Los Angeles — Jerde led a multi-disciplinary team that designed more than 100 urban places around the world as well as created the look of the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles.
Jon Adams Jerde, FAIA, who originated “placemaking” in cities around the globe, reinventing the shopping center as an experiential and entertainment destination, died yesterday at his home in Los Angeles after a longstanding illness. Founder and chairman of The Jerde Partnership based in Venice, California, he led a multi-disciplinary team that designed more than 100 urban places around the world as well as created the look of the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. Jerde’s passion was to design places for everyone, not an elite few, and he succeeded beyond his dreams. Jerde Places are enjoyed by more than one billion visitors each year. Over the years Jerde Places have proven to be economic and social boosters for declining urban districts from Rotterdam to Osaka, to Las Vegas and San Diego.
While his Horton Plaza was under construction, Jerde was named “design czar” for the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. In 1993 City Walk at Universal Studio opened, designed by Jerde and his team as a distillation of Los Angeles architectural and graphic history. 1993 also saw the beginning of Jerde’s collaboration with Las Vegas impresario Steve Wynn who once noted, “Jon Jerde is the Bernini of our time.” Jerde and Wynn’s first collaboration was a pioneering venture – transforming Treasure Island into the first family resort in Las Vegas.