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The wait is over for one of the most hotly-anticipated editions to the cultural landscape of Los Angeles in recent memory.
OMA has announced the official completion of its much-heralded Audrey Irmas Pavilion for the Wilshire Boulevard Temple in Koreatown.
The new building offers a unique center for aging in addition to a rooftop terrace and sunken garden that connect through a series of small meeting rooms that provide users the chance to gather in the topmost example of three distinct voids defined by their separate sacred and public meeting spaces wrapped in gray GFRC panels which form a hexagonal motif geometric facade.
Back in September, OMA’s Shohei Shigematsu referred to the project as a potential catalyst for a return to mass-scale social interactions, stating that its completion “comes at a time when we hope to come together again,” and that the pavilion “can be a platform to reinstate the importance of gathering, exchange, and communal spirit.”
The temple was originally completed in 1929 with help from Hollywood luminaries like Louis B. Mayer and stood as a pillar of the community until the first decade of the 21st century, when a renovation and expansion effort led by Rabbi Steven Leder and backed by Eli Broad netted some $126 million for what eventually became OMA’s first religious commission.
Overall, the trapezoidal structure is a hypermodern variation on the original temple that also provides the area with an important new cultural touchstone punctuated by a public courtyard and beset amongst a campus now poised to become the city’s premiere crossover between religious sanctuary and civic gathering space.
Douglas Suisman told The New York Times it represents a “a generational shift within OMA.” Additional project images can be viewed below.
https://archinect.com/news/article/150293040/oma-s-audrey-imas-pavilion-makes-its-long-awaited-debut-on-wilshire-boulevard
