Symposium Offers Vision for Future of Westwood Village

Two visions for the future of Westwood Village were proposed in a symposium Monday presented by CityLAB, the urban planning think tank of UCLA's Department of Architecture + Urban Design.

The event, titled "Curse and Vision: The Future of Westwood Village," was held at the Hammer Museum's Billy Wilder Theater and included presentations by noted designers and a panel discussion of the Village and urban planning.

Led by Dana Cuff, director of CityLAB, the symposium presented the results of a yearlong research project that culminated in a two-week visioning project or design lab.

Cuff suggested five "curses" are currently affecting the Village:

• the demise of the big screen and the changing marketplace;
• a "they did it" mentality of isolation and competing interests;
• inadequate parking;
• the mean streets of a rundown neighborhood;
• and the 1988 shooting of Karen Tashima, which many see at the beginning of the neighborhood's decline.

Two plans were envisioned for Westwood Village: the village as a Living Culture Center and as Car-Lite.

Roger Sherman of the Architecture + Urban Design Department presented with Edwin Chin a Village landscape as a core of cultural activity from the university that attracts renowned institutions such as the Fowler Museum.

Neil Denari presented the Car-Lite vision, using bridges over a submerged Wilshire Boulvevard and the planned Metro station as a focal point for expanded pedestrian walkways throughout the Village.

Both visions included expanded public space and removal of car traffic from the heart of the Village.

The discussion that followed included Aaron Betsky, director of the Cincinnati Art Museum and former Los Angeles resident; Los Angeles Times architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne; Nick Patsouras, a developer and former president of the Los Angeles Board of Water and Power Commissioners; and Mark Robbins, dean of the University of Syracuse Architecture Department, as well as Sherman, Chin and Denari.

The two main themes were the need to start planning now and the coming Metro subway station as the catalyst for change in the Village.

"The magic bullet [for change] has to be planned now," Patsouras said. "Transportation is the catalyst to remake the city."

Check Westwood-Century City Patch in the next week for a more in-depth look at plans for re-envisioning Westwood Village.