Archinect - News

The biggest splash: Renzo Piano’s masterwork Academy Museum opens as one of Los Angeles’ newest landmarks

2021-09-29T14:57:00-04:00

When it finally opens on Thursday, the new Academy Museum of Motion Pictures will do so in a similar vein to so many of this year’s star-studded fall releases. The $484 million museum’s first act will be as a barometer for an industry looking once again to pack theaters and captivate audiences as the tumult of the covid era gives way to Hollywood entrances and red carpet debuts.

Photo by Joshua White, JWPictures/© Academy Museum Foundation

No museum has been so anticipated in the recent history of the city. None in North America have ever been so dedicated to film culture and to moviemaking as this dazzling new magnum opus. It is precisely the vehicle the industry needs to promote itself as it emerges from a fraught decade and one that looks inevitably to the future using the past as prologue and film as a lens through which we experience ourselves and the world.

Renzo Piano’s blockbuster new cinematic arts shrine expands from an old Streamline Moderne department store at the corner...

Academy Museum of Motion Pictures announces visitor information ahead of September opening

2021-07-16T09:00:00-04:00

The long-awaited Academy Museum of Motion Pictures is finally opening its doors. The museum announced that timed advance admission tickets will be available through its website or app beginning August 5 in time for its opening on September 30, 2021 in Los Angeles.

The Renzo Piano-designed, 300,000-square-foot museum campus, which dubs itself “the largest institution in the United States devoted to exploring the art and science of movies and moviemaking,” is opening with a collection of exhibitions, including a retrospective of Japanese filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki and a showcase covering the extensive history and breadth of filmmaking called “Stories of Cinema.”

Previously on Archinect: Construction completes on Renzo Piano's long-awaited Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in LA

General admission tickets will be $25 for adults, $19 for seniors, and $15 for students. Visitors ages 17 and younger may enter for free. An additional exhibition titled “The Oscars Experience” offers visitors an...

Construction completes on Renzo Piano's long-awaited Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in LA

2021-03-10T20:42:00-05:00

Archinect's last report of the highly anticipated Academy Museum of Motion Pictures reported the Museum's planned opening and potential delay due to Covid-19 concerns. Today, The Academy Museum announces its inaugural programming and the official public opening, which will occur on September 30, 2021. To kick start its public debut, the Museum kicks off with its virtual programs in April.

Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, Exterior Rendering by Renzo Piano Building Workshop

Set to be "the largest institution in the United States devoted to the arts, sciences, and artists of moviemaking," the Museum will be another architectural feat to add to the city. With Renzo Piano and his team at the helm of the 300,000 square-foot museum campus, the general public was able to keep tabs on its progression over the years, especially with its giant spherical-shaped auditorium.

Featured on Archinect: Academy of Motion Pictures releases new construction photos of Renzo Piano-designed museum Image b...

Academy Museum of Motion Pictures: opening delayed again due to Covid-19 fears

2020-12-23T15:11:00-05:00

The much-heralded opening of the opening of the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles has been rescheduled from 30 April until 30 September of next year [...] Los Angeles is in the grip of restrictions imposed by the state as coronavirus cases soar, making it difficult to envision greeting visitors as museums currently are closed due to pandemic concerns.

"We are putting the final touches on our stunning exhibitions and public spaces, and while we were ready and eager to welcome visitors in the spring, with the current surge of COVID-19, it would be irresponsible to maintain an April opening," said Bill Kramer, Director and President of the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. "We know a new day is coming for us all, and when it does, the Academy Museum will be ready to offer our visitors the remarkable experience we have all been wanting."

The Renzo Piano-designed 300,000 square-foot museum campus on LA's Wilshire Boulevard was originally scheduled to open in 2017.

Renzo Piano's Academy Museum of Motion Pictures receives LEED Gold Certification

2020-11-04T16:14:00-05:00

Slowly, slowly, LA's new Academy Museum of Motion Pictures is inching towards its anticipated completion.

The LACMA-adjacent, Renzo Piano-designed 300,000 square-foot museum campus on Wilshire Boulevard was forced to push back several official opening dates — most recently, the December 14 opening was rescheduled to now April 30, 2021 — but there appears to be continued progress at the site: the project was recently awarded LEED Gold Certification for its environmental concept.

Bird's eye rendering © Renzo Piano Building Workshop/©Academy Museum Foundation/ Image from L’Autre Image

Contributing to the rating were high-performance indoor environmental systems, solar power systems, waste reduction programs, easy public transportation access, a rideshare pickup and drop-off point, bike racks, a storm water reuse system that feeds irrigation for the museum’s landscaping, and Green Building Education content that will be accessible onsite and online after the museum’s opening.

Firms invo...

Academy of Motion Pictures releases new construction photos of Renzo Piano-designed museum

2020-04-17T19:48:00-04:00

Despite many construction projects being put on hold across the U.S., some regions, including Los Angeles, have continued on with business as usual. Word of the LACMA demolition came to light during the second week of April, while a neighboring project is also making progress. In the weeks since Archinect's last coverage of Renzo Piano's Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, new photos and exhibition renders have been released.

With the museum set to open in December 2020, museum director Bill Kramer shares in a press statement that the programs and exhibitions featured will "illuminate the complex and fascinating world of cinema—its art, technology, artists, history, and social impact—through a variety of diverse and engaging voices."

Image by wHY architecture © Academy Museum Foundation

Image by Joshua White JWPictures © Academy Museum Foundation

Kramer also addresses the museum's construction progress during a global pandemic. "We are keenly aware that we’re working towards the openin...

