The Pacific Design Center consists of 3 separate buildings designed by the Yale scholar and designer Cesar Pelli. The first was the Blue building in 1975 often called the blue whale. Then the green building followed in 1988 and finally the red building in 2012. The buildings are on a 14 acre site that for many years had to contend with a metal plating company that would not move from its small building on Melrose Ave which inhibited the design concept of the three integrated buildings.One wonders how much that plating company held out for before it was finally removed so that the front of the campus on Melrose could be completed.Down the street on San Vicente is the Beverly Center which is now having an expensive redesign to accommodate the newest concept in malls and better to compete with the Beverly Grove development of Rick Caruso just to the East. Does one remember when the Beverly Center design was disparaged by saying its building was the box that the Blue Whale came in?
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