Archinect - Features

With Peter Zumthor's LACMA in the Home Stretch, Is Los Angeles Entering its Post-Rational Phase?

2019-09-04T09:00:00-04:00

Despite vocal critical and popular outcry, Atelier Peter Zumthor's controversial Los Angeles County Museum of Art replacement project is moving full-steam ahead and is due to begin construction imminently.

LACMA Director Michael Govan recently sat in conversation with University of Southern California School of Architecture Dean Milton Curry to discuss his plans for the new museum. The plan, derided for offering less exhibition space than the current museum in an uninspiring "blob" building that some have liked to a coffee table, has prompted much head-scratching from the design community, which has shown a surprisingly reverence for the existing William L. Pereira & Associates-designed museum complex.

In an Op-Ed, architect John Southern summarizes and reflects upon the discussion between Govan and Curry and ponders if the success of the museum project signals that "L.A. has stopped being the city that dares to dream and take architecture to the limits of rationality."

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Looking to "Frank Gehry", after Paris but before Los Angeles

2015-08-05T14:00:00-04:00

On September 13 of this year, Los Angeles will get its first major exhibition of Frank Gehry’s work, ever. Despite being the adopted hometown of the world-famous architect, and the city whose new-millennium architectural identity has been inflected most by his work, Los Angeles has not yet hosted a show exclusively on Gehry's retrospective.

EATLACMA Was Vital as Fruit

2010-11-27T03:43:00-05:00

by Bruna Mori

On November 7, dozens of artists, writers, and collectives ceremoniously participated in Let Them Eat LACMA , closing Fallen Fruit’s EATLACMA , a yearlong investigation of food, the natural growth cycle, and the social role of art. That day, over 7,000 visitors to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art made their way to scheduled events, intersecting with chewing carolers, belly-listeners, and roving bands that unified the fragmented campus; weaving through fruit-droppers, vocal mimes, and hungry puppets, I had my second look at Fallen Fruit’s recuration of the permanent collection and garden structures.