

“We probably could have clad the whole front facade (in metal), but we did not want to deny that industrial context” of the red brick, Stout said.

Contrasting with those rough surfaces are new walls of glass and galvanized metal. Stout devoted particular attention to the design of the metal walls, which he likened to origami.

The design “represents the craft of what Blair does,” particularly “the care and attention in the use of paper” in reprographics, according to Stout. Although galvanized metal is best known for such unglamorous applications as heating ducts, Randall has made the material seem refined through careful handling, such as a crimped edge that runs along the edges of the material like a tailored seam.

Blair said he is pleased with the outcome. “As marketing, it is excellent,” Blair said of the new design, adding that the image of the building is now used in all the firm’s advertising.

Yet renovating the building at 1740 Stanford St. was not without awkwardness, at least in the beginning: How could Blair choose an architect, when he had more than 200 architects as his customers, without offending anyone?

“One customer got miffed, and said, ‘You should have held a competition’ ” for the redesign, Blair recalled. “That sounded like an invitation to disaster. I have to tell one customer that I love his design and tell all the rest that I hate their talent.”

Stout, a former project architect for Frank Gehry, seemed a good choice, both for his design skills and for his low local profile; most of Stout’s projects are in Europe.

“I know a lot of my customers compete head to head for Los Angeles projects. Randall had never done a building in Los Angeles, so I could say to all my other customers, ‘I am choosing someone who is more or less neutral.’ ”