PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE
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our Education Committee for all their hard work in securing sponsorship of Tenth Street Elementary.

Changes are also ahead for our quarterly newsletter and membership directory. The format of our newsletter has been revamped and will include articles from our directors that will provide useful information relating to the industries represented within the organization. ( Thanks to Deborah Brown of AC Martin Partners and Teresa Powell of WET Design for their creativity and efforts in revamping the newsletter. ) Next, our members' directory will now include a listing by business category to allow members to more readily identify potential business opportunities.


While all these changes will result in greater benefits for our members, the most significant benefit of being a member in LAHq remains the same - the opportunity to participate. We need each of you to play an active role in our organization, attending monthly general meetings to hear from political and business leaders, becoming an active committee member, and joining us at regular networking events. We are facing a difficult time in our business community - the State budget crisis and workers - compensation insurance crisis are examples of these challenges. As we have done in the past, the business community can overcome these obstacles by joining forces and working together in business organizations, as well as with our community leaders. I look forward to seeing you at our kick-off event on September 23rd.

A city is a vital, evolving, ever changing organism that reinvents itself to suit the people, culture and economic conditions of its times. Throughout Los Angeles, you can visit the masterpieces from several eras - from the dramatic Disney Concert Hall to 1800s treasures such as the Bradbury Building.

But most significantly, Downtown provides an exciting look at the convergence of current trends with our architectural heritage. This is apparent in the conversion of historic office buildings to lofts and apartments, freight terminals to colleges, and the restoration of some of our most precious civic treasures.

LAHq encourages its members to become active participants in the rebirth of Los Angeles. We hope our efforts, and those of other civic groups, inspire your interest in Los Angeles' grand buildings and foster new ideas to salvage these valuable resources and build on the efforts of the visionaries who were integral to the birth of LA.

Los Angeles - it's Back!

Article submitted by Bob Mosier, one of LAHq's executive directors and chair of the education committee. He served as co-chair of this year . s American Institute of Architects (AIA) Spring Tour, an annual event where newly completed spaces are presented to the design community by their creators. As co-chair of this year . s organizing committee, Bob expanded the focus of the event and presented it in the context of the City's history and the momentous changes currently taking place. Therefore, in addition to celebrating great interior architecture this year, the AIA acknowledged the transformation that is taking place in the City of Los Angeles. For more information, contact the Interior Architecture Committee at the AIA-LA office on Wilshire or Bob Mosier at Robert@Mosier.com.

Robert W. Mosier Company is a construction management and consulting frorm providing owners and developers with independent analysis and management for their projects. From conceptual budgeting, through design development to final occupancy, we provide hands-on management and advice that reduces risk, speeds execution and strives for the best cost/ beneft ratio for our clients.

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But through the 1960s, the City still valued its great architectural treasures - the residential, commercial and civic structures that had served it so well. The 1970s, however, brought with them the adoption of a new paradigm. With the building height restriction of 150' removed, and with the assistance of the CRA, it was more cost ef fective to move new buildings to cheaper land on the outskirts, or on former residential land, now derelict or abandoned. So, in only ten years, the business center of the City was shif ted from Spring and Broadway to Figueroa and Bunker Hill. The old core of the City was left to rot - buildings from the Stock Exchange to the best department stores were boarded up and occupied only by transients.

From a 24-hour city in the early 1950s to an 8-to-5 city in the 1970s, Downtown became a place you didn't want to be after dark.

Now, all that is changing again. It started just a few years ago. It is not possible to pinpoint the date or identify the impetus. Was it the construction of STAPLES Center? Or the restoration and conversion of historic buildings into new residential lofts? Or the great new cathedral? As with all such changes, it is all these things and many more. The multitude of changes, great and small reach a critical mass, and the reaction becomes self-sustaining.
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