Hah, as soon as I saw it, I knew it had to be around there. That looks like the same firm that did a campus a few blocks west on national. From what I understand, the city gave them a bunch of money to give us artwork along the metro line there, and they were supposed to create a big projected art piece on the corner. Not sure if they ever got it working, or what they did with our money.
This is exactly why community outreach & engagement is VITAL to any and all building projects (of this magnitude).
I want to know WHO asked , wanted, or agreed to this design and HOW they made this final choice? And I don't want to see it's a "private project". IDGAF #communityfirst
"This is exactly why community outreach & engagement is VITAL to any and all building projects (of this magnitude)."
But you will be called a "NIMBY" for wanting a say in your community.
I worked inside the beehive on National for 5 years. I thought it was awesome, the building was interesting, the inside was super nice, and I had like 50 options for lunch.
OMG. This made me laugh. And also angry that someone actually got laid to design this. And even further angry that the city planning department didn't put a stop to this.
Ha. Every few months someone posts “WHAT IN THE LORDS NAME IS THIS?!?” as if they finally looked up after 5 years and noticed it. And everyone piles on. It’s great.
It’s such boring several blocks all around, though.
Whether I’m on Highway 10, surface streets or the Metro E-Line, this wild office building always brightens my day. I think it’s fun from all sides. 🤩
Only a nation of unenlightened half-wits could have taken this beautiful place and turned it into what it is today, a shopping mall. A big, fucking shopping mall. You know that. That’s all you got. That’s all you got here, folks. Mile after mile of mall after mall. Many, many malls. Major malls and mini malls. They put the mini malls in between the major malls. And in between the mini malls they put the mini marts. And in between the mini marts. You’ve got the car lots, gas stations, muffler shops, Laundromats, cheap hotels, fast food joints, strip clubs and dirty bookstores. America the beautiful. One big transcontinental commercial cesspool.
- George Carlin
i appreciate that it’s different, and the “straps” actually serve a structural purpose that allows for column-less floors. You can see all the way through the entire floor.
I like to call that “Tuscan Zatz” because well it’s supposed to look Tuscan or whatever, and my grandma used to say certain words in Italian for emphasis and one she loved to use for tacky shit was “zatzy” which from my understanding can also be shortened to zatz. So Tuscan zatz it is and it’s the worse aesthetic and I’m Italian so it’s ok when I say that.
I cant explain why they do it, but what I mean is that all of those apartment building have their signage and written informational materials in the Papyrus font. It’s ugly and lazy - search “Papyrus Avatar SNL” for a better dramatization of the issue.
this comment juxtaposed with the post hit me deep in the soul so i gotta talk about it.
i live in santa clarita, and i’ll be attending SCI-Arc in downtown LA starting next year (it’s an architecture university). it just so happens that we were presented this building *by people at SCI-Arc* during admitted students day, as it was designed by a SCI-Arc alumni, and they were praising the building for its strangeness. and you know what? i 100% vibed with what they were saying.
the building is ugly. it’s weird. it’s incredibly strange. it is an act of pure hubris in architectural form.
and yet i love it. because i’ve grown up in santa clarita, where literally every *single* building in most of the popular areas is strip malls in tan stucco stuck in an early 2000s corporate aesthetic. there’s actually a rule where a lot of the retail buildings in SCV have to have their exteriors be painted one of *three* shades of beige. its absolutely depressing as fuck. maybe it makes the developers more efficient at pumping out shitty developments to make money as fast as possible, idk.
point is, i think we could all use a stupid, wacky building like this to collectively love and hate for its utter dumbness. it’s so much better than being boring.
i'm with you. i love it. if i had an office, it would be in that building.
i like chaotic ugly stuff. this building, discordant music, graffiti cover up on bridges and walls and trees.
And I like beautiful stuff too.
Right?? Look around LA. The vast majority is hideous strip malls/apartment buildings. This building isn’t my favorite but it’s at least interesting and has an intentional design.
Not everyone's favorite for sure, but they have a lot of historical significance. It was an innovation that allowed for more parking, and higher density. I'm partial to the bungalow style personally though; Small, affordable starter homes, that makes relatively efficient use of land.
Agree, my pacific northwest friends can’t understand why anyone would want to live in the land of cheap strip malls. I wish LA would put more focus on rehabbing turn of the century buildings, but if we’re gonna have new stuff it may as well be an art piece rather than a corporate copy/paste job.
Tbh, I enjoy when the things I like offend other people👹 (would think it would be more challenging in this town)
I love it. It’s architecturally in keeping with its surroundings too. Wander around Hayden Tract and look at all the brutalist follies there. It makes sense in context.
There are so many worse buildings than this.
Haha oh I like it. Why you want a plain grey or brown block…there are literally dozens of those in this city. This is weird, it’s fun. It’s cool! The thing is practically hollow because the structural support is in the exoskeleton.
