Edgemar Development

Original comment by the building's author:
"This project was commissioned to me by Abby Sher. Her vision was the towers of the Italian town San Gimignano and a floor plan that created a courtyard. Originally, there was an egg factory here, and she wanted to transform it into a museum. She had the Santa Monica Museum of Art, who wanted to be involved. She wanted something special, natural, and public. She also wanted to make some money from it, of course.
When you are doing something, you should know the future tenant and design for them. In this case, the clear future user was the museum. I told her, "This is a complicated client because your museum as an institution doesn't exist; you are just establishing it." She also wanted a bookstore. She had ideas about things she liked herself, and those were very commercially naive. Fortunately, she was aware of that too. We talked about it, and she said, "Yeah, but I think it could work. I really want this; I have enough strength to push it through, and with my experience, I can also maintain the whole complex." The system I came up with was two walkways at a 45° angle to the street leading to a central courtyard with a dominant elevator, which I covered with mesh and created a sculpture from it. That was the first of the San Gimignano towers. Then I added a few more towers near the entrance.
She already had several tenants like Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream. She had a clothing store in the front tower and started leasing spaces in a very unconventional way. She placed the bookstore at the back. I told her, "This way, the business will fail." But somehow it worked for her. Then she had some problems with repayments. The museum is now gone, and instead, there is a theater run by some group of actors."