A platform to harness the energy of gathering. Audrey Irmas Pavilion by OMA / Shohei Shigematsu

02/09/2021. [LA] USA
metalocus, VALERIA OZUNA

The Audrey Irmas Pavilion is the OMA New York’s first commission from a religious institution. It reaches significant construction milestone and is expected to open in January 2022.

Located on Wilshire Boulevard, in the heart of Koreatown/Wilshire Center, the new 55,000 square foot Pavilion is a response to the Wilshire Boulevard Temple’s vision for its campus to create a much-needed space to convene.

Audrey Irmas Pavilion by OMA / Shohei Shigematsu. Photograph by Jason O'Rear.

Audrey Irmas Pavilion by OMA / Shohei Shigematsu. Photograph by Jason O'Rear.

After more than a decade of efforts made to build in Los Angeles, the Audrey Irmas Pavilion marks OMA’s first cultural building in the city.

“The making of the Audrey Irmas Pavilion sustained forward momentum through the COVID-19 Pandemic, a period in which the act of human interaction was questioned and contemplated. Its completion comes at a time where we hope to come together again, and this building can be a platform to reinstate the importance of gathering, exchange, and communal spirit.”

Shohei Shigematsu, OMA Partner-in-Charge.

The Audrey Irmas Pavilion will be a platform for gathering, forging new connections with the existing campus activities while inviting the urban realm in to create a new civic anchor. The Pavilion aims to harness the energy of gathering by simultaneously respecting historic traditions and reflecting modern civic needs.

Rem Koolhaas was also commissioned to design a mezuzah for each door frame within the Pavilion. The purpose of the mezuzah is to act as a constant reminder of God's presence, identifying Jewish homes as places of kindness, The Torah, generosity and peace. For their design, each individual letter atop each mezuzah called a shin, was meticulously developed, hand-cut, filed and polished before being adhered to the mezuzah crafted from aluminum foam and cast in colored resin.

“I was both intrigued and challenged to design the mezuzahs for the doors within the Pavilion. It is an unexpected religious object having to answer explicit religious edicts, laws and rules which made it totally fascinating for me and a very good lesson to have at some point in my life.”

Rem Koolhaas.

Audrey Irmas Pavilion by OMA / Shohei Shigematsu. Photograph by Jason O'Rear

Description of project by OMA

The Audrey Irmas Pavilion is a new addition into the Wilshire Boulevard Temple’s Glazer Family Campus that will serve as a multi-purpose event space for both the congregation and the surrounding city. The pavilion will be a gathering place, forging new connections with the existing campus activities and inviting the urban realm into the new civic anchor.

We have been trying to build in Los Angeles for more than a decade and the Audrey Irmas Pavilion for the Wilshire Boulevard Temple marks our first cultural building in the city. It is also our first religious institution. Religious institutions have always played a critical role in civic life as places for communal activities in and out of worship.

The temple’s vision for its campus was to create a space to host the multiple ways in which people convene. How can the new pavilion harness the energy of gathering that is simultaneously respectful to historic traditions and reflective of modern civic needs?

The pavilion is designed to be a machine for gathering, forging new connections with the existing campus activities and inviting the urban realm in to create a new civic anchor. We wanted the building to be iconic enough to be recognized as a new civic entity but subtle enough to complement the iconicism of the existing temple. Our approach is simple yet contextual. The starting point was a box: the all-too-generic model for an event space. The basic box is shaped with forms out of respect to the adjacent historical buildings on the campus.

On the west side, the building slopes away from the existing temple, creating a thoughtful buffer and framing a new courtyard between the two buildings. The pavilion leans south, away from the historic school, opening an existing courtyard to the sky and bringing light in. The parallelogram simultaneously reaches out toward the main urban corridor, Wilshire Boulevard, to establish a new urban presence. The resulting form is carved by its relationship to its neighbors. It is both enigmatic and familiar, creating a counterpoint to the temple that is at once deferential and forward-looking.

