Jonathan Adams Jerde, (January 22, 1940 – February 9, 2015) was an American

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

based in Venice, Los Angeles, California, founder and chairman of The Jerde Partnership, a design architecture and urban planning firm specializing in the design of shopping malls that has created a number of commercial developments around the globe. Jerde became well known as an innovator in the design of malls and related spaces. His firm has grown into a multi-disciplinary firm with offices in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

Orange County Orange County most commonly refers to: *Orange County, California, part of the Los Angeles metropolitan area Orange County may also refer to: U.S. counties *Orange County, Florida, containing Orlando *Orange County, Indiana *Orange County, New ...

, California,

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

, and

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flow ...

Career

Born in Alton, Illinois, Jerde was a graduate of the

School of Architecture This is a list of architecture schools at colleges and universities around the world. An architecture school (also known as a school of architecture or college of architecture), is an institution specializing in architectural education. Africa ...

at the

University of Southern California The University of Southern California (USC, SC, or Southern Cal) is a Private university, private research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 1880 by Robert M. Widney, it is the oldest private research university in C ...

Horton Plaza

After early years working at Charles Kober Associates on multiple retail projects, including

Plaza Pasadena The Paseo is an upscale outdoor mall in Pasadena, California, covering three city blocks with office space, shops, restaurants, a movie theater, and 400 loft-style condominiums (called Terrace Apartment Homes) above. It is located in downtown Pa ...

, Jerde was commissioned by developer Ernie Hahn to design the Horton Plaza shopping center in downtown

San Diego San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the List of United States cities by population, eigh ...

. The project was a five-story outdoor retail complex, with the main passage being diagonally oriented to the street grid and at the time anchored by

Nordstrom Nordstrom, Inc. () is an American luxury department store chain headquartered in Seattle, Washington, and founded by John W. Nordstrom and Carl F. Wallin in 1901. The original Wallin & Nordstrom store operated exclusively as a shoe store, and ...

The Broadway The Broadway was a mid-level department store chain headquartered in Los Angeles, California. Founded in 1896 by English-born Arthur Letts Sr., and named after what was once the city's main shopping street, the Broadway became a dominant reta ...

, and

J. W. Robinson's J. W. Robinson Co., ''Robinson's'', was a chain of department stores operating in the Southern California and Arizona area, previously with headquarters in Los Angeles, California. History Joseph Winchester Robinson was a merchant from Waltham, ...

department stores; and connected to a Westin Hotel and the

Balboa Theatre The Balboa Theatre is a historic vaudeville/movie theatre in downtown San Diego, US, built in 1924. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1996, the Balboa was refurbished (beginning in 2005) and reopened as a performing arts venue i ...

, resulting in an urban mixed-use center. It featured long one-way ramps and sudden drop-offs, parapets, shadowy colonnades and cul-de-sacs. Its design broke many traditional mall-design rules such as lowering ambient arousal levels and protecting the maximal lines-of-sight to merchandise. Its fragmented spaces were finished in a variety of bright colors. The project was completed in 1985. Jerde's Horton Plaza brought 25 million visitors in its first year, and as of 2004 continued to generate San Diego's highest

sales per unit area In retail, sales per unit area is a standard and usually the primary measurement of store success. The unit of area is usually square metres in the metric system or square feet in U.S. customary units. Square feet are also widely used in retailing i ...

. Jerde claimed that the project also sparked nearly $2.4 billion in redevelopment to the surrounding area and downtown core. Later the mall would lose business to centers in nearby Mission Valley as they renovated and to

big box retailers A big-box store (also hyperstore, supercenter, superstore, or megastore) is a physically large retail establishment, usually part of a chain of stores. The term sometimes also refers, by extension, to the company that operates the store. The te ...

, from a limited ability to capitalize on the resurgence of foot traffic on the adjacent

Gaslamp District The Gaslamp Quarter is a 16½-block neighborhood in the downtown area of San Diego, California. It extends from Broadway to Harbor Drive, and from 4th to 6th Avenue. Listed as a historic district on the National Register of Historic Places as ...

streets due to its physically being cut off behind parking garages, and from the 2010s retail apocalypse, so that by 2019 it was set to close and be converted to a workplace for the tech industry.

