In its first phase, L.A. Live unveiled a large plaza, covering nearly 2 acres, across Chick Hearn Court from Staples Center and at the foot of the Nokia Theater. The plaza was designed by L.A.'s Rios Clementi Hale Studios, the theater by a Berkeley firm, ELS. Phase two buildings have now enclosed this plaza, essentially completing it as an outdoor room.
I have written before about how the plaza, which sits entirely on property owned by the developer, creates an impressive stage-set version of a public square. The problem is not just that the space is primarily aimed at visitors to L.A. Live's concerts and restaurants rather than local apartment- and condo-dwellers; it is that it actively discourages any of the activities we traditionally associate with the use of collective space in a city: talking, reading, sitting under a tree, even pausing with a friend for a cup of coffee.
Anybody who tried to do any of those things in the L.A. Live plaza, which is filled with both yelping video displays and security guards, would look not just out of place but foolish. That is even more the case now that the second phase has added a giant video screen -- 42 feet wide -- overlooking the plaza. Another huge screen hangs from the corner of Figueroa and Chick Hearn Court.
Opening onto the paseo, about halfway between the plaza and Figueroa, is the main pedestrian entrance to the clubs and restaurants upstairs. This partially open-air series of escalators is the second phase's grandest design feature. Waiting on the third floor is the development's new star attraction: Club Nokia, an intimate venue for live performance with a steeply raked collection of seats and room for an audience of 2,300. Designed by the architecture firm Gensler, which is also designing L.A. Live's forthcoming tower, it is noticeably better executed than the building that holds it but shares the larger project's unabashed enthusiasm for velvet-rope urbanism. One more fully stocked hideaway in a city full of them.
