The Storefront Moves Out West

Everyone’s favorite avant-garde gallery, SoHo’s Storefront for Art and Architecture, brought out the LA crowds for their first-ever Pop Up Storefront. Setting up on a neon-lit stretch of Sunset Blvd (between an old motel and a strip joint), Storefront showed a set of photographs by Frédéric Chaubin that captured the beautiful architectural monsters of a cloistered Communist era. Dubbed “Cosmic Communist Constructions Photographed”, the opening reception on this past Friday drew almost everyone I’ve ever met in LA’s architecture and design world.

John Chase (City of West Hollywood, Urban Designer), Clive Wilkinson (architect extraordinaire), Frances Anderton (KCRW), Kate Wise (Co-Architects)

Martha Read (Gehry Partners), Linda Taalman (Taalman/Koch), Alexis Rochas (Sci-Arc), Stephanie Smith (Eco-Shack)

An abundance of silver shoes: Even the footwear was cosmic!

A tightly-packed crowd discussing Eastern Bloc aesthetics.

Then the beer ran out and everyone headed outside.

Randy Sommer (Acme Gallery), Amy Sinas (Living Homes), Wayne Schloch (Blue Point Architecture), Merry Norris (art consultant/curator)

Yasmeen Siddiqui (Storefront curator), Ruben Ochoa (artist)

The Los Angeles Forum for Architecture and Urban Design, one of the local partners, is hosting Frank Conversations at the Storefront tonight at 7:00 p.m.

The LA Pop Up Storefront–located at located Paperchase Printing, 7176 Sunset Blvd. (2 blocks west of La Brea, corner of Formosa)–will be around these parts until May 17. After that, there’s no telling where the Storefront will spring forth next–watch their site for future announcements.