Businesses Turn To Gensler for Office Interiors

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Gensler, the world’s largest architecture firm, was the top commercial interior design firm in Los Angeles for the third consecutive year, with more than $17 million in local billings for 1999, up from $15 million in 1998.

Gensler is so dominant in the local market that it did almost double the business of its nearest competitor, the Smith Group, last year.

Gensler Managing Principal Andy Cohen says the local office has grown so large at least in part because of its emphasis on media and technology design. “The roots of our practice are in entertainment, media and technology, and we’ve seen a convergence in all three fields, with Los Angeles being the hotbed,” Cohen said.

Gensler’s clients include Walt Disney Co., Warner Bros., Sony Pictures Entertainment, Paramount Pictures Corp. and DreamWorks SKG. Major projects last year included designing the interior of 130,000 square feet of office space for Disney’s ABC television network in Burbank’s Aldo Rossi Building.

Gensler also converted movie sets into office space for Sony at its Culver City studios, relocated investment firm Aurora Capital from Century City to Westwood, and designed 20,000 square feet of space for Donaldson Lufkin, & Jenrette in Century City’s Fox Tower.

Gensler won the 2000 American Institute of Architects Architecture Firm Award, the highest honor the AIA confers. The award recognizes a practice that has produced distinguished architecture consistently for at least 10 years.

AIA President Michael J. Stanton called Gensler the nation’s foremost collaborative practice: “Gensler exemplifies how the deliberate and creative mix of disciplines all with ‘place’ as its focus adds richness and value to buildings and their settings. In the process, the firm has pushed the envelope of professional practice, constantly breaking into new markets and extending its services.”

San Francisco-based Gensler opened its Los Angeles office in 1976.

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