L&M Arts

L&M Arts is a commercial art gallery conceived as pavilions in a garden, the site of which hosts sculptures both in and outdoors.

Af Kirsten Kiser

The gallery is situated right on the south side of Venice Boulevard, the main thoroughfare to Venice Beach and the Pacific Ocean a few blocks west. It was designed both for visitors to the indoor gallery spaces, as well as for residents and visitors from outside.

The gallery consists of 3 pavilions: 2 galleries and one office area, arranged loosely amidst open garden space. The first gallery is renovated and repurposed from the old 1929 Southern Edison power station that used to serve the citizens of Venice from the 1920s up to the 1980s. The utilitarian concrete structure with exterior brick walls was enhanced with seismic upgrades, museum-level mechanical systems, and improved natural lighting via skylights and windows.

The second gallery pavilion is designed in a diamond-shaped plan in order to fit the gallery space into the odd triangle-shaped land plot, as well as to add dynamic spatial relationships to the old building and Venice Boulevard. The building is finished with recycled bricks salvaged from building remains in downtown Los Angeles, with an exposed timber-structure roof fitted with a central glass pyramid skylight.

The office-reception area is designed like a bridge, linking the two galleries together, and is arguably “Japanese” in its compact space-planning efficiency. The wing contains office rooms, a private viewing room, and an art handler’s area.

L&M Arts is designed as a place for art and nature, interior as well as exterior, where a sense of place of Venice deepens the appreciation of the art experience.
— Kulapat Yantrasast