Lecture Series
Exhibitions
Past Exhibitions
Special Events
MOCA Pacific Design Center
Meeting and Event Facilities

Click here for WESTWEEK Schedule of Events

PDC Designer Lecture Series
All lectures are CEU Accredited and held in the Conference Center, Suite B259 at 11:00 AM. For more information or to RSVP, call 310-657-0800.
If you require Adaptive Services, please notify us in writing at least 2 weeks in advance.

Wednesday, May 7th @ 11:00 AM
ASID – Back to Basics - “Contract Administration: Step by Step Management during Project Construction” Part III with Katherine Fern
Please join ASID & Katherine Fern, ASID,CID,IDEC,IIDA & UCLA Instructor to discuss topics on; Bid Procedures & Documents, Scheduling Methodologies & monitoring, Contractor Coordination & Documentation, Site Visit Protocol, Field Reports, Progress Meetings, Project Close Out, Liens & Punch Lists. Reception to be announced.

Thursday, May 15 @ 11:00 AM
“The Legal Aspects of a Successful Design Business” with Bobi Leonard
Please join Bobi for this insightful topic and learn how to protect your business assets. This lecture will also focus on how to effectively use legal contracts, agreements and proposals. Reception to be announced.

Wednesday, June 4th @ 11:00 AM
California Home & Design: Living with Art
Please join California Home & Design to celebrate their June issue with a panel discussion that will explore the relationship between design and art collecting.

SCHEDULE CHANGE
Wednesday, June 4th @ 11:00AM
Living With Art
Please join California Home & Design to celebrate their June issue with a panel discussion that will explore the relationship between design and art collecting.

Exhibitions

Click here for WESTWEEK Exhibit Schedule

Inside Architecture: Selections from the Permanent Collections
MOCA Pacific Design Center
On view March 9th through May 25th
From intimate domestic settings to grand institutional spaces, the interior has always been a source of inspiration for artists. Inside Architecture: Selections from the Permanent Collection brings together works from MOCA’s permanent collection that examine artists’ ongoing fascination with interior spaces and the range of ways they have chosen to depict or represent both the public and private places inside buildings, whether anonymous or well known. The exhibition will include drawings, paintings, and photographs by artists Kirsten Everberg, Candida Höfer, Richard Prince, Thomas Struth, Matthias Weischer and Paul Winstanley. Organized by MOCA Curator of Architecture and Design Brooke Hodge, Inside Architecture: Selections from the Permanent Collection marks the occasion of Hodge’s first presentation of works from the permanent collection.

Exhibition: 50 Years of Britain and Los Angeles
1st Floor Blue Lobby
On view May 5th – May 31st

An exhibition of 50 Years of Britain and Los Angeles, produced by the husband and wife team of Arnold and Isolde Schwartzman, will help mark the fiftieth anniversary of the British Consul General's official Residence in Hancock Park.
The exhibition consists of several panels packed with images and information about the many connections between Britain and Los Angeles in the 1950s and in each subsequent decade until the present day, as well as a panels covering the earlier connections and one on the history of Residence itself. The panels are beautifully designed by the Schwartzmans, who for many years did the design work for the Motion Picture Academy Awards. Arnold Schwartzman is himself an Oscar winner, for a documentary he made in 1981. Like many of those involved with BritWeek, Arnold is a transplanted Brit and longtime resident of Los Angeles. Among many other services to his adopted city, he was Director of Design for the LA Olympics in 1984.
The exhibition will be shown at the invitation-only reception at the Residence on April 26th and then at the BAFTA/LA Comedy Awards Gala at the Four Seasons Hotel on May 1st. From May 2nd, the Exhibition will be on public display at the Pacific Design Center at 8687 Melrose Avenue, where it will stay for the rest of the month.

PAST EXHIBITIONS

Harry Benson: A Retrospective of Iconic Photography
1st Floor Blue Lobby
On view March 25th - April 25th
Scottish-born photojournalist Harry Benson arrived in the U.S. from his native Scotland with The Beatles in 1964 — and took the first-ever U.S. photos of the Fab Four. Architectural Digest is proud to honor Mr. Benson’s illustrative career by sponsoring the first-ever Los Angeles exhibit of his photography at the Pacific Design Center. Benson, a regular contributor to the magazine, has captured most of the highlights — and lowlights of this country’s watershed events — He was in the Los Angeles hotel ballroom when Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated, he stood close to Richard Nixon when the president announced his resignation, he was on the Meredith march with Martin Luther King, he captured a Madonna-esque portrait of recently-slain Benazir Bhutto cradling her son in her arms — and he has photographed every U.S. President from Eisenhower to George W. Bush. Not many “Bold Face Named” icons have escaped his lens: Benson has shot portraits of such diverse luminaries as: Princess Di, James Brown, Al Pacino, Michael Jackson, Frank Sinatra and then-wife Mia Farrow, Bette Midler, Greta Garbo, Judy Garland, Mick Jagger, Elizabeth Taylor, Truman Capote, Alfred Hitchcock, Oprah Winfrey and Steven Spielberg, to name just a few.

