Building History

The Los Angeles Times.com architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff assessed the basic themes that the firms Studio Works and the Jerde Partnership encountered in contemporary high school design in 2001: "In January 2000, the Pilibos School, a private school in Hollywood that serves the surrounding Armenian community, hired Mangurian and Ray to design a $2-million library and gymnasium addition. And in January of this year, the Los Angeles Unified School District awarded the team, along with the Jerde Partnership, a commission to design a new $39-million high school on a 14-acre site in Central Los Angeles, in a mostly Latino neighborhood in the shadow the 10 Freeway. Both designs address philosophical issues that the firm has long been grappling with: How can architecture be used to shape a communal identity? What is the boundary between the individual and the collective or, by extension, between an institution and the surrounding community?" (See Nicolai Ouroussoff, Los Angeles Times.com, "Outdoor Classroom," published 08/21/2001, accessed 10/28/2024.)

PCAD id: 25490