Design

 
It’s a night for the marriage of architecture and opera. The Walt Disney Concert Hall will present tonight its first of four performances of  The Marriage of Figaro with sets designed by French architect Jean Nouvel, whose sketch is shown, left, and costumes by Azzedine Alaïa)
Meanwhile in Santa Monica, The Broad Stage and LA Opera have joined forces to co-produce the world premiere of Dulce Rosa, a modern opera by composer …

In an age of complex digital design LA artists and architects are turning to specialty fabricators to build their concepts. Smilee Barnacle talks about “making” in LA’s new age of manufacturing. And Bobbye Tigerman looks back at a past community of makers and designers, profiled in her Handbook of California Design. Plus, DJ Waldie talks about how Angeleno-style mobility was off limits to him …

If you want to know what’s going on in interior design and decorating, ask Mallery Roberts Morgan. Here she gives her recommendations for La Cienega Design Quarter’s Legends, starting tonight.
Legends is a three-day event with a jam-packed schedule of panel discussions, book-signings, showroom events, exhibitions, cocktails and lots of parties. Most of the event schedule is open only to design industry professionals – either by invitation …

As many designers get ready to head to ICFF at the vast Javits Convention Center next week, others are getting their design fix with friends in the patios of showrooms in the La Cienega Design Quarter (the design district on and around La Cienega, between Beverly and Santa Monica Boulevard), which will play host to LEGENDS, a two-event blast of store displays and discussions starting this Wednesday, May 8. This …

Sean Dougall is an LA-based designer who cut his teeth working on the production design of some of the biggest awards and political events of the last decade (the 2008 Democratic National Convention, for example). Andrew Paulson is his partner in life and work who staked his name out here as a literary agent for a New York agency. Now they have formed a …

I went to a preview event this past weekend for Britweek, and who should be there but the creator, Julian Fellowes, the executive producer, Gareth Neame, and a star, Michelle Dockery (Lady Mary) of everyone’s favorite classy soap opera about class, Downton Abbey.
Amidst the chatter and clatter of lunch, I  managed to get a few minutes with Gareth Neame, and asked him about the characters …

Bloop, shown left, where 2-4 people chase colored squares that get smaller and smaller, while tripping over each other’s fingers, is just one of the small, smart, fun and sometimes beautiful, games that are being produced by independent game designers for solo or group play, increasingly for use on smartphones and tablets.
The game is one of 36 finalists out of 80 or so interactive games — mostly …

We’re almost done! Just three months ago we launched a competition on DnA to find a designer of a sound booth for the independent radio project, Sonic Trace. In June we announced the winner. Now, after weeks of sleepless nights and head-scratching days — trying to figure out how to build the curvacious structure and clad it in a scratch-proof silvery surface, all for an …

The coup de grâce of London 2012 Olympics’ opening celebrations was the ceremonial lighting of the cauldron, signaling the start of the competition. That spectacle — a piece of pure theater in which 204 copper petals were carried in individually, each by a competing nation, then laid together, and lit by a young athletes who took the torch from soccer player David Beckham. Then the …

Several weeks ago I went to Frank Gehry’s office and he showed me a sketch model of his set for Don Giovanni, a seeming cluster of scrunched-up paper balls. He said, jokingly, something along the lines of, “critics have said my buildings are like crumpled paper; well, this set will be crumpled paper.” As it turns out, he wasn’t joking. His set was that …