Los Angeles Times: Griffith Observatory's restoration is out of sight November 02, 2006 Los Angeles Times architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne, reviews the newly-restored iconic Griffith Observatory. Published in the Los Angeles Times Architecture Review -- November 2, 2006 By Christopher Hawthorne, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer With the Griffith Observatory finally set to reopen Friday after a restoration and expansion project that stretched nearly five years and cost $93 million, it's time for a quick round of Pick Your Astronomical Metaphor. "There is, for starters, the expanding-universe theory of Los Angeles architecture, which holds that when the observatory was finished in 1935, its outward-looking design and hillside perch perfectly suited a city whose growth seemed limitless. Now that there's nowhere left to sprawl, the architects who led the project, Stephen Johnson of Pfeiffer Partners and Brenda Levin, have responded with what might be called an infill renovation, burying 39,000 square feet of space beneath the existing building...." "...At the heart of the collaboration between Johnson and Levin is the notion that that scale is worth protecting as much as the building itself. When you walk through the steel doors and into the entry hall, with the newly bright Hugo Ballin murals above and Foucault pendulum swinging determinedly away below, you are completely enveloped in the old building." Link: Read the full article in the Los Angeles Times: "Griffith Observatory's restoration is out of sight" Education | Arts & Culture | Civic & Social | Urban Revitalization About Levin & Associates | News | Home