New Forms Taschen 190

Samitaur in Culver City challenges the use of urban space in a slightly different way than previous warehouse conversions imagined by Erie Owen Moss, because it is built over a road. Supported by Steel columns that are positioned to avoid truck-loading docks and existing structures, the enigmatic shape of this building disguises a relatively straightforward internal plan. Samitaur is in fact a prototype for an am-bitious project that Moss calls A.R. City (Air Rights City), which would be built in space above abandoned Southern Pacific Railroad Lines between Culver City and the difficult South-Central district of Los Angeles. Where other architects might dream only of working on pristine sites, Moss, working with the developer Frederick Norton Smith, has demonstrated that blighted semi-industrial urban areas can be prof itably converted into viable Office space. The cachet added by a talented archi-tect makes such adaptive reuse and complementary construction, as in the case of Samitaur, all the morę palatable to fashion-conscious dients. As John Morris Dixon has written,' Arguably. some of Moss's work could be considered” art,"in the sense that its formal intervention goes far beyond utilitarian purposes. On the other hand, his designs convert solid but underutilized industrial structures into places that serve very real purposes for the owners, the tenants, and the municipalities. Perhaps the Moss-Smith projects can set an example for the world beyond L.A.'³⁵

Outlook 201