Hawthorne: stadium idea shows L.A. needs a plan

Architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne makes a civic splash in the L.A. Times by pointing out that the Downtown NFL stadium Tim Leiweke and Casey Wasserman are pushing is another case of Los Angeles going about it all wrong. The city needs a coherent plan for Downtown and needs to lead rather than react to whatever new concept Leiwekie and Eli Broad fall in like with, Hawthorne argues in nicer words. Excerpt:

The stadium proposals — by Gensler, HNTB Architecture and HKS Architects — were resoundingly mediocre. We were blinded by the bland.

But the stadium story has dimensions that go beyond design, and they're worth examining even while keeping in mind that AEG's NFL dreams may ultimately amount to nothing more than hype. Among the most significant is the path that AEG has taken to smooth the way for the stadium's potential approval by city officials. It is not an approach that inspires much confidence about the way we think about and plan the Los Angeles of the future. It also rings with echoes of failed development plans of L.A.'s past.

Two parts of the deal, in particular, are depressingly familiar. One is that City Hall finds itself in the familiar position of reacting to, rather than guiding with any real foresight, a major development proposal that seeks to rewrite the planning rules downtown.

Another is the sheer overwhelming scale of the $1-billion stadium. Even as city planners have made a point of focusing, at least in theory, on a finer grain of civic improvements, such as urban-design guidelines released in 2009, in practice they continue to allow developers to shape downtown one mega-project at a time.

Of Grand Avenue, where Broad's newest project is preparing to go, Hawthorne says "the drawbacks of that strategy — build a huge flashy project or build nothing at all — are clear."

Previously on LA Observed:
More doubts raised about downtown stadium plan
Hawthorne on stadium proposals: feh
First looks at AEG stadium designs
Questions for L.A. to ask about a downtown stadium
LA Observed on KCRW: A downtown stadium
Wallace: Why I want the NFL to return to LA
Timmermann: Give Los Angeles an NFL team or else
     the LA Times will get very sad