German-born architect Annabelle Selldorf is transforming an abandoned flour mill in downtown Los Angeles into a multi-disciplinary arts centre for gallery heavyweights Hauser & Wirth and art curator Paul Schimmel.

Selldorf – the founder of New York’s Selldorf Architects – is working with local studio Creative Space to retrofit seven interconnected late 19th and early 20th century buildings located at 901 East 3rd Street in the city’s burgeoning arts district.

The 100,000sq ft (9,300sq m) complex will feature galleries, a bar and restaurant and a bookstore. An outdoor courtyard will become a sculpture garden, with areas designated for visitors to sit for a moment of quiet contemplation.

The arts centre will open on 13 March 2016 and the inaugural exhibition has been announced as ‘Revolution in the Making: Abstract Sculpture by Women, 1947 – 2016’, which will showcase nearly 100 works tracing the ways in which women have changed the course of art by deftly transforming the language of sculpture. Works by Magdalena Abakanowicz, Lynda Benglis and Heidi Bucher will feature.

Future exhibitions will promote important contemporary art and the centre will organise public programmes and educational activities to illuminate and add to the urban culture of Los Angeles.

Hauser & Wirth owns five other gallery locations, including branches in Zurich, London and New York, with Selldorf having designed several of these spaces. In 2013, she converted The Roxy, a former roller rink and nightclub, into a vast column-free space for the company’s second New York gallery.

Paul Schimmel was formerly the curator for the city’s Museum of Contemporary Art. He partnered with Hauser & Wirth – who represent emerging and established contemporary artists including Paul McCarthy, Roni Horn and Mary Heilmann – in 2013 to drive the flour mill development.

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