The Nokia Theatre is ready for its closeup. It’s well suited for panoramas, too. Many elements of this six-month-old Los Angeles venue were designed by ELS Architecture and Urban Design with Hollywood’s needs in mind.
Berkeley, California–based ELS was commissioned to take on this Nokia Theatre in 2002, just months after the client, AEG, had taken over a newly opened, ELS-designed theater in Grand Prairie, Texas. “The primary resemblance is in function,” ELS principal Kurt Schindler, AIA, says of similarities between the two buildings. Both seat approximately 7,000 people, and meld the intimacy of a performing arts center and the capacity of a headliner’s main stage. “A sports arena can turn into a concert venue holding anywhere up to 18,000 people,” Schindler notes, “but there are a lot of compromises in terms of acoustics, sight lines, and using special apparatuses.”
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