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Project Update

Sunnylands is scheduled to open in November 2011. During the next two years, the new Annenberg Center at Sunnylands will be completed to offer visitors an introduction to the Sunnylands story. Surrounded by a nine-acre desert garden, the new Center will offer exhibitions and audio-visual materials explaining the architectural history of the site, its art collections, its important visitors, the philanthropic legacy of the Annenbergs, and the ways in which all new work embraces an ethic of environmental sensitivity. In addition to new construction is the restoration and renovation of the historic estate. Completed in 1966, the house, originally designed by A. Quincy Jones, requires upgrades to make it accessible to the public and seismically stable. The infrastructure of the grounds is being carefully evaluated to include 21st-century technology while maintaining the property's cultural landscape.

  Photo Credits
Left: Rendering by Jackson Kahn Golf Course Design
Center: Photograph by Graydon Wood, December 2006
Right: Rendering by Craig Shimahara Illustration for Frederick Fisher and Partners Architects
 
TUESDAY, JANUARY 26, 2010


From the Sunnylands Collections:

The Annenbergs surrounded themselves with their books at Sunnylands. The broad range of subject matter informs us of their varied interests which included art history and the fine arts, national and world politics, architecture and design and an impressive collection of Presidential and First Family biographies and autobiographies, many of which are signed and/or inscribed.   The Reagan Diaries, Ronald Reagan, is one example, published by the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library Foundation in 2007, and edited by Douglas Brinkley.   Nancy Reagan inscribed the book to "Lee," a nickname for Leonore Annenberg, on the title page.   The warm sentiment speaks to a close friendship and a shared history: To my darling Lee, with so much love and many, many memories. Nancy

Anne Rowe
Collections Manager - The Annenberg Foundation Trust at Sunnylands

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 20, 2010

Left:  A. Quincy Jones at work in his office in 1959.   Right:  Fred Fisher at work at the same built-in desk used by Quincy Jones.
Photo Credit: Al Waldis, copyright 1959  Courtesy of the A.Q. Jones Architecture Archive and Frederick Fisher and Partners Architects


A. Quincy Jones and Frederick Fisher Partners Architects 

 

Since 1995, Frederick Fisher and Partners have practiced in the office building built by A. Quincy Jones and Frederick Emmons for their practice in 1958.  The building is a Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Monument and has been a daily source of pleasure to staff and visitors who enjoy its openness, variety of spaces, natural materials and connection to a series of interior garden courtyards.  As I sit at his desk, a beautiful piece of built-in furniture, I imagine Quincy designing Sunnylands for Ambassador and Mrs. Annenberg in this very office.  It is meaningful to us to be involved with the preservation and renewal of that legacy while working with Mrs. Annenberg on the Annenberg Center at Sunnylands and later on the transition of the estate itself from a private home to a public cultural institution.

Frederick Fisher, FAAR '08
Frederick Fisher and Partners Architects