The facade draws from the geometries of the temple’s dome interior. A single hexagon unit with a rectangular window is rotated to reflect the program within and aggregated to create a distinct pattern. The panels enhance the building’s volumetric character while adding a human-scaled texture that breaks down its mass.

Event spaces often sacrifice character for flexibility. Here, flexibility is provided through diversity in scale and spatial characters for gathering. The pavilion consists of three distinct gathering spaces expressed as voids punctured through the building—a main event space (large), a chapel and terrace (medium), and a sunken garden (small). The three spaces are interlocked and stacked one atop another to establish vantage points in and out of each space. Within each space are a series of openings that filter light and frame views to the temple and historic school, reorienting visitors to the complex and beyond.

At the ground level, the main event space echoes the temple dome by lowering the arc and extruding it north across the site to connect Wilshire Boulevard to the school courtyard. In its full length, the vaulted, column-free expanse has the capacity to host diverse programs such as banquets, markets, conventions, performances, and art events. An oculus provides a view through the void above to the dome of the historic temple.

On the second level is a more intimate chapel and outdoor terrace. The trapezoidal room and terrace face west, framing the arched stained glass windows of the historic temple. A third void is a sunken garden that connects smaller meeting rooms on the third floor to the rooftop event space with expansive views of Los Angeles, the Hollywood sign, and the mountains to the north. Together, the voids establish a diverse collection of spaces for multiple purposes—from sermons and studies, to b’nai and b’not mitzvah and concerts, to work and relaxation.

Due to the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic, the opening of the building has been delayed and the crisis has suspended the very act of congregating. Can the pavilion reassure the value of gathering, and even support the changing notion of gathering?

More information

Architects

OMA / Shohei Shigematsu.

Competition team

Partner-in-Collaboration.- Rem Koolhaas, Jason Long. Associate-in-Charge.- Jake Forster. Competition team.- Caroline Corbett, Yusef Ali Dennis, Sang Woo Kim, Nicholas Solakian, Stavros Voskaris, Sandy Yum.

Project team

Partner.- Shohei Shigematsu. Associate-in-Charge.- Jake Forster. Team.- Jesse Catalano, David Chacon, Joanne Chen, Caroline Corbett, Marie Claude Fares, Wesley Le Force, Jade Kwong, Nils Sanderson, Shary Tawil, Natasha Trice, Sandy Yum, Andrea Zalewski.

Collaborators

Executive Architect.- Gruen Associates. Structure, MEP, Facades, FLS.- ARUP. Performance Space Consultants.- Theatre DNA. Landscape.- Studio-MLA. Lighting.- L'Observatoire International. Signage and Graphic Design.- Space Agency. Civil Engineering.- Rhyton Engineering. Vertical Transportation.- Syska Hennessy Group. Kitchen, Food and Beverage.- Clevenger Frable LaVallee, Foster Frable/Laschober+Sovich. Security.- TRC. Client Rep.- Searock Staffold.

Client

Wilshire Boulevard Temple.

Builder

General Contractor.- MATT Construction.

Area

Total Area.- 5,070 m².
Main Event Space.- 13,900 sf / 1,300 m².
Chapel and Terrace.- 10,200 sf / ,600 sf / 610 m².
Sunken Garden.- 1,000 sf / 100 m².
Roof Terrace.- 7,300 sf / 680 m².
Service/Back-of-House.- 15,600 sf / 1,440 m².

Dates

Expected Opening January 2022.

Location

An addition to the Wilshire Boulevard Temple’s Erika J. Glazer Family Campus. Los Ángeles, CA, United States.

Photography

Jason O'Rear.

OMA. Office for Metropolitan Architecture

Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) is a leading international partnership practising architecture, urbanism, and cultural analysis. OMA's buildings and masterplans around the world insist on intelligent forms while inventing new possibilities for content and everyday use. OMA is led by eight partners – Rem Koolhaas, Reinier de Graaf, Ellen van Loon, Shohei Shigematsu, Iyad Alsaka, Chris van Duijn, Jason Long, and Managing Partner-Architect David Gianotten – and maintains offices in Rotterdam, New York, Hong Kong, Doha, and Australia.

