Visiting L.A.’s Blue Whale

Driving around West Hollywood, I’ve passed by the Pacific Design Center lots of times. I’ve always been curious as to what goes on there, so on a warm, sunny day last week, I decided to check it out.


Since it was so beautiful outside, I started at infamous Melrose Place, intending to walk along Melrose Avenue to the PDC. The small street was pretty sedate, which is probably not all that weird for a weekday afternoon. Most of the people I saw were bored men, either husbands/boyfriends waiting for their women or valets waiting for shoppers to pull up. Seeing the men waiting outside of the shops, I felt some sympathy, but really, guys, when your wife/girlfriend says she wants to go shopping and you tag along anyway, you should really be prepared to entertain yourself for a while.


When I turned onto Melrose Avenue, I saw lots of people enjoying the sun and organic coffee and tea at Urth Caffe. Across the street was Kitson, the boutique famous for all its celebrity clientele. Curious, I went in. Besides clothing and shoes, there were also books, personal care items, and tables of jewelry and purses. Of course, I just had to check out the purses. I will probably never spend $400 on a bag, but the looking and drooling were totally free.


Walking up to the behemoth Pacific Design Center, I can see why it’s nicknamed the Blue Whale. MOCA has an outpost in the PDC’s central plaza, and upon opening the door of the small MOCA building, I was assaulted by a cacophony of sounds. I could barely hear the woman behind the front desk welcome me. The exhibition on display consisted of seven separate yet interrelated videos. On the second floor, four videos played in different rooms, each of which had distinct types of seating, ranging from beds to interconnected bus seats. My head buzzing from the constant litany of sounds coming from the ground-floor videos, I quietly left the building and was greeted by sweet, sweet silence (well, by the sounds of construction next door, actually, but it seemed much quieter). As the program explained, the exhibition “attempts to literalize the figurative to the point of abstraction.” A worthwhile endeavor, I’m sure, but the whole thing was way too abstract for this girl.

After MOCA, I walked back into the Blue Whale and wandered around the showrooms. As I moseyed around the first floor, looking at all the gorgeous designs on display, I tried to stay out of the way of all the stylishly dressed people striding around with purpose. The showrooms mainly cater to the professional interior design trade, so the building may not see as many tourists on a day-to-day basis. Still, death by designer-shoe trampling was not on the agenda for the day.

With six floors of showrooms in the main building, there is plenty here at the Pacific Design Center for an interior design junkie to drool over.