“ The rather ungainly result, set to open officially this morning, is not what you’d call an elegant addition to the rapidly expanding Hollywood skyline. And yet few recent projects have had more to say about the state of contemporary urbanism in Southern California than this one. It symbolizes almost perfectly a city that is groping toward a denser, more vertical and more public future while still reluctant to abandon its love affair with the car and the glossier, more exclusive corners of celebrity culture.
—L.A. Times architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne on the new W Hotel.
