HAYDEN TRACT

The Hayden Tract is a neighborhood in Culver City that was first developed in the 1940s as an industrial area. The real estate developers Frederick and Laurie Samitaur Smith began working with Eric Owen Moss in the late 1980s with one or two buildings at a time (turning it into a project called Conjunctive Points). Moss was one of their tenants and the story is that they walked into his office and found him reading T. S. Eliot. The modest low rise buildings and quiet streets on the west side of Los Angeles were gradually redeveloped into a place with a collection of technology companies today. It is very unusual to find a place transformed in this way over thirty years by an architect and a client. Here are a few examples:

The Box - 1994. This is an addition to an existing warehouse converted to an office building with an elevated conference room.

3535 Hayden - 1997. The headquarters for a media company has a steel frame that was built over a wood frame warehouse. The wood columns and trusses remain as artifacts and only support themselves in the new structure.

Stealth - 2001. A sunken garden was created where contaminated soil was removed. The 300 foot long office building is 3 sided at the north end and 4 sided at the south end.

Samitaur Tower - 2010. The tower is located at the intersection of Hayden Ave. and National Blvd. to mark the entrance to the development. Visible from a busy street and the light rail line, it provides a place to project images on the conical forms.

Vespertine - 2016. Horizontal and vertical steel plates that frame glass for this restaurant and twist along the height. It has 3 levels and a roof deck with a ground level garden.

You can find the Hayden Tract just of National Blvd. at Hayden Ave. Parking can take some effort to find, but you can take the Expo line train that stops nearby at Culver City. The Destroyer Cafe at 3578 Hayden Avenue is in the center of the Hayden tract and is open for breakfast or lunch. It’s run by the chef Jordan Kahn that has the Vespertine restaurant across the street. Lunch here is or a mid day snack is reasonably priced and very satisfying.

Enjoy your visit to the Hayden Tract.

The Conjunctive Points project won the AIA Twenty-five Year Award in 2020.

Here is a link to the architect: http://ericowenmoss.com/

and to the cafe: http://destroyer.la/