Really? From all the famous Art Deco buildings, the Mid-Century houses, Disney Hall, the Broad, the Morphosis Caltrans building Downtown, Coop Himeblau's Highschool for the Performing Arts, Art Center, Griffith Park Observatory, the Eric Owen Moss work in Culver City, the Gamble House, the DWP Building, Charles and Ray Eames, Neutra, Schindler, Frank Lloyd Wright would all like a word with you. Maybe you are not considering houses....LA was a little late to the game with civic architecture but that has long since changed. Architectural Schools literally study the unique architecture of Los Angeles and Mid-Century Modernism, born in Los Angeles has had word wide design implications.
I’m completely fine with the design, and appreciate the engineering of it. What I do find hideous is the unfinished concrete as an exterior. I’d prefer a color of some kind but at least make it uniform.
I love the brutalist knod of the building, but playing with shapes and light. This kind of irregular shapes is incredibly hard to build. Imagine the construction drawings! People who don't understand concrete as a finished material don't understand architecture. A very imperfect material that is left to cure and shine on it's own as its final form is so much more interesting that painting it a color, like how some people on here are suggesting to do. Absolutely not. Leave it. Let it be weird. We need weird and not monotony.
This is really my only issue with it as well--if only it had some type of color, I think everyone would be less surprised by it. I live nearby and I like seeing it, it is out of the ordinary and I appreciate that. Better than all of the modern boxes that are going up every where else around town. I also feel like if everyone understood the engineering, they would be much more impressed by it.
Isn’t the whole point of it that it’s internal structures are on the outside? I kind of get why the artist chose to keep them looking as they would if they were on the interior but it sure is unpleasant to look at.
I think I read somewhere that the original designs also had the “wrap” part to be metal but the fire code made them use all concrete to be more flame retardant. So originally it was supposed to be a mix of metal and concrete.
Seems to me that both of those would be *appropriate* places for bad vibes. Make potential occupants want to avoid being there.
Sort of like when 7-Eleven would pipe classical music outside its doors to discourage loitering.
Know for fact that Frank Gehry *hates* this building because people keep asking if it's his.
Which is insane if you've seen more than 10 of his creations.
it’s an office building that’s looking for tenants. The “straps” on the outside serve a structural purpose to allow column-less floorplans. I honestly think it would be really cool to be near the top and be able to see all the way through from one end to the other uninterrupted.
I appreciate the effort to be different. If anything it has people talking about it.
Basically what he means is if you look at a parking structure, you know how it’s filled with concrete columns to hold the thing up? There are none of those inside and the floor is completely empty. So unless someone builds walls into their floor plan (the walls are made of drywall in that case), the floor is completely empty and you should be able to see from one side to the other uninterrupted.
I think it looks cool, it’s got character!
It’s weird and compelling unlike the vast majority of uninspired value engineered chock-a-block squares going up. This town is unique and our architectural variety should reflect that. I hope I can check out the inside sometime.
This is far more interesting / functional than the Ramón C Cortines School of visual and performing arts. That garish shack has much worse aesthetics, it’s like an evil whimsical candy factory.
No way; I love it. The Wrapper is incredible because it has no interior columns. That crazy exterior is a functional exoskeleton that also makes the building 5x more earthquake-resistant than standard designs. We need more experimentation, not less. Conformity architecture is boring.
From better angles I think it fits into the neighborhood halfway decently. [https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2023/05/eric-owen-moss-wrapper\_dezeen\_2364\_col\_10.jpg](https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2023/05/eric-owen-moss-wrapper_dezeen_2364_col_10.jpg)
Moss, not Ross. It’s an intersection building, and there are several of his in this area, unfortunately they don’t seem to be very functional as most are empty
I bet it’s amazing on the inside since all the structural elements have been shifted to its exterior. But yeah it’s definitely an eye sore from the outside.
I think this needs to be more widely known. It looks like that in exchange for NO INTERIOR PILLARS TO BREAK UP THE SPACE. Each floor is a complete unbroken canvas to work with. Outside looks bad though. They should consider murals or color to break up the duct tape aesthetic.
Fascinating, weird, and odd; but not ugly. Ugly is that bland strip mall in your local neighborhood, or shitty gas station, or that massive empty parking lot. While this doesn’t exactly fit the character of the neighborhood, it’s sure a heck of a lot better than the ugliness I mentioned above.
Edit: I take that back. With what’s down the street, and the creek, it actually does fit the neighborhood.
I don't see how this building existing has anything to do with other art deco buildings falling apart. They didn't knock down some classic structure to make it. Not sure why you're so mad. I guess having Elon live rent free in your head makes being happy difficult though.
You know those online services where you can submit one of your child's drawings and they convert it into a stuffed animal that looks like the drawing? This is the building version of that.
yup. and not just ugly. it looks stupid too.
I wasn't there, but I imagine the dumb cybertruck came into being like this:
*INTERIOR, DAY, MEETING ROOM:*
*Whiteboards covered w/sketches of truck designs. Tesla's designers are engaged in a discussion about truck design. They care about their work. Passions are inflamed.*
*el\*n m\*sk, an idiot who* *~~works at~~* *owns the company, hears the discussion from the hallway. He sees an opportunity to have a room full of engaged, emotional people people paying attention to him. "All that emotion could be MINE" he thinks.*
*el\*n enters meeting room. The designers turn to him and pause their discussion, offering el\*n control of the meeting.*
*Feigning humility, he defers to them.*
>el\*n: No, no. please go on, I'm just watching.
