Archinect - News

FBI corruption probe follows Chinese investments in high-profile Downtown L.A. developments

2019-01-15T19:05:00-05:00

The rapid transformation of downtown Los Angeles’ skyline is being fueled in good measure by huge investments from Chinese companies eager to burnish their global brands and capitalize on L.A.’s real estate boom. Now some of those projects have become a focus of federal agents seeking evidence of possible bribery, extortion, money laundering and other crimes as part of a corruption investigation at City Hall.

The FBI search warrant lists a number of high-profile property developers and real estate companies from mainland China that have considerably shaped the skyline of Downtown Los Angeles with monumental high-rise projects in recent years, such as Shenzhen New World Group, Shenzhen Hazens, Greenland USA, and Oceanwide. No specific charges have been brought forward at this point of the investigation.

Buckminster Fuller's FBI file revealed

2015-05-22T13:17:00-04:00

In response to a freedom of information request I filed with the FBI in June of 2014, the agency has finally released 44 heavily redacted pages. Why would the FBI have a file on Bucky Fuller? Well, for one thing, he was a counterculture icon with unconventional ideas about resource allocation, environmental conservation, and globalization. And as we know, the FBI has historically been rather uncomfortable with counterculture icons.

Government Offers to Swap for a New F.B.I. Headquarters

2013-01-31T18:05:00-05:00

For nearly 40 years, the F.B.I. has had its headquarters in a massive example of Brutalist architecture on Pennsylvania Avenue. But the federal government hopes to swap the building and its prime location for a sprawling new home in the suburbs, and there seem to be plenty of developers eager to help make that happen.

The General Services Administration, the federal government’s landlord, held an “industry day” this month to lay out its wish list for new F.B.I. headquarters, drawing more than 450 interested developers, architects, brokers and consultants.

Preservationists back out before fight over FBI’s Hoover Building even begins

2012-10-29T17:09:00-04:00

The public doesn’t typically consider the Brutalist buildings historical — they consider them ugly. The Hoover Building in particular was named the ugliest building on Earth earlier this year by a travel Web site. And now that Penn Quarter has evolved into a posh residential community, neighbors of the building want it gone.