Poor Buck Rogers High (aka Central Los Angeles Area High School #9) downtown. First LA Times critic Christopher Hawthorne accused the "strikingly ambitious and inventive piece of architecture" of being politically out of touch, a possibly "elitist enclave standing aloof from its neighborhood." Now the Architect's Newspaper's Greg Goldin weighs in, and he's even less kind to the school: "So much of the design’s energy is devoted to functionless forms that fundamentally, the school buildings are intended to be experienced from the outside. Once inside, things begin to take on a prosaic, almost barracks-like quality. You can’t help but feel that the out-of-orbit exterior forced the interior to succumb to the typical, highly structured, restrictive blankness that Prix himself decries in school architecture. The classrooms feel confined and airless despite the large windows, and the cafeteria, regardless of its light shafts, is cave-like." Do adorable robot children need light to learn?
· Crit> School for the Performing Arts [Architect's Newspaper]
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