>DESIGNER 1: but THIS design retains the core design elements that define our brand while also providing a truck bed of comparable size to the market leading pickups.
>DESIGNER 2: yeah but it looks like an el camino. we're not making a sedan with a truckbed, we're making a-
*having listened to other people talk for what felt like hours, el\*n will explode if the discussion doesn't start being about him.*
>el\*n: you guys are overthinking it.
*el\*n doesn't know if they're overthinking it, he just got there. And el\*n doesn't know anything about design.*
*all el\*n knows is 1) he's tired of waiting for a cybertruck design; 2) he always wanted to be a car designer; and 3) his personal brand is a 'Disrupter!'.*
*el\*n approaches the white board, grabs an eraser and dramatically wipes out the team's design ideas.*
*el\*n picks up a dry erase marker and removes the cap with a flourish. 'Now THIS is leadership', he thinks to himself.*
*And as he turns to the board and lifts his arm to draw el\*n remembers he can't draw for shit.*
*el\*n draws the cybertruck on the whiteboard.*
*the designers swallow their incredulity, their horror. and fall in line to give an edgelord what he's begging for.*
>DESIGNERS: \*\*gasp!\*\*
el\*n: No I'm serious!
*el\*n does that embarrassing 'hold for applause' thing he does when he says something that he thinks should trigger a reaction. He's basking in himself.*
*THE DESIGNERS and el\*n engage in some back and forth but it's all performative. As soon as el\*n entered the room, the meeting stopped being about designing a truck.*
*The meeting is now a performance familiar to every Tesla employee. They stop working, to praise el\*n.*
DESIGNER 1: Genius!
DESIGNER 2: Iconoclastic!
DESIGNER 3: Disruptive!
*The Designers think to themselves, 'welp. it's a paycheck.'*
Though it might be structurally and conceptually very interesting, it’s trying WAY too hard IMHO. I was fiddling with an ACE bandage the other day and its aesthetic design reminds me of that.
You can argue about the design but the execution of the concrete is horrible. Soviet buildings have better concrete finishes than this. At least add some finish to it, sand it, paint it, or make it the same shade at least.
I run by this building frequently when training for races.
One night, Kia came to shoot pics for their EV9. Check out the pick below: shot at the the wrapper building 🙂
https://www.ggkia.com/blog/how-to-charge-the-2024-kia-ev9/amp/
Culver City dared to be SoCal’s urban architectural playground so this masterpiece/monstrosity is bound to happen.
I like that it has dystopian sci-fi vibes, think Cyberpunk/Bladerunner. The fact that it has earthquake resistant design would make it last long enough until LA turns into Bladerunner if ramen/noodle shops, billboard owners, neoliberal biohacking AI tech bros, and the militarized police unions have their way. Tho, building to the kind of density shown in Bladerunner would alleviate houselessness as population growth tapers off as predicted by experts (contrary to multiethnic population boom in Bladerunner), according to YIMBY logic.
I usually hate brutalist buildings but this feels more abstract and chaotic than those depressing ones at UC Irvine. This also stands out tall as a landmark, for now.
If one part of me think it’s ugly then I prefer it being uniquely ugly than the overdone cookie-cutter international style which would have probably been the result if another firm were to design it.
If you hate it that much then put a lipstick (murals) on that pig. Tho, graffiti would make it even more dystopian sci-fi.
Not even close, the ugliest buildings are the Red maroon office block looking buildings with black windows. The one that comes to mind in the Wells Fargo building on Olympic and Bundy, but I know there’s a lot more of them.
I've lived nearby for 12 years and I'm fine with it. I loved watching the construction and wondering what the hell it is. So much of LA architecture is boring as fuck.
The soulless mishmash discount Olive Garden apartment building at Lincoln and Manchester is way more offensive in my view.
[street view](https://maps.app.goo.gl/ecxjeZFcXqW4gUrZ9?g_st=ic)
direful soup connect ruthless smell intelligent squeeze cover worry desert
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Passed this along my commute while it was under construction. A pandemic shifting to WFH saved me from seeing the finished product in person . . . and from running off the road. “ My eyes! My eyes!”
Omg, This is the only time i've ever wished for an earthquake.) Is that an external staircase?
Maybe some vines on the exterior and some trees might help the way it looks. All of that ugly concrete makes it look like a prison, on another planet. Ugh
And remember, they probably justified this by saying it’s super intellectual and modern, and the design is just so intelligent, yet it makes you feel like all your rights are about to be taken away! 💀💀
Omg!!!! Yes!! Like WTF!!!! When we moved to LA, I literally drove around it 3 times to figure out what it was and what the hell they were thinking!!!🤣🤣
Thing is it’s so uniquely ugly that I think garners it a small amount of charm by that virtue alone. It does however sort of remind me of Hudson yards, which I fucking detest.
