Green Screen
Other than Times Square or Vegas, the Sunset Strip is probably home to more digital signage than anywhere else in North America. The infamous Strip also has a long history of hosting some fantastic pre-digital billboards, like the 60-foot-high Marlboro man at Sunset and Marmont that came down in 1999.
About a decade ago, the City of West Hollywood started thinking about the future of the Sunset Strip. Building on the Sunset Specific Plan (1996), the City launched a program to pair digital media companies and architects or artists to develop future billboards on the Sunset Strip to promote a “… 21st-century Sunset Strip [that] will continue to be iconic, attractive, and welcoming to visitors.”
Another aim the City has is to create “…signage [that] enhances the historic synergy of entertainment, advertising, arts, and music with cutting-edge technology.” As the policy states, “Off-site advertising signs are integral to the character of the Sunset Strip and interface with the larger West Hollywood community…[with]…Excellent design thoughtfully integrates billboards and architecture to provide an urban experience like no other.” Additionally, the program seeks to promote public art engagement in a “unique cultural setting.”
So far, the program, organized as an invited (e.g., not blind) juried competition, has produced some distinctive advertising concepts by several local architects, notably a three-sided “spectacular” and an illusionistic “disappearing” digital sign.
Prelude
Earlier this year, my firm had an opportunity to participate in the next round of design submissions.
In 2010 I collaborated with artist Piero Golia on a LED sculpture project for the Standard Hotel on the Sunset Strip, and two years later, I completed the Matthew Marks Gallery a few miles east. Both projects had billboard-like qualities; the sculpture mounted to the gallery is often mistaken for signage. After an absence of nearly a decade, I was excited to work in the City of West Hollywood again.
So, foolishly I thought our scheme, a “next-generation green billboard,” was a shoo-in. Unfortunately (even with the best-laid plans etc.), we were not given the nod. You can see the winning entries here and our design below.
Before we get to the pretty pictures, I was going to write some drawn-out, big-hearted “thought piece” about all the essential lessons that can be learned from losing, making an unnecessary and quite narcissistic detour through to OMA’s failed entry for the Parc La Villette competition (actually a source of inspiration,) thank my collaborators (indeed, thank you), and then conclude with a few feel-good thoughts about the process— ending magnanimously by noting that I ….“was nonetheless quite happy with what we came with so I thought I’d present it here with some of the texts provided for the jury,” quoting a previous version of this post that I just scrapped this morning.
And then I thought, fuck it, let’s go with how I really feel. Yeah, I’ll go with that.
Then all I could muster was a few more platitudes: 1/ how these things are always beauty contests; 2/ sometimes there are inscrutable politics behind how juries operate; 3/ we will win the next one. 4/ Oh, wait, what was number 4?
So I threw that out too.
Then I thought I would try to investigate what went wrong.
Of course, the jury was right: our scheme wasn’t sexy enough; maybe the green thing was too on the nose; the renders were too polite, or maybe it was too impractical or economically unviable, and perhaps I should learn to live with that.
Or: I will keep telling myself Architecture is a tricky business and learning to live with disappointment is part of being a professional, etc.
And finally, roll picture, bottom line, end-of-story, let’s admit it: losing absolutely sucks.
There is little to nothing to be learned from staring down your own failures. Maybe the only lesson is to give up once in a while and move on.
Like every failed competitor, I am jealous of the winners, and part of me thinks, crazily, that the jury must have made a mistake. Or when I am being paranoid, they must hate me (or, of course, said in the third person, “You must hate Zellner.”)
Down deep and quite irrationally, I still think our scheme should have won.
Unfortunately, even though this is totally screaming bonkers mad, almost half of this country is now operating with the idea that any loss, political or otherwise, can be contested.
So maybe I’ll give that a try.
We actually won. There, I said it.
Or maybe the GOP’s fall 2022 playbook works, and I should deny that I ever lost.
Maybe there never even was a jury; perhaps all the other architects are just stand-ins and actors… you can see how quickly this spirals.
Or perhaps I will stop now while this is still funny and leave it there.
I love the project and hope you do too.
Hopefully, I should be back in about a week or two with something less unhinged.
Enjoy your week.
PS.
I have received some nice feedback about this post, but the same question came up a few times.
The question goes like this: why make something subtle on the Sunset Strip when the point of the competition was to create something spectacular?
My response would be that when you’re in a room full of screaming people, maybe the most radical thing is to be quiet. But that’s not something I came up with— I think I read that Tadao Ando said back in the 80s about his work.
That might seem pretentious given the context, but I thought it would be nice to create a billboard that would almost disappear into the greenery surrounding it the same way the Château Marmont hides behind a big fluffy green wall.
I was also thinking about the old wooden roller coaster and wood oil derricks that used to sit where the Beverly Center is now and how amazing it would be to build a new billboard out of trees instead of steel.
Anyway, here are the goods.
The Goods
(project text, credits at the end)
Project Text and Credits
You are correct to vent. The winning entries are shocking. Shockingly bad. Without botany the crime scene that is the built environment in LA would be unbearable, maybe unlivable.