Image & illusion : Los Angeles Film Center

Abstract

To think about Los Angeles is like sitting in front of the television and switching the channels while keeping track of an the shows. It is a complex place: it has many divergent styles and images trying to make up a whole. Los Angeles is about images and imagery; its tradition and commitment to the movie industry and other media makes Los Angeles a logical place for a film center: a center for the moving i~age. Presently there is neither a location for the film festival nor a public building to study and to learn about the motion picture. This thesis explores through design the possibilities for the Los Angeles Film Center located in the existing Pan Pacific Auditorium. Because of the expanding use of visual communication from the media, film and video, I am interested in adopting an architectural form which can display and preserve an infinite amount of visual information. Los Angeles establishes a framework for the film center which is layered with meanings and interpretations. The city evokes a multitude of images visualized and understood at many different levels by many different people. Not only are varied images important, but over time their associations vary and adopt new meanings. The Los Angeles Film Center must be adaptable to) variations and perceptions, yet be an element of the city which maintains its presence. This design therefore acknowledges the larger scale of the city. The existing Pan Pacific facade is already established as a "set piece" in the Los Angeles fabric. The inner structure, the new film center is designed to evoke emotion, to set standards into conflict, as well as to be inspiring and challenging for the visitor. In the design, the existing facade of the Pan Pacific is a linear registration for the activities introduced on the site. The larger city scale, the vastness of Los Angeles is introduced on the site by the automobile ramp which sweeps and rises in front of the entrance. The scale is referenced by maintaining the general direction of Los Angeles, but the steel towers positioned on a shifted grid establish a separate order for the Film Center. There are three basic territories which help to define the Film Center: first the display, projection area with the theatres, exhibitions and other public facilities, second, the library, archives and study building set in the park, in front of the facade and finally the third is the administrative, loading, shipping and receiving area closest to the street The parts of the building are set both to operate as a whole as well as independently from each other. A microcosm of Los Angeles itself, the Film Center is a layering of simultaneous events which offer a multitude of images both real and imagined, perceived and interpreted at varied levels.