Los Angeles: High School # 9

The latest addition to downtown Los Angeles' Grand Avenue Arts District, High School #9 by Coop Himmelbau (or is it Himmelblau?), is bizarre. This was my second visit to the project, I visited this past summer thinking that they had a long way to go before completion. In fact, the project was nearly done. The official name of the school is The Central Los Angeles High School for the Visual and Performing Arts. It is located only a few blocks from the Disney Concert hall and seems to be a companion piece to the recently completed Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels; the two sit across the 101 Freeway from each other. With construction fence still surrounding the entire site, I was unable to wander around the campus, so can't yet really judge the building...but I will say the place looks scary. Nothing about this building says "school" to me, and it just looks cold. You can read more about the project at World Architecture News. I suppose we'll have to wait until it opens to give it a fair assessment.