Dan Brunn, the founder and principal designer of Dan Brunn Architecture, a Mid-Wilshire-based architecture firm, has grown his practice from a boutique residential real estate architecture firm to one specializing in restaurant and retail concepts. He also has plans to expand into the hotel sector and potentially overseas as well.
Brunn was born in Tel Aviv, Israel, and takes artistic inspiration from the country’s emphasis on modern materials and sustainability.
But it wasn’t until he moved with his family to Los Angeles in the mid-1980s that he decided to pursue architecture as a result of experiencing what he considered to be lacking homes.
He got his Bachelor of Architecture at the University of Southern California and then his master’s from Harvard University Graduate School of Design.
Upon graduation, Brunn launched DBA in 2005. He got his start designing residential homes around Los Angeles – even designing his own home in Hancock Park, the Bridge House – and eventually picked up commercial work, starting with smaller format restaurant and retail spaces, including working with retailers such as Yojisan Sushi, Coffee for Sasquatch, Tatsu Ramen and RTA Brand.
Since then, Brunn’s restaurant resume has only grown – as he now works behind some of the most notable chef-driven concepts in Los Angeles.
Last year, he completed Art Deco at Beverly Hills, a mixed-use restoration and new development project of an original 1930s Art Deco style building on the corner of North Canon Drive and South Santa Monica Boulevard.
The center, owned by luxury real estate agent Kurt Rappaport and anchored by Rappaport’s Westside Estate Agency, is also home to prominent chef Evan Funke’s latest eatery, Funke, a Michelin-starred Italian restaurant.
Performative spaces
“I love the opportunity to be able to be around and working with chefs,” Brunn said. “And I also love the intricacies of the operations side; I love understanding how all that works from a business side.”
For Funke, Brunn said the design was borrowed from his time in Italy to create an authentic contemporary Italian experience, all while encompassing the Art Deco flare of the building’s natural bones.
Aside from Funke and Westside Estate Agency, the reimagined center also includes The Office and Museum for Kurt Rappaport, a private invite-only art gallery featuring pieces by some of Brunn’s favorite artists, including Roy Lichtenstein and Ron Arad, and two other retailers.
“For me, it was really important that each of these spaces isn’t thematic,” Brunn said. “You don’t want to end up feeling like it is not part of the Art Deco 1930s building. Each one of them is very unique, but they’re all still in somewhat of the (same) language.”
And while Brunn admits it was his most challenging project to date, it’s also the one he’s most proud of.
“It’s such a prominent location,” he said. “I mean this, to me, it was so touching. Coming from Israel, (my family) moved to Los Angeles, and I lived at the southeast corner of Beverly Hills. I remember driving by this building and I remember seeing it for so many years. I think there’s nothing more gratifying than being able to touch your own hometown.”
While Brunn couldn’t disclose much about his active projects, he has five restaurant projects currently underway – two fast-casual spots in Pasadena and three nicer sit-down restaurant and bar concepts, including two in Beverly Hills and one in the city of Los Angeles.
He’s also working on his first ever hotel project – a ground-up boutique hotel in Sonoma – and said talks have begun on potential new project opportunities in both Israel and China, which would catapult his business into foreign terrain.
