KCRW Design & Architecture

Museum Row on Wilshire Boulevard is in the midst of some big changes, with major projects at the Petersen, Academy Museum, LACMA, La Brea Tar Pits and Craft Contemporary. Will these schemes be united, and how will they greet the street? And we'll hear about three architectural firms competing to reimagine La Brea Tar Pits. Plus, working with a general contractor can often be a challenge, whether you're building a house or looking to remodel. The start-up Sweeten wants to disrupt the general contractor industry by matching clients with vetted contractors and monitoring the project through to completion.

Summer in Southern California means swimming pools, and those glittering havens from the heat are celebrated in the new book “Splash: The Art of the Swimming Pool,” a collaboration between photographer Tim Street-Porter and his wife, the designer and writer Annie Kelly.  Plus, we meet two artists from AfriCOBRA, a Chicago-based collective formed in the late 1960s that made art to empower black communities. Their work is part of the blockbuster show “Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power 1963-1983” at The Broad.

Let’s play ball! There’s a $100 million renovation coming to Chavez Ravine. Janet Marie Smith of the Dodgers gives us the rundown, and architecture critic Paul Goldberger discusses the evolution of the American ballpark. Plus, the city hopes Accessory Dwelling Units, or ADUs, can be an answer to the housing shortage. And they’ve built one to prove it. We’ll hear about lessons learned from a little house in a backyard in Highland Park.

The designer of “The Blue Whale” has died. The Argentinian-born architect Cesar Pelli of the Petronas Towers and other landmarks passed July 19 at age 92. We’ll hear about his mark on LA, where he created glass-skinned buildings inspired by local artists, including the colorful, if controversial, Pacific Design Center.  And a classic LA house with a dark past has become a party house with a purpose. We’ll meet the new owners (and their seven Persian cats) of the Lloyd Wright-designed Sowden House.

Frank Lloyd Wright’s Hollyhock House has become Southern California's first UNESCO World Heritage site. Why did it earn this distinction, and how will it cope with a flood of new visitors? Starburst signs and Satellite shopping centers... Apollo 11 launched 50 years ago on Tuesday, marking a high point in the space age. We'll look at how space exploration shaped LA's landscape. And we’ll go see the fabulous outfits by Guo Pei, a Chinese designer who was born in a time that rejected fashion, on show in Orange County.