photo credit: graphicambient.com
photo credit: sussmanprejza.com
Thirty-three years ago, the eyes of the world were on Los Angeles, host of the Olympic Games. The design firm of Sussman/Prejza, working in partnership with architectural firm The Jerde Partnership, created a unique, bold look that helped bring together the city like never before - and never since.
photo credit: www.wallpaper.com
Above: outside the Los Angeles Memorial Collisium. Last week I shared some thoughts of being in the city for the 1984 Olympics (here's a link).
photo credit: www.la84foundation.org
What absolutely impressed almost everyone in Los Angeles - as well as across the country and around the world - were the colors and inovative designs of of the 28 different Olympic venues.
photo credit: graphicambient.com
Actually, looking at these images from the designers' (and other) websites, they still impress.
photo credit: sussmanprejza.com
According to the Sussman/Prejza website: "Sussman/Prejza and The Jerde Partnership were co-design directors in creating the ‘look’ of the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, a massive undertaking that encompassed forty-three art sites, twenty-eight game venues and three villages.
According to the Sussman/Prejza website: "Sussman/Prejza and The Jerde Partnership were co-design directors in creating the ‘look’ of the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, a massive undertaking that encompassed forty-three art sites, twenty-eight game venues and three villages.
photo credit: jerde.com
"The designers worked together to create a “kit-of-parts” visual alphabet that could be adapted with flair to the disparate venues.
photo credit: www.la84foundation.org
"Hot graphic colors, iconic geometries, and ephemeral materials were fused together to transform the city of Los Angeles.
photo credit: sussmanprejza.com
"As a matter of practicality, S/P’s design also included a wayfinding and identification system that directed spectators from the highways to their seats.
photo credit: sussmanprejza.com
"This system included vehicular and pedestrian wayfinding signs, transportation signs, facility identification signs, and graphics."
photo credit: graphicambient.com
From another site, ginormus.blogspot.com: "Festive Federalism, a term coined to reflect the graphics program for the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, is reflected here in the color palette and an image of one of the many dimensional stars located throughout the city.
"This was where we all heard the word Sonotube for the first time!"
photo credit: jerde.com
Here's what Michael Bierut from observatory.designobserver.com had to say: "Trust Los Angeles to finally understand how to stage a modern Olympics: design it to be seen on television.
photo credit: sussmanprejza.com
"So out with the costly white elephants of permanent venues built of steel and concrete: Deborah Sussman and Jon Jerde, working on a tight schedule and a tighter budget, led a team of designers that created one of the most cohesive Olympic design schemes ever.
photo credit: jerde.com
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"This was where we all heard the word Sonotube for the first time!"
photo credit: jerde.com
Here's what Michael Bierut from observatory.designobserver.com had to say: "Trust Los Angeles to finally understand how to stage a modern Olympics: design it to be seen on television.
photo credit: sussmanprejza.com
"So out with the costly white elephants of permanent venues built of steel and concrete: Deborah Sussman and Jon Jerde, working on a tight schedule and a tighter budget, led a team of designers that created one of the most cohesive Olympic design schemes ever.
photo credit: graphicambient.com
"It was all Hollywood stagecraft, including fabric banners, painted cardboard shipping tubes and what was reportedly all the aluminum scaffolding west of the Mississippi.
"It was all Hollywood stagecraft, including fabric banners, painted cardboard shipping tubes and what was reportedly all the aluminum scaffolding west of the Mississippi.
photo credit: sussmanprejza.com
"The dazzling color scheme of the 1984 LA games, which Sussman dubbed "festive Federalism" was purportedly based on the hot pinks and oranges of Southern California and Baja Mexico, but looked to American designers like a hyped-up reiteration of the prevailing West Coast design aesthetic led by Michael Vanderbyl and April Greiman.
photo credit: graphicambient.com
"And why not? It was the ultimate California moment."
photo credit: library.la84.org
photo credit: graphicambient.com
"And why not? It was the ultimate California moment."
photo credit: library.la84.org
"Sussman's brilliant success had a not-so-brilliant aftermath, as dozens of designers, developers, and local Chambers of Commerce burghers realized that they had been delivered a formula for civic identity on the cheap.
This led to a "festive" profusion of garish banners and over-decorated wayfinding systems in every down-on-its-luck shopping mall and town square in America, all of whom hung the crepe and waited for a Hollywood close up that would never come."
photo credit: sussmanprejza.com
Design firm Sussman/Prejza and architectual fim The Jerde Partnership have gone on to create numerous other projects - both in Los Angeles and around the world. A reminder that Los Angeles' cultural impact isn't just limited to television and movies.
| photo credit: sussmanprejza.com |
photo credit: sussmanprejza.com
photo credit: jerde.com
photo credit: graphicambient.com
Here's hoping that Sussman/Prejza and The Jerde Partnership will be called upon again as Los Angeles hosts the Olympic Games for the third time.
photo credit: sussmanprejza.com
When I first got started with this blog 9 years ago, the name I wanted "Experience LA" was already taken. My son, 8 at the time, said "how about Experiencing LA?" That's what we went with. Pulling together photos from different sites, I realized I wasn't the first to use this term.
photo credit: graphicambient.com
A final view of the Olympic Tower outside the Coliseum.
© 2017 www.experiencingla.com - originally posted 7/28/2012
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