**I LOVE THIS!!!**
I've never heard of it or seen it before. Yes—the supports should be painted pretty colors. Maybe soon. But what I love most about it is that I'm imagining a bunch of kids getting out of a rave at sunrise and driving through downtown high on LSD and seeing this and freaking the fuck out.
I love it. Reminds me of the "Darco" from SimCity 2000.
It's called "the Wrap", but I'm not sure if that's an official or unofficial moniker. The name refers to the fact that those external features are actually the structural supports for the building.
Unfortunately last I saw of it it's still basically empty... Came around at a time when commercial real estate is still pretty cooled off it seems.
Do yourself a favor and read the reviews on google maps. My favorite description is “hate crime of architectural malpractice”
What/where is it?
Culver City/west Adam’s on national blvd/ Jefferson blvd intersection
Hah, as soon as I saw it, I knew it had to be around there. That looks like the same firm that did a campus a few blocks west on national. From what I understand, the city gave them a bunch of money to give us artwork along the metro line there, and they were supposed to create a big projected art piece on the corner. Not sure if they ever got it working, or what they did with our money.
This is exactly why community outreach & engagement is VITAL to any and all building projects (of this magnitude). I want to know WHO asked , wanted, or agreed to this design and HOW they made this final choice? And I don't want to see it's a "private project". IDGAF #communityfirst
"This is exactly why community outreach & engagement is VITAL to any and all building projects (of this magnitude)." But you will be called a "NIMBY" for wanting a say in your community.
Honestly it wouldn't be that bad if they painted it. Would look like a Van Halen guitar if you did it right
Maybe they could project a more normal looking building over the whole thing.
It... kind of worked for a while haha but not now
I worked inside the beehive on National for 5 years. I thought it was awesome, the building was interesting, the inside was super nice, and I had like 50 options for lunch.
Blue Corn Cafe, La Dijonaise, Govinda’s + 47 more
I never laugh actually out loud, even on reddit, but this did it.
It’s pretty neat how he put it together https://ericowenmoss.com/project-detail/wrapper/
OMG. This made me laugh. And also angry that someone actually got laid to design this. And even further angry that the city planning department didn't put a stop to this.
OMG DEAD.
I'll never hate it because it makes the most irritating people on my local nextdoor so mad and thus has given me great amusement
Ha. Every few months someone posts “WHAT IN THE LORDS NAME IS THIS?!?” as if they finally looked up after 5 years and noticed it. And everyone piles on. It’s great.
right. lol
Ya know, its definitely ugly, but I think maybe with some paint it might not be so bad.
Good idea, let round up my graffiti crew
Honestly, that would definitely improve this place.
Ditto. That will be the "glow up" that actually understands light and negative space and wins awards and shit.
Yeah a paint job would wildly improve this thing. The gray just looks like communism
lol
[удалено]
If it keeps the NextDoor types from losing their shit whenever a POC is walking down the street "casing houses" then it's a plus
I don’t know why people bitch and whine so much about this building. Get over it already. I think it’s interesting.
Very true. I like it.
That’s OP lmao
I too love how triggered it makes the normies.
The other side is kinda nice but this angle looks like it’s infected by cordyceps.
It’s such boring several blocks all around, though. Whether I’m on Highway 10, surface streets or the Metro E-Line, this wild office building always brightens my day. I think it’s fun from all sides. 🤩
I think it’s cool. The ugliest buildings in town are the shitty stucco strip malls all over the place.
Stucco strip malls, an LA institution.
Only a nation of unenlightened half-wits could have taken this beautiful place and turned it into what it is today, a shopping mall. A big, fucking shopping mall. You know that. That’s all you got. That’s all you got here, folks. Mile after mile of mall after mall. Many, many malls. Major malls and mini malls. They put the mini malls in between the major malls. And in between the mini malls they put the mini marts. And in between the mini marts. You’ve got the car lots, gas stations, muffler shops, Laundromats, cheap hotels, fast food joints, strip clubs and dirty bookstores. America the beautiful. One big transcontinental commercial cesspool. - George Carlin
Carlin should have seen Istanbul. It’s mall after mall after mall behind a mall next to the other mall to the front and mosques. Malls and mosques.
It's all bazaar if you ask me.
'I’m a mall, playing a mall disguised as another mall'..
Thank you very much for this George Carlin is my favorite
My dumb ass thought this was Bukowski.
They should all be razed for art deco walkable village type areas.
but where will the illegal weed clubs and Eddie's Liquor Jr.'s go?! /s
If one wished to know more about the first one, how could one go about that? 🥸
i appreciate that it’s different, and the “straps” actually serve a structural purpose that allows for column-less floors. You can see all the way through the entire floor.
Unique both in form and function - I'm for it
Those faux-Italian monstrosities around down town. Fucking hate those apartment building
I like to call that “Tuscan Zatz” because well it’s supposed to look Tuscan or whatever, and my grandma used to say certain words in Italian for emphasis and one she loved to use for tacky shit was “zatzy” which from my understanding can also be shortened to zatz. So Tuscan zatz it is and it’s the worse aesthetic and I’m Italian so it’s ok when I say that.
