MOCA Pacific Design Center and the Question Everyone Asks About it

Google the name, and you will find lots of listings with a strikethrough. Let me save you the trip right now. The MOCA Pacific Design Center closed its doors permanently on 24 February 2019, after eighteen years of operating as MOCA’s West Hollywood satellite. It is never coming back. MOCA returned to the format of two venues – the Grand Avenue flagship in downtown Los Angeles and the Geffen Contemporary in Little Tokyo – and merged the MOCA Pacific Design Center programming into them.

However, do not close the tab yet, because the much more interesting half of the story is here. The building is still there, the campus thrives, and the same gallery that used to host MOCA exhibitions has its own program now. The Pacific Design Center Los Angeles, that you are looking for, is still very open. It just stopped being a MOCA venue.

What The Partnership Between The Pacific Design Center and MOCA Really Was

It deserves a brief historical introduction, as it was really a good run. The Pacific Design Center MOCA gallery opened in 2001 with the Superflat exhibition curated by Takashi Murakami, which became one of the landmarks of the decade.

For eighteen years the Pacific Design Center MOCA gallery exhibited Catherine Opie, William Kentridge, Jean Prouvé, Rick Owens and lots of architecture and design exhibitions which had no place in Los Angeles otherwise. The partnership ended when the programming agreement between the two parties expired. The last show was held there by Kahlil Joseph, and then the gallery closed.

The Pacific Design Center in Los Angeles – The Architecture of It

Here is what people tend to underestimate. The Pacific Design Center in Los Angeles is a landmark of architecture in its own right, and you can walk through the campus for free on weekdays.

It was designed by Cesar Pelli and built in three primary-colored acts over nearly forty years. The Blue Building – the famous “Blue Whale” – was opened in 1975 at 750,000 square feet and immediately became one of the most controversial structures in Southern California. Then the Green Building followed in 1988. Finally, the Red Building was opened in 2012, adding 400,000 square feet of office spaces in two towers to the campus. Now it forms a landscaped 14-acre campus, and the Pacific Design Center remains a Los Angeles landmark whether you like it or not.

Pacific Design Center West Hollywood and What You Can See Inside

Technically it is not in Los Angeles, but in the City of West Hollywood, located right at the edge of the design district at 8687 Melrose Avenue. However, locals include it in Greater Los Angeles anyway.

Pacific Design Center West Hollywood is mainly a trade destination – showrooms for furniture, textiles, lighting, kitchen and bath. Some of them operate on the basis of “to the trade” policy, meaning you should have a designer with you, while the campus, courtyards and public areas are open to everyone who wants to look around. Also, Pacific Design Center Los Angeles CA has some restaurants and cafes inside, so walking through is not only about the architecture anymore.

The Design Gallery in the Former MOCA Location

And this is what makes a visit interesting for everyone involved in art and design. The former MOCA gallery operates as the PDC Design Gallery – the exhibition space featuring international artists, designers, curators, design organizations and academic institutions.

So the exhibition function did not disappear from the building, it only transferred to someone else. And if you were the kind of person who visited the MOCA Pacific Design Center for its architecture and design exhibitions, the Design Gallery is the next thing to visit.

Pacific Design Center Hours and How to Plan Your Visit

Pacific Design Center hours for the campus normally run Monday through Friday from 9AM to 5PM – as a business facility, because the Pacific Design Center in Los Angeles is not a museum anymore; it is a trade center. This is the single most important difference from how it was before.

However, the weekend is not a part of it. The Pacific Design Center hours do not match museum hours, so the Saturday afternoon visit that you could use when MOCA was operating there is now gone. The exhibition and event schedules in the Design Gallery run separately, so make sure you check it before your visit. For reference, MOCA Pacific Design Center hours were Tuesday to Friday 11AM to 5PM and weekends 11AM to 6PM – these are the times that you will see in the old listings, but they do not apply anymore.