OMA-designed buildings currently under construction are the renovation of Kaufhaus des Westens (KaDeWe) in Berlin, The Factory in Manchester, Hangzhou Prism, the CMG Times Center in Shenzhen and the Simone Veil Bridge in Bordeaux.

OMA’s completed projects include Taipei Performing Arts Centre (2022), Norra Tornen in Stockholm (2020), Axel Springer Campus in Berlin (2020), MEETT Toulouse Exhibition and Convention Centre (2020), Galleria in Gwanggyo (2020), nhow RAI Hotel in Amsterdam (2020), a new building for Brighton College (2020), and Potato Head Studios in Bali (2020). Earlier buildings include Fondazione Prada in Milan (2018), Garage Museum of Contemporary Art in Moscow (2015), Fondazione Prada in Milan (2015); G-Star Headquarters in Amsterdam (2014); Shenzhen Stock Exchange (2013); De Rotterdam (2013), CCTV Headquarters in Beijing (2012), New Court, the headquarters for Rothschild Bank in London (2011); Milstein Hall at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York (2011); and Maggie's Centre, a cancer care centre in Glasgow (2011). Earlier buildings include Casa da Música in Porto (2005), Seattle Central Library (2004), and Netherlands Embassy in Berlin (2003).

Shohei Shigematsu

Shohei Shigematsu born in Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan in 1973. In 1996 graduated from the Department of Architecture at Kyushu University. Studying at the Berlage Institute in Amsterdam. He became an associate since 2004.joined OMA in 1998 and became a partner in 2008.

He has led the office in New York since 2006. Sho's designs for cultural venues include the Quebec National Beaux Arts Museum and the Faena Arts Center in Miami Beach, as well as direct collaborations with artists, including Cai Guo Qiang, Marina Abramovic and Kanye West.

Sho is currently designing a number of luxury, high rise towers in San Francisco, New York, and Miami, as well as a mixed-use complex in Santa Monica. His engagement with urban conditions around the world include a new civic center in Bogota, Colombia; a post-Hurricane Sandy, urban water strategy for New Jersey; and a food hub in Louisville, Kentucky.

He is a design critic at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, where he is conducting a research studio entitled Alimentary Design, investigating the intersection of food, architecture and urbanism.

Office for Metropolitan Architecture OMA, New York

Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) is a leading international partnership practicing architecture, urbanism, and cultural analysis. OMA's buildings and masterplans around the world insist on intelligent forms while inventing new possibilities for content and everyday use. OMA is led by ten partners – Rem Koolhaas, Ellen van Loon, Reinier de Graaf, Shohei Shigematsu, Iyad Alsaka, David Gianotten, Chris van Duijn, Ippolito Pestellini Laparelli, Jason Long and Michael Kokora – and maintains offices in Rotterdam, New York, Beijing, Hong Kong, Doha and Dubai.

Responsible for OMA’s operations in America, OMA New York was established in 2001 and has since overseen the successful completion of several buildings across the country including Milstein Hall at Cornell University (2011); the Wyly Theater in Dallas (2009); the Seattle Central Library (2004); the IIT Campus Center in Chicago (2003); and Prada’s Epicenter in New York (2001). The office is currently overseeing the construction of three cultural projects, including the Musée National des Beaux-arts du Québec and the Faena Arts District in Miami Beach – both scheduled for completion in 2016 – as well as a studio expansion for artist Cai Guo Qiang in New York. The New York office has most recently been commissioned to design a number of residential towers in San Francisco, New York, and Miami, as well as two projects in Los Angeles; the Plaza at Santa Monica, a mixed use complex in Los Angeles, and the Wilshire Boulevard Temple.

OMA New York’s ongoing engagements with urban conditions around the world include a new civic center in Bogota, Colombia; a post-Hurricane Sandy, urban water strategy for New Jersey; the 11th Street Bridge Park and RFK Stadium-Armory Campus Masterplan in Washington, DC; and a food hub in West Louisville, Kentucky.

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A platform to harness the energy of gathering. Audrey Irmas Pavilion by OMA / Shohei Shigematsu

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