Other work

The Jerde Partnership was involved in the design and planning of the

1984 Olympics. Based on the success of both Horton and the Olympics, the firm designed Fashion Island in

Newport Beach, CA Newport Beach is a coastal city in South Orange County, California. Newport Beach is known for swimming and sandy beaches. Newport Harbor once supported maritime industries however today, it is used mostly for recreation. Balboa Island draws v ...

in 1989, the

Mall of America Mall of America (MOA) is a large shopping mall located in Bloomington, Minnesota, United States. Located within the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area, the mall lies southeast of the junction of Interstate 494 and Minnesota State Highway ...

in Bloomington,

Minnesota Minnesota () is a state in the upper midwestern region of the United States. It is the 12th largest U.S. state in area and the 22nd most populous, with over 5.75 million residents. Minnesota is home to western prairies, now given over to ...

in 1992, the Urban Entertainment Center Universal CityWalk in

, the pirate show and facade of the Treasure Island Casino in Vegas in 1993, the Las Vegas Fremont Street Experience in 1995 and the

Bellagio Bellagio may refer to: * Bellagio, Lombardy, an Italian town * Bellagio (resort), a luxury resort and casino in Las Vegas * Bellagio (Hong Kong), a private housing building * Bellagio declaration, an intellectual copyright resolution * 79271 Bellag ...

in Las Vegas in 1998.

The Jerde Partnership

The firm has developed into a major international company with key urban regeneration projects overseas, including Beursplein in

Rotterdam Rotterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Rotte'') is the second largest city and municipality in the Netherlands. It is in the province of South Holland, part of the North Sea mouth of the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta, via the ''"N ...

, Netherlands, and

Canal City Hakata is a large shopping and entertainment complex in Fukuoka, Japan. Called the "city within the city," it boasts numerous attractions including shops; cafes; restaurants; a theater; game center; cinemas; two hotels; and a canal, which runs through t ...

Fukuoka is the sixth-largest city in Japan, the second-largest port city after Yokohama, and the capital city of Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan. The city is built along the shores of Hakata Bay, and has been a center of international commerce since ancie ...

, Japan, both in 1996, as well as other projects in

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

and

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

. Jerde is also responsible for a string of landmark urban mixed-use developments, including:

Namba Parks Namba Parks (なんばパークス ''Nanba Pākusu'') is an office and shopping complex located in Namba-naka Nichome, Naniwa-ku, Osaka, Japan, the south of Namba Station on Nankai Railway. It consists of a high-rise office building called Park ...

Osaka is a designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the third most populous city in Japan, following Special wards of Tokyo and Yokohama. With a population of 2. ...

, Japan, awarded the

Urban Land Institute The Urban Land Institute, or ULI, is a nonprofit research and education organization with regional offices in Washington, D.C., Hong Kong, and London. ULI advocates progressive development, conducting research, and education in topics such as s ...

Awards of Excellence: Asia Pacific, 2009; Roppongi Hills in

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

, Japan;

Kanyon The Poseidon (russian: Посейдон, "Poseidon", NATO reporting name Kanyon), previously known by Russian codename Status-6 (russian: Статус-6), is an autonomous, nuclear-powered unmanned underwater vehicle under development by Rubin ...

Istanbul Istanbul ( , ; tr, İstanbul ), formerly known as Constantinople ( grc-gre, Κωνσταντινούπολις; la, Constantinopolis), is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, serving as the country's economic, ...

, Turkey and Zlote Tarasy in

Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...

, Poland. More recently the firm has designed: The Vermont, a multifamily development in Los Angeles's Koreatown, the Grand Hyatt Sanya Haitang Bay Resort and Spa in

Hainan, China Hainan (, ; ) is the smallest and southernmost province of the People's Republic of China (PRC), consisting of various islands in the South China Sea. , the largest and most populous island in China,The island of Taiwan, which is slightly l ...

; Puerto Cancun Marina Town Center in Cancun, Mexico; and Pacific City in

Huntington Beach Huntington Beach is a seaside city in Orange County in Southern California, located southeast of Downtown Los Angeles. The city is named after American businessman Henry E. Huntington. The population was 198,711 during the 2020 census, maki ...

, California.

Completed

Honors

Jerde was named the first recipient of the USC School of Architecture's Distinguished Alumnus award, in 1985, and became a

fellow A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context. In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements. Within the context of higher education ...

of the

American Institute of Architects The American Institute of Architects (AIA) is a professional organization for architects in the United States. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the AIA offers education, government advocacy, community redevelopment, and public outreach to su ...

in 1990.Frances Anderton
"Jon Jerde, Design Czar for the 1984 Olympics Who Remade Retail Destinations, Dies at 75"

KCRW KCRW (89.9 MHz FM) is a National Public Radio member station broadcasting from the campus of Santa Monica College in Santa Monica, California, where the station is licensed. KCRW airs original news and music programming in addition to programm ...

, February 9, 2015.

Death

Jerde died on February 9, 2015, at his home in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles; he had been suffering from cancer and

Alzheimer's disease Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegeneration, neurodegenerative disease that usually starts slowly and progressively worsens. It is the cause of 60–70% of cases of dementia. The most common early symptom is difficulty in short-term me ...

. He was 75.

References

External links

The Jerde Partnership
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jerde, Jon 20th-century American architects 21st-century American architects Postmodern architects USC School of Architecture alumni People from Alton, Illinois 1940 births 2015 deaths Architects from Illinois Architects from California Fellows of the American Institute of Architects People from Brentwood, Los Angeles