Architect Chris King isn’t entirely sure when Reyner Banham clicked, but the English critic’s theories about Los Angeles came to him at just the right time.

Long before demolition crews moved in on the squat and aged hotel that had occupied the corner of Figueroa Street and Wilshire Boulevard, the 41-year-old architect with A.C. Martin Partners tried to imagine what the interior of the new skyscraper — the Wilshire Grand — might look like.

The canvas was huge, more than 2 million square feet, fitting for the city’s tallest building, a combination of hotel and offices, public and private space.

King and the design team at A.C. Martin had been brainstorming a variety of concepts that would complement the architecture — its indoor-outdoor spaces, its seismic supports, its vantage upon the city — and they needed to strike a look that would mirror Los Angeles’ identity…

…Through the windows of the lobby, a sculpture designed by the Korean artist Do Ho Suh dominates the space, a three-story-high wash of colors, blending like a snow cone from red to yellow to green to blue. Up close, the pattern reveals itself to be nearly 86,000 figurines — each a few inches tall — rising atop one another, hands to feet: a high-concept homage to pluralism…

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