Los Angeles Design Weekend Showcases and Celebrates Local Talent
Author:Jessica RitzThe community-focused inaugural event begins on June 21, with dozens of events planned over three days conveniently clustered around DTLA and points east
After a whirlwind season during which design professionals and aficionados have converged in cities such as Milan, Copenhagen, New York, and San Francisco, it’s finally Los Angeles’s turn. This being L.A., however, the latest design festival comes with a little experimentation. While other ambitious organized assemblies have the backing—financial and otherwise—of major corporate entities, the first Los Angeles Design Weekend is a grassroots effort planned over the course of three days on June 21st through 23rd. There’s a certain freedom that comes with this degree of earnest scrappiness, as well as potential stronger connections among multidisciplinary designers and makers working at the ground-level.
“We—a group of L.A.-based creatives—set out to create an event that could harness the incredible energy of the design scene here, build community, and provide another platform for the exciting work that is happening all over L.A.,” says architect Rachel Bullock, cofounder of LAUN Studio. She and other founding members have joined forces with LADW founder, entrepreneur Holland Denvir of Denvir Enterprises, to realize the hefty undertaking. (It’s also bears mentioning that the erstwhile nonprofit organization design east of La Brea helped set a precedent in the city.)
“No one wants to sit in traffic all day trying to get from one event to another,” Bullock notes. So, to mitigate the challenge decentralized geography poses LADW organizers have focused the geographic logistics. They’re seizing this “opportunity for maximum participation with minimal transportation frustration,” Bullock adds. Participants can conveniently visit open studios, attend a range of pop-ups, and party hop thanks to the convenience of destinations being grouped in select neighborhoods on specific days. Happenings on Friday, June 21 are clustered in DTLA; Saturday, June 22 encompasses Silver Lake, Cypress Park, Lincoln Heights, Frogtown, Verdugo Village, and Mount Washington (the primary exception being an opening and nighttime party at Marta gallery on Rowena); and the Sunday agenda keeps folks roving among inspiring venues and activations in Atwater, Silver Lake, East Hollywood, and Echo Park. Using public and multimodal transit is strongly encouraged.
Multiple group shows kicking off the inaugural weekend on Friday evening downtown reflect the eager, supportive spirit. Denvir Enterprises and LAUN Studio’s Mind Meld in the Historic Core presents the results of pairing nine local artists with nine product designers and brands to generate unexpected collaborations. Think: glass maven Debbie Bean teaming up with powerhouse furniture/spatial designer Adi Goodrich to make new goods; textile artist Anton Nazarko of Anza Studio‘s reinterpreting a chair by Cuff Studio; and painter/designer/Block Shop cofounder Hopie Stockman Hill offering a new spin on a Kalon Studios piece.
Object Permanence, the thematic group show Denvir and designer Leah Ring of Another Human first curated in 2019, returns for its ninth edition to bring together ten designers hosted at HUBBAHUBBA studio. Glass artist Cedric Mitchell, L.A. lighting fave Entler Studio, and creative director Meghan McNeer are among those who will share interpretations of a cookie jar. Following its San Francisco iteration, architect/curator/tireless community advocate Anand Sheth of Studio Anand Sheth’s multi-voice VESSEL exhibit comes to LADW at Fig + Oak showroom on Friday.
Throughout the weekend, LADW honors the spectrum from iconic—yet always accessible!—to emerging status. Peter Shire and fam‘s spaces will welcome visitors in Echo Park. Frank Lloyd Wright’s Hollyhock House at Barnsdall Park is temporarily home to the installation entitled Summer Seating: LAUN & BZIPPY, for which convivial conversations and gatherings are scheduled featuring Bullock, LAUN cofounder Molly Purnell, artist Bari Ziperstein, and others. Meanwhile emerging talent from Woodbury graduate architecture students will exhibit work at Bestor Architecture’s Silver Lake gallery. Denizens of L.A. neighborhoods not included this round need not fret. Future versions of LADW already in the works will give others communities their due, too, plus the biannual LA Design Festival returns in 2025.