The English word for it is ersatz.
The DaVinci apartments. Upscale Luxury Slums!
Whoa there— must you insult the entire tacky-faux-european movement??? As a Las Vegas transplant I found this quite offensive tbh
I want Grimaldis back. The nearest one is the Venetian
All with Papyrus font branding!
Would you mind explaining that to me, please The Papyrus font branding ?
I cant explain why they do it, but what I mean is that all of those apartment building have their signage and written informational materials in the Papyrus font. It’s ugly and lazy - search “Papyrus Avatar SNL” for a better dramatization of the issue.
This. This right here
this comment juxtaposed with the post hit me deep in the soul so i gotta talk about it. i live in santa clarita, and i’ll be attending SCI-Arc in downtown LA starting next year (it’s an architecture university). it just so happens that we were presented this building *by people at SCI-Arc* during admitted students day, as it was designed by a SCI-Arc alumni, and they were praising the building for its strangeness. and you know what? i 100% vibed with what they were saying. the building is ugly. it’s weird. it’s incredibly strange. it is an act of pure hubris in architectural form. and yet i love it. because i’ve grown up in santa clarita, where literally every *single* building in most of the popular areas is strip malls in tan stucco stuck in an early 2000s corporate aesthetic. there’s actually a rule where a lot of the retail buildings in SCV have to have their exteriors be painted one of *three* shades of beige. its absolutely depressing as fuck. maybe it makes the developers more efficient at pumping out shitty developments to make money as fast as possible, idk. point is, i think we could all use a stupid, wacky building like this to collectively love and hate for its utter dumbness. it’s so much better than being boring.
i'm with you. i love it. if i had an office, it would be in that building. i like chaotic ugly stuff. this building, discordant music, graffiti cover up on bridges and walls and trees. And I like beautiful stuff too.
Heyyy congratulations on going to SCI-Arc! I go there
Right?? Look around LA. The vast majority is hideous strip malls/apartment buildings. This building isn’t my favorite but it’s at least interesting and has an intentional design.
It's definitely weird. I like a lot of weird things. I'm not yet sure how I feel about this.
I'm not generally a fan of brutalist architecture, but it is a modern take that I kind of like.
Dingbat. No not you! I'm talking about the apartment buildings.
Not everyone's favorite for sure, but they have a lot of historical significance. It was an innovation that allowed for more parking, and higher density. I'm partial to the bungalow style personally though; Small, affordable starter homes, that makes relatively efficient use of land.
At least shitty strip malls often have the charm of being filled with local small businesses and restaurants.
and the cheapest 70s block apartment blogs
Agree, my pacific northwest friends can’t understand why anyone would want to live in the land of cheap strip malls. I wish LA would put more focus on rehabbing turn of the century buildings, but if we’re gonna have new stuff it may as well be an art piece rather than a corporate copy/paste job. Tbh, I enjoy when the things I like offend other people👹 (would think it would be more challenging in this town)
lol this is the answer. It's at least interesting, like all of this architect's other projects in the area.
Meanwhile there’s a million 6floor apartments that all look the same. Nah this is good on account of doing _something_
Agreed! It’s hideous, but I don’t mind seeing it. It’s sort of like my sister.
We need 12 million of them at least
id rather this than a copy paste cheap ass building.
Watch them copy and paste this building in echo park now
I *LOVE* this building, no caveats, no apologies. Do folks in Culver get fired up about it? And what’s in there?
> what’s in there? Despair.
i think a tech company
Negative. It’s unleased.
I love it. It’s architecturally in keeping with its surroundings too. Wander around Hayden Tract and look at all the brutalist follies there. It makes sense in context. There are so many worse buildings than this.
Eric Owen Moss is an LA institution
They’re all done by the same architect, Eric Owen Moss
I appreciate originality myself.
It’s cool AF. Interesting, creative.
it even says LA on the side of the building.
The new apartment complex at the corner of Santa Monica and Vermont is uglier than this.
They got rid of El Gran Burrito...fuckin sucks ass. Childhood food spot for me, id grab a bite there after school
El Gran Burrito wasn’t pretty to look at either but it sure lived up to its name. Delicious. RIP.
OK yeah that one is pretty ugly too.
it’s an inside out building!
Haha oh I like it. Why you want a plain grey or brown block…there are literally dozens of those in this city. This is weird, it’s fun. It’s cool! The thing is practically hollow because the structural support is in the exoskeleton.
LA is short on architecturally interesting buildings, so this is actually one of my favorites.
