Page 54 - ArchDC_Summer 2020

Lobby and pre-function area for the Motion Picture Association’s
screening facilities. In the left background is a costume from the
Pirates of the Caribbean movie franchise.
Hollywood
Hollywood

on the Potomac
on the Potomac

Gensler Remakes

Motion Picture Association

Headquarters by G. Martin Moeller, Jr., Assoc. AIA

Glamour. Drama. Elegance. Adventure. Romance.
All of these qualities widely associated with the movie
industry were, until recently, in surprisingly short supply at
the DC headquarters of the Motion Picture Association (MPA).
Mundane workspaces, an unmemorable screening room, and
event facilities that looked like they were borrowed from a
mid-range convention hotel occupied a nondescript office
building that was custom built for the organization in the late
1960s, when boxy concrete structures were the order of the day.
Fashions in commercial architecture and interiors have
shifted considerably since then, but the location of MPA’s
building—at the corner of 16th and I streets, NW, just one
block from Lafayette Square—could hardly be better for an
association seeking to influence policy at the highest levels
of government. Accordingly, the MPA decided to stay put,
but hired Gensler to transform its bland headquarters into a
mini-cultural hub that melds Hollywood glamour with state-
of-the-art technology. Gensler’s scope of work included not only
revamping the association’s offices and movie-screening spaces, Project: Motion Picture Association,
but also modernizing the base building, which MPA still owned. 1600 I Street, NW, Washington, DC
To facilitate this ambitious project, MPA converted its portion of Architects: Gensler
the property into a condominium and sold a majority interest Landscape Architects: OCULUS
to the Trammel Crow Company, a Dallas-based real estate Lighting Designers: Bliss Fasman Inc. (base building);
development firm that oversaw the renovations, along with SBLD Studio (interiors—levels 1 & 2); Barbazon Lighting Co.
investment firm Meadow Partners. (lighting control consultants)
The existing building, commissioned by longtime MPA Structural Engineers: Cardno
MEP Engineers: Thompson Ehle Company (base building);
president Jack Valenti and designed by local architect Vlastimil GPI (interiors)
Koubek, replaced a historic mansion that the association had Civil Engineers: Wiles Mensch Corporation Courtesy of Gensler
bought in the 1940s and gradually outgrown. Koubek’s design Acoustical Consultants: Polysonics (base building); CMS (interiors)
consisted of eggcrate-like concrete façades with deeply inset Audiovisual Consultants: CMS AudioVisual
windows perched atop widely spaced square columns at ground Code Consultants: ARUP
Elevator Consultants: Michael Blades & Associates
level. Because these concrete frames were structural, acting Millwork Consultants: Gaithersburg Architectural Millwork
as giant trusses supporting the edges of the floor slabs, they (8th floor/bar and theater entry); Jefferson Millwork (base building);
could not be removed without demolishing the entire building. Washington Woodworking (interiors)
Gensler’s renovation retained the basic grid of the façades, but Custom Fabricators: Eventscape
Graphics: Gensler (design); Applied Image (fabrication)
modernized the building envelope by reducing the depth of the Owner’s Representative: KGO
inset glass by one-half and adding bands of limestone to mark Contractor: Clark Construction (base building);
the edges of the floor slabs, thus converting a rather static grid HITT Contracting (interiors)

52 HOLLYWOOD ON THE POTOMAC