Pacific Design Center

Pacific Design Center
Pacific Design Center, Center Blue aka The Blue Whale
General information
Town or city	West Hollywood, California
Country	United States
Coordinates
Completed	1975
Client	Charles S. Cohen
Design and construction
Architect	Cesar Pelli

The Pacific Design Center, or PDC, is a 1,200,000 square feet (110,000 m²) multi-use facility for the design community located in West Hollywood, California. One of the buildings is often described as the Blue Whale because of its outsize nature relative to surrounding buildings and its brilliant blue glass cladding.

Site and Brief

The PDC houses the West Coast's top decorating and furniture market, with showrooms, public and private spaces, a branch of the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) and two restaurants operated by chef and restaurateur Wolfgang Puck. The Center has 130 showrooms which display and sell 2,100 interior product lines to professional interior designers, architects, facility managers, decorators and dealers.

The Pacific Design Center hosts many screenings, exhibitions, lectures, meetings, special events and receptions for the design, entertainment and arts communities. The annual Elton John AIDS Foundation Academy Award Party has traditionally been held at the PDC. The party is one of the longest running and best known of the post-Oscar parties as well as being a multi-million dollar fundraiser for the foundation.

Architecture

Designed by Argentinean architect Cesar Pelli, the 14-acre (57,000 m²) campus opened in 1975, with the 750,000-square-foot (70,000 m²) Center Blue. Center Green opened in 1988, adding 450,000 square feet (42,000 m²). A long planned third phase, Center Red, was announced in April 2006, with plans for completion in 2011. Center Red has evolved into a 400,000-square-foot (37,000 m²) structure with two state-of-the-art office towers—six and eight stories high respectively—sitting atop seven levels of enclosed parking for 1,500 cars.

Gallery

• 

  Center Green and the central fountain at the Pacific Design Center

• 

  Pacific Design Center Center Green

• 

  Pacific Design Center Center Blue or "The Blue whale"

• 

  Pacific Design Center - Red Building nearing completion, Feb. 28, 2011

• 

  MOCA at the Pacific Design Center

External links

• official Pacific Design Center website
• MOCA Pacific Design Center website