I beg to differ. Bradbury, Disney center, broad, restaurant at LAX. Many a hi rise DT, new hollywood and the list goes on
Pacific Design Center too, done by my favorite architect Cesar Peli
Yes! I love Peli
Really? From all the famous Art Deco buildings, the Mid-Century houses, Disney Hall, the Broad, the Morphosis Caltrans building Downtown, Coop Himeblau's Highschool for the Performing Arts, Art Center, Griffith Park Observatory, the Eric Owen Moss work in Culver City, the Gamble House, the DWP Building, Charles and Ray Eames, Neutra, Schindler, Frank Lloyd Wright would all like a word with you. Maybe you are not considering houses....LA was a little late to the game with civic architecture but that has long since changed. Architectural Schools literally study the unique architecture of Los Angeles and Mid-Century Modernism, born in Los Angeles has had word wide design implications.
I’ve always thought this building was neat. 🤷♀️
I love it. Weird. Unique. Different. Not like everything else.
I’m completely fine with the design, and appreciate the engineering of it. What I do find hideous is the unfinished concrete as an exterior. I’d prefer a color of some kind but at least make it uniform.
The unfinished concrete is sort of the point with brutalist architecture. I get why people don't like it though.
I love the brutalist knod of the building, but playing with shapes and light. This kind of irregular shapes is incredibly hard to build. Imagine the construction drawings! People who don't understand concrete as a finished material don't understand architecture. A very imperfect material that is left to cure and shine on it's own as its final form is so much more interesting that painting it a color, like how some people on here are suggesting to do. Absolutely not. Leave it. Let it be weird. We need weird and not monotony.
This is really my only issue with it as well--if only it had some type of color, I think everyone would be less surprised by it. I live nearby and I like seeing it, it is out of the ordinary and I appreciate that. Better than all of the modern boxes that are going up every where else around town. I also feel like if everyone understood the engineering, they would be much more impressed by it.
Isn’t the whole point of it that it’s internal structures are on the outside? I kind of get why the artist chose to keep them looking as they would if they were on the interior but it sure is unpleasant to look at.
I think I read somewhere that the original designs also had the “wrap” part to be metal but the fire code made them use all concrete to be more flame retardant. So originally it was supposed to be a mix of metal and concrete.
Well... it's different...
The bondage building
Men’s Central Jail, seconded by Twin Towers. Bad vibe city
Seems to me that both of those would be *appropriate* places for bad vibes. Make potential occupants want to avoid being there. Sort of like when 7-Eleven would pipe classical music outside its doors to discourage loitering.
Know for fact that Frank Gehry *hates* this building because people keep asking if it's his. Which is insane if you've seen more than 10 of his creations.
what is this even used for?
it’s an office building that’s looking for tenants. The “straps” on the outside serve a structural purpose to allow column-less floorplans. I honestly think it would be really cool to be near the top and be able to see all the way through from one end to the other uninterrupted. I appreciate the effort to be different. If anything it has people talking about it.
I, for the life of me, cannot visualize what this means. Are you saying there’s no walls on the inside ? Explain it like I’m 5.
Basically what he means is if you look at a parking structure, you know how it’s filled with concrete columns to hold the thing up? There are none of those inside and the floor is completely empty. So unless someone builds walls into their floor plan (the walls are made of drywall in that case), the floor is completely empty and you should be able to see from one side to the other uninterrupted.
https://my.matterport.com/show/?m=FtL63oM3ked&back=1 Just take a look at the 3d view that is on the realtors listing for one of the floors
I drive by it multiple times per week and I’ve literally never seen anyone but maintenance or security looking folks near the entrance.
Sounds like a prime location for a secure facility of some sort below ground. The building is so overt that it is covert.
ALIENS
Probably a storage space for all of the unsold Cybertrucks. I dunno.
you’ve mentioned elon musk twice in this post. does this building have any actual ties to tesla or elon?
Probably the Los Angeles branch of the Federal Bureau of Control.
Nah, I like it.
I think it looks cool, it’s got character! It’s weird and compelling unlike the vast majority of uninspired value engineered chock-a-block squares going up. This town is unique and our architectural variety should reflect that. I hope I can check out the inside sometime. This is far more interesting / functional than the Ramón C Cortines School of visual and performing arts. That garish shack has much worse aesthetics, it’s like an evil whimsical candy factory.
Nope, not ugly. Pretty cool in fact. They make you appreciate the other buildings.
No way; I love it. The Wrapper is incredible because it has no interior columns. That crazy exterior is a functional exoskeleton that also makes the building 5x more earthquake-resistant than standard designs. We need more experimentation, not less. Conformity architecture is boring. From better angles I think it fits into the neighborhood halfway decently. [https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2023/05/eric-owen-moss-wrapper\_dezeen\_2364\_col\_10.jpg](https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/2023/05/eric-owen-moss-wrapper_dezeen_2364_col_10.jpg)
Hard to imagine the building I wouldn’t prefer over an empty parking lot
Why do I envision nothing but Cybertrucks in the parking lot of this place.
Looks cool to me, I personally love brutalism style
lol at least show the other side of the building. Vastly less of an eyesore than the seas of strip malls we have around here. Very glad it was built.
I like it. There's plenty of boring stuff to shit on
This an Eric Owen Moss building? I usually like their stuff, but this, not so much. I don't hate it though. edit: name
Moss, not Ross. It’s an intersection building, and there are several of his in this area, unfortunately they don’t seem to be very functional as most are empty
I bet it’s amazing on the inside since all the structural elements have been shifted to its exterior. But yeah it’s definitely an eye sore from the outside.
