Levin

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Brenda A. Levin

President, Levin and Associates Inc.

Los Angeles

Specialty: Historic preservation, college campuses

Notable project: Renovation of the Wiltern Theater

Brenda A. Levin is acclaimed for her groundbreaking renovations of some of L.A.’s best known and most beloved historic buildings, among them the Wiltern Theater, the Bradbury Building, the Fine Arts Building and Grand Central Square.

These days, much of her work also involves college campuses. What makes the jobs challenging, she says, is that her designs must please not only the students of the present, but those of the past.

At Scripps College, a women’s school in Claremont with a devoted group of alumni, Levin managed to do just that, but not without considerable effort. She came away with valuable and sometimes startling insights into the “importance of space in education.”

Levin had been commissioned to design centralized dining commons, to replace separate eating facilities in residence halls. Some of the alumni were vehemently opposed. Many waxed nostalgic about the intimate and highly mannered meals of their own college days, and feared that such experiences would be lost to coming generations in favor of tacky, cafeteria-style dining.

Scripps College was solicitous of the alumni concerns, and sent Levin to four cities to meet with the women for a full airing of their views. The result was a design that preserved the intimacy of the dining experience, while putting the facilities under the same roof.

“It was a luxury to be able to have that form of dialogue,” Levin said. “It was basically a year before we even sat down to design, and by that time, we knew a great deal about what we were trying to accomplish.”

Today, Levin is busy with a 50,000-square-foot music, dance and athletic facility at a North Hollywood school, the conversion of a carriage house into a temporary exhibition gallery at Huntington Library, and a renovation/expansion at the University of California, Santa Barbara Art Museum.

And she happily reflects on her contribution to the revitalization of L.A.’s urban core, through her work on the Wiltern Theater and other old buildings.

“These buildings are part of the cultural history of our city. Without them, we will forever be a new city without any history,” she said.

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