News

Los Angeles Central Library Expansion & Renovation Receives AIA/LA's Design Awards Presidential Honoree 25-Year Award

Photo: Foaad Farah
July 15, 2018
—Los Angeles, CA—Our expansion and renovation of the Richard J. Riordan Central Library has received the AIA LA's Design Awards Presidential Honoree 25-Year Award, recognizing the enduring significance of an architectural design that is still relevant and serving the Los Angeles community more than 25 years later. In deference to the iconic façade and profile of Bertram Goodhue's original 1926 structure, the design placed the expansion—the Tom Bradley Wing—to the east and four stories into the ground, crowned with a soaring 8-story atrium. Included in the 328,000 sf expansion, which nearly doubled the library's size, was the 235-seat, multipurpose Mark Taper Auditorium. The design, a synergy of restoration and innovation, encompassed the reconstruction of the Library's West Lawn in its scope—transforming a parking lot into the popular Maguire Gardens, with a café and the dramatic refurbishment of the Grotto Fountain, the work of artist Jud Fine and landscape architect Lawrence Halprin. During the course of the project, completed in 1993, the design team helped to galvanize community support and shepherded the Library through recovery from a devastating fire, delivering a comprehensive 540,000-sf renovation and expansion that catalyzed the revitalization of downtown Los Angeles.