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It had to happen sometime. I mean, when you have a history of indiscriminately shooting in the streets of Los Angeles, you’re bound to end up getting taken downtown at some point. The new LAPD Headquarters designed by AECOM, sits adjacent to City Hall, squeezed between Morphosis‘ iconic Caltrans District 7 building and the LA Times. The centralized massing of the building opened up generous plazas on three sides of the block providing public access through and around the site, a direct result of the LAPD’s desire to appear more transparent to and engaged with the community they serve and protect.

Our photographing of the project happened to coincide with Chief Bratton’s last official day in office and there was a definite hum around the building. While setting up our first exterior shot, several groups of uniformed officers started congregating in the main forecourt. In a short time the numbers swelled to the point where it was obvious that something unusual was about to happen.

We probably needn’t have worried ourselves with the earlier concern about having enough people moving through the plaza to provide some sense of activity. The immaculately turned out officers, representing every district in LA County, in town to bid farewell to the Chief, filled the space in fine fashion, in what could only be described as a somewhat Matrix like experience. Every time we looked around, there were more!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 28th, 2009 at 5:44 pm and is filed under Architecture, Photography, Technique.