Chairing Styles
1st Floor, Green Building Hallway
On view March 6th through May 6th
“Chairing Styles” is a fabric, fashion and furniture presentation debuting original designs created by 30 students in Textile, Fashion and Interior Design from The Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising. Ten students from each of these three areas of study are brought together in an inter-disciplinary program to create the exhibition. Drawing one student from each design pursuit and collaborating in teams of three, they are challenged to create and use textiles in an exploration of these multi-design studies. They create the fabric, ten clothing styles and ten companion chairs. Furniture manufacturers are partners to the Interior Design students in developing and manufacturing their chairs, while the fabric designs are graciously printed by Mimaki USA, Inc.

LA Artist's Showcase
Suite B261
On view March 24th through March 28th and by appointment only March 31st through April 18th
The LA Artist’s Showcase features Los Angeles artist’s perspective of LA architecture and icons as well as bold and colorful abstract paintings and mixed media sculptures.
National award winning artist Ted VanCleave’s fine art photography captures the urban landscape of Los Angeles by focusing on the city’s unique style of modern and postmodern industrial architecture. Renowned mixed media artist Michel Keck shares her emotionally charged abstract works which have been described as "stunning and lyrical, sometimes dark yet uplifting simultaneously.” Internationally collected artist Dave Lefner preserves iconic images from Southern California's past by mastering the lost art of Reduction Linocut, a technique made famous by Picasso in the late 50’s. Lastly, Parisian-born sculptor Pascal Giacomini’s mixed-media sculptures, decorative masks and functional art pieces have been showcased in many prestigious art fairs, and are held in numerous private collections.

ASID Green Gallery
On view March 26th through March 28th
ASID/LA’s Third Annual Green Gallery will showcase sustainable design, furniture, methods, and building products available from Pacific Design Center Showrooms. Resource materials will be available from a variety of industry leaders in environmental consciousness. An array of materials, techniques and ideas will also be on display with representatives on hand to answer all of your green inquiries.

AIA 2x8 SKIN
Pacific Design Plaza
On view March 26th - April 24th
2x8 is an annual exhibition sponsored by the AIA/LA, showcasing exemplary student work from architecture and design institutions throughout California. Each of the participating academic programs selects two projects that exemplify its core vision. The students’ design work will be judged by a noteworthy panel of architects and designers, who will then announce the winners at the exhibition opening at WESTWEEK and convene in a forum to discuss the successful work. The AIA/LA Academic Outreach Committee, having established the AIA/LA AOC Scholarship Fund and awarded prizes and scholarships since the inception of the 2x8 in 2002, is working aggressively this year to solidify a long-term endowment towards recognizing and supporting future generations of emerging Architects. This year’s sixth annual 2x8 exhibition is entitled SKIN, and each academic institution will be given the freedom to incorporate, define or manipulate the title phrase at their discretion, creating a remarkable range of ideas and imagery illustrated in the selected projects. In addition to these presentations, student-run forums at the exhibit space will extend a critical discourse on design and its impact in the local and global community.

Jim McHugh: Skies of LA
Suite B208
On view March 26th through April 4th
A series of new works by the celebrated Architectural Digest photographer Jim McHugh captures a vision of a mythical city of our dreams. This new work, which focuses on the landscapes and skies of the city, was photographed using classic Polaroid media for both black & white and color capture. McHugh combines analog and digital technologies to create large format prints of extraordinary quality and beauty. This latest work towers as a decadent and moody filmic retrospection. Over the last year these photographs have been awarded the grand prize at Prix de la Photographie Paris, the IPA/Lucie Awards for fine art photography and first pace in the prestigious PDN's PIX Digital Awards 2007.

Gary Frederick Brown
Color Atmosphere Dimension Monotype/Drawings
Suite B226
On view March 26th through April 4th
Gary Frederick Brown entices the individual to see whatever comes to mind. He creates compelling images employing materials possessing unusual structural and textural qualities. Color and atmosphere permeate his works and are essential participants in his visual expression of the sub-microscopic dimension of physics and also the macro expanse of the cosmos: planets, nebulas and galaxies. He imagines that in a fractal sense we are to our planet as the cells in our body are to us, and similarly the planets in our solar system are to the galaxy, galaxy to universe and so on. He envisions God as awareness in the sub-molecular demesne. Venturing to take it one step further, he conjectures that super strings communicate in the sub-molecular demesne resulting in karmic ripples in our reality pool.

