Sixth Street Viaduct – Michael Maltzan
The new Los Angeles Sixth Street Viaduct is a transformative infrastructure project for the City of Los Angeles. It replaces the original 1932 bridge, and unites the Boyle Heights community to the east and the Arts District and Downtown to the west. The design is the product of an international design competition led by the City of Los Angeles Bureau of Engineering. The decision to conduct a design competition, an unusual approach to an infrastructure project of this magnitude, emphasizes the City’s collective commitment to making the new Sixth Street Viaduct an iconic and lasting landmark for Los Angeles.
The design team including Michael Maltzan Architecture (Design Architect), HNTB (Engineer and Executive Architect), Hargreaves Associates (Landscape Architect), and AC Martin (Urban Planning) began with the fundamental understanding that the Viaduct is more than a simple replacement thoroughfare crossing the Los Angeles River. The project instead foresees a multimodal future for the City, one that accommodates cars, incorporates significant new bicycle connections. It also increases connectivity for pedestrians to access the Viaduct, not only at its endpoints, but along the entirety of the span, linking the bridge, the Los Angeles River, and future urban landscapes in a more meaningful relationship.
