May 2020 | Eyesore

Commentary on architectural blunders in monthly serial.

Architect Thom Mayne and his Morphosis firm are great favorites here, year after year, and they’ve come up with a new humdinger expressing every trope of techno-narcisismo idiocy in circulation — at least until the corona virus put the schnitz on what used to be considered our economy. The place is Los Angeles, the site is the block on Sunset Boulevard once occupied by the Viper Room, the depraved nightclub where Joaquin Phoenix’s big Brother, River, died of a drug overdose way back when. The proposed new building is a combo office and luxury condominium / hotel pair-of-thingies. Kind of looks like the cyborg skull of a giant space alien is about to crush the office workers in their green-fungus-laced glass box. A facsimile artifact of something that resembles “nature” lies on a little slope between the two main attractions. A little touch of the old Blade Runner video display occupies the lower right corner. Very Hollywood. Touches all the bases of proggish virtue signaling: We’re rich as hell, but, hey, we really like the planet… really! Notice all the low-rise highway strip dreck around the thingies. That’s the true heart-and-soul of LA! By the way, I doubt that this will ever get built now. It was announced a month or so before the Great Lockdown. Hotels and offices are now outski. Nice Try!