Visit the Jenn-Air "Suite Spot" (AD)
Suite B222
On view March 26th - March 28th
Over WESTWEEK’s two days, stop by the Jenn-Air "Suite Spot" for a look at the "next big thing" in kitchen design. This pop-up showroom will offer visitors expert advice from California's leading kitchen visionaries plus culinary treats. For more information, log on to BeyondAD.com.

Go Inside This Year's Architectural Digest Greenroom at the Oscars® (AD)
On view March 26th - March 28th
Suite B130
Have you ever wondered what it's like backstage at the Oscars in the Architectural Digest Greenroom, where the stars relax before entering the spotlight? Though AD can’t offer a backstage pass, you can experience the next best thing: this year's luxurious Greenroom—created exclusively by the magazine for the past six years and this year starring Kravet furniture and fabrics—will be recreated at a prime spot within the Pacific Design Center especially for WESTWEEK. Check out the sofa enjoyed by today's top movie stars, then visit Kravet to hear from AD 100 designer Carleton Varney about this year’s creation, inspired by vintage Dorothy Draper designs. See schedule for details on Varney's talk.

Stars of Design Exhibit
On view March 26th - April 18th
2nd Floor Green
Pacific Design Center showcases the 2008 Stars of Design honorees, chosen by the industry’s leading critics. Stroll through the grand display of this year’s award recipient creation in eight fields of design, including: architecture, furniture design, graphic design, urban design, interior design, photography, art and lifetime achievement.

SPECIAL EVENTS

MOCA Pacific Design Center

Occupying over 3,000 square feet of exhibition space, MOCA Pacific Design Center features new work by emerging and established artists in architecture, design, photography and contemporary art. Art Catalogues at MOCA features new and out-of-print art exhibition catalogues and is a must-see for contemporary art enthusiasts.

For 24-hour information on current exhibitions, educational programs and special events, call 213-626-6222. Hours of Operation: Tuesday, Wednesday & Friday, 11:00 AM - 5:00 PM / Thursday, 11:00 AM - 8:00 PM / Saturday & Sunday, 11:00 AM - 6:00 PM / Closed Mondays. MOCA is located in Pacific Design Plaza off San Vicente Boulevard.

Inside Architecture:  Selections from the Permanent Collections
MOCA Pacific Design Center
On view March 9th through June 1st
From intimate domestic settings to grand institutional spaces, the interior has always been a source of inspiration for artists. Inside Architecture: Selections from the Permanent Collection brings together works from MOCA’s permanent collection that examine artists’ ongoing fascination with interior spaces and the range of ways they have chosen to depict or represent both the public and private places inside buildings, whether anonymous or well known. The exhibition will include drawings, paintings, and photographs by artists Kirsten Everberg, Candida Höfer, Richard Prince, Thomas Struth, Matthias Weischer and Paul Winstanley. Organized by MOCA Curator of Architecture and Design Brooke Hodge, Inside Architecture: Selections from the Permanent Collection marks the occasion of Hodge’s first presentation of works from the permanent collection.

MOCA Focus: Sterling Ruby, SUPERMAX 2008
On view June 19th through September 19th
MOCA Focus: Sterling Ruby , SUPERMAX 2008 is the eighth installment of MOCA’s series of one-person exhibitions of work by emerging artists in Southern California. Presented at MOCA Pacific Design Center, the exhibition will feature new works in an installation specifically designed for the space and will be accompanied by a fully-illustrated catalogue. Sterling Ruby’s collages, ceramics, videos, and sculptures tackle received notions of aesthetic tropes and social stereotypes that are based on visual signs. Often monumental in scale, Ruby's works immerse the viewer in sets of formal codes and gestures that refer to transience, transgression, and transference—phenomena that are social, psychological, physical, and emotional. Born in Bittburg, Germany in 1972, Ruby received bachelor of fine art degrees from the Pennsylvania School of Art and Design in 1998 and from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2002. After relocating to Los Angeles in 2003, Ruby received a master of fine art degree from Art Center College of Design in 2005. MOCA Focus: Sterling Ruby, SUPERMAX 2008 is organized by MOCA Curator Philipp Kaiser.

AWA- LA GROUP EXHIBIT 2008: An Exhibit of Women’s Work in Architecture, Interior Design and Landscape
1st Floor Blue Lobby
On view June 3rd through the month of July
The Association for Women in Architecture, Los Angeles, will present an exhibit of the work of 34 female designers in the fields of architecture, interior design and landscape. The exhibit features plans, renderings, models and photographs of notable projects, including Linda Taalman’s iT house, Jeanine Centouri’s small lot project with 3 townhouses, and the work of historic preservation architect Brenda Levin, whose renovation and adaptive re-use work has included the Wiltern Theater, the seismic rehabilitation of City Hall, the renovation of Griffith Observatory, and the Frank Lloyd Wright buildings at Barnsdall Park.

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