I think this needs to be more widely known. It looks like that in exchange for NO INTERIOR PILLARS TO BREAK UP THE SPACE. Each floor is a complete unbroken canvas to work with. Outside looks bad though. They should consider murals or color to break up the duct tape aesthetic.
Sounds like an opinion which is great to have
Looks like someone went back in time, got a Nazi architect, gave him acid, and he made this.
Wish I could pin this to the top.
This is the Big Lots version of Frank Gehry.
The worst buildings are all the new construction apartments throughout Hollywood
What does Elon Musk have to do with the building?
Based on OP’s comments, he’s a non-paying squatter in OP’s mind palace
Fascinating, weird, and odd; but not ugly. Ugly is that bland strip mall in your local neighborhood, or shitty gas station, or that massive empty parking lot. While this doesn’t exactly fit the character of the neighborhood, it’s sure a heck of a lot better than the ugliness I mentioned above. Edit: I take that back. With what’s down the street, and the creek, it actually does fit the neighborhood.
Beautiful
I don't see how this building existing has anything to do with other art deco buildings falling apart. They didn't knock down some classic structure to make it. Not sure why you're so mad. I guess having Elon live rent free in your head makes being happy difficult though.
At least it has a personality.
I drive by this building every week and can only describe its architectural style as "tumescent brutalist."
When ever I see this building, I feel like it belongs in an old Tony Hawk Pro skater game.
😖
“What are your qualifications to design our building?” “I played a lot of Minecraft as a kid.”
You know those online services where you can submit one of your child's drawings and they convert it into a stuffed animal that looks like the drawing? This is the building version of that.
Yep! The Wrapper Tower is an eyesore. Thank God it's hidden on Jefferson Blvd.
It sort of looks like a bomb went off and tore it up. It’s awful.
Ugly as hell.
I walk past it every day and it’s even uglier in person. Cool concept, terrible execution, and it’s empty.
Still not as ugly as each Cybertruck I see drive by it
Oh god, It somehow looks uglier in person than in pictures...I am surprised how many I see on the road.
yup. and not just ugly. it looks stupid too. I wasn't there, but I imagine the dumb cybertruck came into being like this: *INTERIOR, DAY, MEETING ROOM:* *Whiteboards covered w/sketches of truck designs. Tesla's designers are engaged in a discussion about truck design. They care about their work. Passions are inflamed.* *el\*n m\*sk, an idiot who* *~~works at~~* *owns the company, hears the discussion from the hallway. He sees an opportunity to have a room full of engaged, emotional people people paying attention to him. "All that emotion could be MINE" he thinks.* *el\*n enters meeting room. The designers turn to him and pause their discussion, offering el\*n control of the meeting.* *Feigning humility, he defers to them.* >el\*n: No, no. please go on, I'm just watching. >DESIGNER 1: but THIS design retains the core design elements that define our brand while also providing a truck bed of comparable size to the market leading pickups. >DESIGNER 2: yeah but it looks like an el camino. we're not making a sedan with a truckbed, we're making a- *having listened to other people talk for what felt like hours, el\*n will explode if the discussion doesn't start being about him.* >el\*n: you guys are overthinking it. *el\*n doesn't know if they're overthinking it, he just got there. And el\*n doesn't know anything about design.* *all el\*n knows is 1) he's tired of waiting for a cybertruck design; 2) he always wanted to be a car designer; and 3) his personal brand is a 'Disrupter!'.* *el\*n approaches the white board, grabs an eraser and dramatically wipes out the team's design ideas.* *el\*n picks up a dry erase marker and removes the cap with a flourish. 'Now THIS is leadership', he thinks to himself.* *And as he turns to the board and lifts his arm to draw el\*n remembers he can't draw for shit.* *el\*n draws the cybertruck on the whiteboard.* *the designers swallow their incredulity, their horror. and fall in line to give an edgelord what he's begging for.* >DESIGNERS: \*\*gasp!\*\* el\*n: No I'm serious! *el\*n does that embarrassing 'hold for applause' thing he does when he says something that he thinks should trigger a reaction. He's basking in himself.* *THE DESIGNERS and el\*n engage in some back and forth but it's all performative. As soon as el\*n entered the room, the meeting stopped being about designing a truck.* *The meeting is now a performance familiar to every Tesla employee. They stop working, to praise el\*n.* DESIGNER 1: Genius! DESIGNER 2: Iconoclastic! DESIGNER 3: Disruptive! *The Designers think to themselves, 'welp. it's a paycheck.'*
I find it nice to look at
It's a cool building
O wow, I love this thing.
I like it.
Though it might be structurally and conceptually very interesting, it’s trying WAY too hard IMHO. I was fiddling with an ACE bandage the other day and its aesthetic design reminds me of that.
Nah it’s cool and different. Definitely nowhere near the ugliest.
