At Ambassador site, a Creamsicle-colored fresh start

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Opening tomorrow is the first of three schools planned for the former site of Myron Hunt’s 1921 Ambassador Hotel. The K-5 school, designed by the Pasadena firm Gonzalez Goodale Architects, turns a friendly and upbeat face to the mid-Wilshire district.

It also ups the gregarious quotient by pairing zinc panels and expanses of glass with walls, ceilings and floors in Creamsicle orange.

But will it erase the bitterness of the preservation fight that preceded it? Will it help redeem the mostly mediocre architectural track record of the LAUSD’s huge building campaign?

And what does its design say about prospects for the middle school and high school -- both also by Gonzalez Goodale -- scheduled to open on the site a year from now?

Find out in my review.

More photographs of the school after the jump.

--Christopher Hawthorne

Photographs by Tim Street-Porter, courtesy Gonzalez Goodale Architects.