Bicyclists pass the new One Santa Fe apartment building in the downtown arts district. (Mel Melcon, Los Angeles Times)

Architecture is not just slow. It's a hurry-up-and-wait profession at its core, chancy and contingent, as vulnerable to the cold feet of clients as the whims of capital markets. During the Great Recession, as financing dried up and confidence cracked, the construction of important new buildings in Los Angeles ground nearly to a halt.

And so this fall, which brings with it a number of significant architectural debuts, is both welcome and a little alien: For the first time in nearly a decade, thanks to a stronger domestic economy and an influx of investment from China, South Korea and elsewhere, a steady supply of ambitious, market-tested architecture is emerging from the city's cultural pipeline.

The crop includes ground-up projects by some of L.A.'s most talented architects. The city is also learning to reuse its underappreciated older buildings in inventive ways......Continue Reading

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