TRAINSPOTTING

Fortmeyer discusses how an enormous mixed-use building energizes a site along a major rail artery, contributing to an urban transformation. The revitalization of Downtown Los Angeles remains a work in progress, with the area still a patchwork of commercial and residential towers, government and cultural facilities, light manufacturing, and parking lots. Lately, its momentum has tuned to its eastern fringe, a once-industrial area now dubbed the Arts District. Lodged between Downtown's high-rise core and the Los Angeles River, the neighborhood started establishing a new identity in 2001 when the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc, where this author teaches) left its West LA home and reopened in a former Santa Fe Railroad freight depot.