Pacific Design Center Parking and Directions

The parking is on-site and abundant – a relief in this neighborhood. Just the Red Building alone has eight levels of parking. And the campus is designed to accommodate trade visitors, showroom clients and visitors of events.

Pacific Design Center parking is paid, but the validation is available in some showrooms and restaurants, so ask wherever you spend money. The street parking near Melrose and San Vicente is metered and strictly limited, so it is easier to park in the garage. Within walking distance of the West Hollywood design district, the Pacific Design Center is only a few minutes from Beverly Hills, the Sunset Strip and Melrose.

Pacific Design Center Event Programming and Schedule

The schedule of events at Pacific Design Center is busier than it might seem, and this is the reason why non-trade visitors come to the campus. Summer Market, Outdoor Living showcases, panel discussions, product launches, design talks and lots of industry events are organized all year-round.

A Pacific Design Center event is often open to the public even when the showrooms are not, so it is the best way to visit the campus for anyone curious about it. Courtyards become filled with people, buildings are illuminated, and the campus becomes the lively place the architecture was always intended to be. Checking the schedule before your visit is the single most important advice I can give.

Pacific Design Center Reviews and What Visitors Say

And Pacific Design Center reviews can be divided into two types, which is important to know. Design professionals give high marks to it – the density of showrooms, the scale, the convenience of having everything in one place.

General visitors are often more critical, and their Pacific Design Center reviews reflect the common misunderstanding – people expect it to be a museum or a shopping mall and find it to be a trade center. But the reviews that praise it are usually from the people who visited it for an event, an exhibition or the architecture, which is exactly the correct way to visit the place. Many of the older Pacific Design Center LA reviews still describe the MOCA gallery, which is also worth keeping in mind.

How to Spend a Day at Pacific Design Center LA

In practice, it is a ninety-minute visit at most for a general visitor – the architecture, the Design Gallery if a show is on and a coffee in the courtyard. Not a whole day, but a nice cultural stop.

Which gives you the rest of your afternoon in one of the best neighborhoods of the county. Melrose is right there. The Sunset Strip is north. Beverly Hills is west. And for groups – date couples, families, work crews – the time between a brief visit to a cultural destination and whatever else you are going to do is the time we spend our lives trying to fill.

From Looking At Design to Experiencing It

We run escape rooms all over Los Angeles – six locations, more than twenty private rooms. Our Robertson and West LA locations are a few minutes from West Hollywood.

And the connection is closer than it seems. A design center is a place of beautiful, nicely built interiors that you look at but do not touch. An escape room is a beautiful, nicely built environment that you are locked inside and supposed to disassemble. An Egyptian tomb, an underwater research station, a Victorian mystery, a haunted lodge. One hour against the clock, your own team, every set to be handled instead of admired from behind a rope.

Why to Book an Escape Room After the West Hollywood Visit

Because the format suits anyone who came to the destination. Dates – a private room for two after a walk around Melrose is one of the best values in Los Angeles. Families – the Temple of Lost Gold at our Robertson location is designed in such a way that the nine-year-old will really help to find the exit, not the other way around. Birthdays – we hide the birthday present in the escape room and the birthday person finds it in the middle of the game. Also, the reception area allows bringing outside food, so the cake goes along with the escape. Corporate and design teams – half-day and full-day events that beat any conference room, and we host lots of them from this exact part of town.

Every booking is private – your team only. Prices start from $37 per person. We are open daily from 10AM to 11PM, much later than the Pacific Design Center. Any time West Hollywood sends you off, we have the room ready for you. And the five-star reviews from Google, Yelp and TripAdvisor reflect years of making quality sets and stories – the same quality of building that Melrose is famous for, but aimed at the experience you get playing in the set.

Our Locations & Rooms

Highland Ave
Robertson Blvd
Santa Monica Blvd
Playa Del Rey
Vermont Ave
Sepulveda Blvd
Ventura Blvd