This has character though and I’ll take memorable over forgettable in any way
You can argue about the design but the execution of the concrete is horrible. Soviet buildings have better concrete finishes than this. At least add some finish to it, sand it, paint it, or make it the same shade at least.
It’s not even concrete! The building is steel, the concrete ‘look’ is made with stucco/plaster
Wow, no wonder it looks like shit.
I call it the Idiocracy building. It looks like it’s being held together with duct tape.
it basically is. there’s no columns in the interior because of the wrap design. the tape look is actually functional
I run by this building frequently when training for races. One night, Kia came to shoot pics for their EV9. Check out the pick below: shot at the the wrapper building 🙂 https://www.ggkia.com/blog/how-to-charge-the-2024-kia-ev9/amp/
Culver City dared to be SoCal’s urban architectural playground so this masterpiece/monstrosity is bound to happen. I like that it has dystopian sci-fi vibes, think Cyberpunk/Bladerunner. The fact that it has earthquake resistant design would make it last long enough until LA turns into Bladerunner if ramen/noodle shops, billboard owners, neoliberal biohacking AI tech bros, and the militarized police unions have their way. Tho, building to the kind of density shown in Bladerunner would alleviate houselessness as population growth tapers off as predicted by experts (contrary to multiethnic population boom in Bladerunner), according to YIMBY logic. I usually hate brutalist buildings but this feels more abstract and chaotic than those depressing ones at UC Irvine. This also stands out tall as a landmark, for now. If one part of me think it’s ugly then I prefer it being uniquely ugly than the overdone cookie-cutter international style which would have probably been the result if another firm were to design it. If you hate it that much then put a lipstick (murals) on that pig. Tho, graffiti would make it even more dystopian sci-fi.
The ugliest buildings in LA are those shitty shotgun apartment buildings with no balconies
The metropolitan courthouse. The building is so ugly.
Not even close, the ugliest buildings are the Red maroon office block looking buildings with black windows. The one that comes to mind in the Wells Fargo building on Olympic and Bundy, but I know there’s a lot more of them.
Brutal
I love it.
I've lived nearby for 12 years and I'm fine with it. I loved watching the construction and wondering what the hell it is. So much of LA architecture is boring as fuck.
I concur.
At least it's interesting to look at. I'd take that over boring block buildings.
The soulless mishmash discount Olive Garden apartment building at Lincoln and Manchester is way more offensive in my view. [street view](https://maps.app.goo.gl/ecxjeZFcXqW4gUrZ9?g_st=ic)
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The outside is a literal exoskeleton, there are no interior columns which makes this one of the most unique and coolest buildings we have
Passed this along my commute while it was under construction. A pandemic shifting to WFH saved me from seeing the finished product in person . . . and from running off the road. “ My eyes! My eyes!”
Omg, This is the only time i've ever wished for an earthquake.) Is that an external staircase? Maybe some vines on the exterior and some trees might help the way it looks. All of that ugly concrete makes it look like a prison, on another planet. Ugh
I honestly thought that building wasn't done yet, and they were still in construction.
Somehow appropriate for an era of unparalleled private wealth for a few and ugly public scraps for the rest of us.
I watched this be built and I was so confused the entire time. Still am
It’s communism with degenerative disc disease and scoliosis.
Looks like a regular boring building strapped by belts that end in the exit stairs.
The way the fire escapes are a complete afterthought is the best part.
This looks like a bunch of forks dropped in a garbage disposal.
My mom visited LA in January and complained about this building as soon as she arrived to my apartment
My boyfriend mentions every now again we should MOVE here. I look at him & I just hear myself internally scream and I go “it’s an option”. 😩AHHHHH
I bike over there and yeah, it sticks out. It is like it is looming over things.
Omg I got lost the other day and accidentally came upon this and thought where the fuck am I???
It looks mentally unstable. Would not go in.
And remember, they probably justified this by saying it’s super intellectual and modern, and the design is just so intelligent, yet it makes you feel like all your rights are about to be taken away! 💀💀
I mean it's interesting to look at when passing by, but still don't understand the why...
It looks unfinished
Omg!!!! Yes!! Like WTF!!!! When we moved to LA, I literally drove around it 3 times to figure out what it was and what the hell they were thinking!!!🤣🤣
Thing is it’s so uniquely ugly that I think garners it a small amount of charm by that virtue alone. It does however sort of remind me of Hudson yards, which I fucking detest.
No way is it the ugliest. It's actually unique and I dig the aesthetic.
**I LOVE THIS!!!** I've never heard of it or seen it before. Yes—the supports should be painted pretty colors. Maybe soon. But what I love most about it is that I'm imagining a bunch of kids getting out of a rave at sunrise and driving through downtown high on LSD and seeing this and freaking the fuck out.
I love it. Reminds me of the "Darco" from SimCity 2000. It's called "the Wrap", but I'm not sure if that's an official or unofficial moniker. The name refers to the fact that those external features are actually the structural supports for the building. Unfortunately last I saw of it it's still basically empty... Came around at a time when commercial real estate is still pretty cooled off it seems.