Organized in conjunction with Mapping an Art World: Los Angeles in the 1970s-80s, an exhibition of works from MOCA’s permanent collection currently on view, the Mapping Grand Avenue panel will look back at the history of Bunker Hill and its emergence as a cultural center, including architect Arata Isozaki’s design for MOCA’s Grand Avenue venue, and forward to consider emerging models for housing, work, culture, planning, and mobility in and around downtown. It will examine Grand Avenue, and the redevelopment funds that helped create it, as a complex case study in urban development, as opposed to the more organic emergence of gallery and performance hubs elsewhere in downtown.

The panel includes Sharon Johnston and Mark Lee, principals of Johnston Marklee & Associates; Shana Bonstin, Deputy Director of the Los Angeles Department of City Planning; and Michael Maltzan of Michael Maltzan Architecture. The moderator is Christopher Hawthorne, former Chief Design Officer for the City of Los Angeles, former architecture critic for the Los Angeles Times, and now Senior Critic at the Yale School of Architecture.