To design its LA arts space, located on North Camden Drive near the corner of Wilshire Boulevard, Christie’s engaged wHY, the interdisciplinary design team known for collaborating with important local cultural clients. ©wHY.
In April 2017, Christie’s, the world’s leading art business, will open a new 5,400 square foot, two-story flagship location in Beverly Hills, California. This exciting move is in response to growing demand among Los Angeles-area collectors for greater access to buying and selling opportunities, fine art advisory and appraisal services, private selling exhibitions, auction highlight tours, and art-related estate and wealth management services. A team of highly-respected specialists working across Christie’s major collecting categories will call this new flagship home, supplementing the company’s long-standing San Francisco presence, and dramatically increasing the company’s influence on the West Coast.
Guillaume Cerutti, Chief Executive Officer: “The expansion of our West Coast footprint is a key growth initiative for Christie’s in 2017. With its vibrant community of major collectors, artists, tastemakers and cultural institutions, Southern California has been an important market for Christie’s for nearly four decades and is now one of our most active regions for new buyers. With this new flagship, we are opening our doors to even greater engagement with LA’s vibrant arts community and creating a dynamic convening space for both emerging and established collectors.”
Brook Hazelton, President, Americas, added: “Between Los Angeles and San Francisco, Christie’s now leads the auction market in depth and breadth of local expertise and advisory services on the West Coast. Engaging our clients with fine art and objects from Post-War and Contemporary art, Impressionist and Modern art, and Asian art to jewelry, watches, wine and more is at the heart of what we do. We look forward to introducing new audiences and collectors to all that Christie’s has to offer.”
To design its LA arts space, located on North Camden Drive near the corner of Wilshire Boulevard, Christie’s engaged wHY, the interdisciplinary design team known for collaborating with important local cultural clients, such as the Marciano Art Foundation, CalArts, and Los Angeles County Museum of Art, as well as top artists and collectors. wHY’s design for Christie’s wraps the two-story, street-level space with an undulating curtain of pearlescent white aluminum, creating an elegant and timeless exterior that speaks to the history and quality of the company’s 250-year old brand.
Inside the new space, wHY designed a grand yet flexible layout for Christie’s to host exhibitions, social events, educational programming, and live-streams of auctions taking place in Christie’s salerooms worldwide. The upstairs has been designed to include private meeting areas and offices where clients and specialists can discuss appraisals, advisory projects, or buying and selling opportunities. A 1,400 square-foot addition on the second level creates a unique open space with greenery that can double as programmable outdoor event space.
The LA project mirrors Christie’s recent expansions in mainland China, where the company has been steadily increasing access to online and saleroom collecting opportunities, arts engagement and educational partnerships. In the fall of 2016, Christie’s opened a new multi-functional art space in Beijing on prestigious Jinbao Street; in 2014 Christie’s relocated its Shanghai presence to the historic Ampire building. Together, mainland China and the West Coast region of the United States account for the largest influx of new buyers at Christie’s in recent years.