Finally, the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures will open later this year

2020-02-10T18:13:00-05:00

The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures claimed the Oscars stage Sunday to tout its own forthcoming premiere: The long-delayed, much-anticipated Los Angeles museum devoted to filmmaking will open Dec. 14. ...The announcement ends some of the suspense surrounding the $388-million Renzo Piano-designed project, which has been a drama unto itself, its storyline filled with infighting, fund-raising difficulties, cost overruns and delays

According to the Los Angeles Times, most of the major structural work for the museum has been finished, but mechanical, electrical, and plumbing details including HVAC, elevators, and alarms, still need to be wrapped up. the museum will house 50,000 square feet of exhibition space, approximately 31,000 square feet will go to the core exhibits, which include "a 5,000-plus-piece collection of costumes, equipment, production design paintings, puppets, and other object," reports the Los Angeles Times.

Renzo Piano's Academy Museum of Motion Pictures won't open until 2020

2019-06-24T14:07:00-04:00

Contrary to plans previously announced by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures will not open in 2019, or any time prior to the 92nd Oscars on Feb. 9, 2020. The $388 million project on the site of the old May Co. department store on the Miracle Mile, which was first announced in 2012, was initially slated to cost $250 million and open in 2017, but it has been delayed several times now.

Rendering of the completed Academy Museum. Image: © Renzo Piano Building Workshop/ © A.M.P.A.S./ Images from L’Autre Image

The Hollywood Reporter published a statement released by the museum last week: "The Academy Museum's intention is to create a unique and unparalleled museum experience. Achieving this has required a highly complex construction effort — renovating a 1939 L.A. landmark, building a new spherical structure that includes a 1,500-panel glass dome and joining them together to produce 300,000 square feet of spectacular public and exhibition space."

View this post on Instagram Good things come to those who wait! The Academy Museum is coming soon.
A post shared by Academy Museum (@academymuseum) on Jun 14, 2019 at 11:48am PDT

Renzo Piano on his Academy Museum of Motion Pictures: "It may work. We shall see."

2017-10-26T14:49:00-04:00

"I cross a bit my fingers,” Renzo Piano told me. “It may work. We shall see.” We were standing inside the concrete shell of the main auditorium of the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, an ambitious but troubled project that after a series of delays is expected to open in 2019. [...] Construction workers hammered away all around us, producing a ring of noise that occasionally made it tough to hear Piano, who at 80 speaks more softly than he once did.

LA Times architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne dissects Renzo Piano's third Southern California project, the troubled Academy Museum of Motion Pictures which — plagued by delays and controversy — is currently under construction right next to his other two completed buildings, the 2008 Broad Contemporary Art Museum and the 2011 Resnick Pavilion (both for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and both not living up to Piano's expected excellence as a museum designer, Hawthorne writes).

Just last month, the Academy released new renderings that document minor updates to the museum plans in the hopes of laying to rest quarrels about the project's flawed design.

Check out these new renderings of Renzo Piano's Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in LA

2017-09-30T08:00:00-04:00

The film academy on Wednesday drummed up excitement for its forthcoming museum on the Miracle Mile, releasing a batch of new renderings [...] Pritzker-Prize winner Renzo Piano and architecture firm Gensler are restoring and reworking the Streamline Moderne-style department store built in 1939 to house a 288-seat cinematheque and spaces for exhibitions, an entire floor devoted to an “Oscars experience,” restaurants, and special events.

Sitting right next to Renzo Piano's other LA projects, the expansion buildings for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the new — and not entirely uncontroversial — film academy complex on Wilshire Boulevard is further coming along. While construction of the 130-foot tall 'bubble' theater and inside the old May Company building is making progress, the academy this week announced a $50-million donation from philanthropists Cheryl and Haim Saban and also released a new set of renderings.

Take a gander at the new images below.

"When it opens in 2019," Curbed Los Angeles reports, "the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures will...

Los Angeles cultural boom gives city’s artists spaces they can call home

2014-10-27T13:30:00-04:00

“People used to complain that people went to New York to buy what they could buy in LA,” said Kathy Halbreich, the associate director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. “I don’t think that happens anymore. I think there’s a recognition that the city matters, that the people aren’t just there for the weather. You see a level of ambition that’s been ratcheted up.”

Renzo Piano admits he's "struggling to do something good" for the LA Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences project

2014-10-09T12:16:00-04:00

A few minutes after sitting down to talk with Renzo Piano in his large, airy Paris studio Tuesday, I asked the architect about the progress of the film museum he is designing for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on Wilshire Boulevard. "The academy?" he asked. "Ha. The academy is a good story. "Look, I know you don't like that scheme," referring to my recent coverage of the design. "I don't think it will be that bad. Actually, I'm struggling to do something good."

Breaking up with Renzo...

2014-09-12T12:18:00-04:00

"And so, you know, having named my son after him, what was I going to do? Of course I said yes."

The Architect's Newspaper has an insightful interview with Zoltan Pali about his firm's decision to "consciously uncouple" with Renzo Piano's firm on the design for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts museum project. It's not always easy when you get matched up with someone, even if you've named your son after them...

Before and Afters: Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, Renzo Piano

2014-09-07T14:09:00-04:00

I really like it. I don't get the hate for the sphere. I think it will be a cool space to enjoy in person, vs. just looking at drawings. - reader comment (NeutraFilmmaker67)

Not that LA is so pristine with its architecture, mainly disliked and condemned by the form gendarmerie, the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures is looking better. It might be the ever so missing link which will tie-in all the disparate parts of LACMA from Fairfax eastward, even Zumthor's blot if ever.

Film museum's cast change may be a blessing in disguise

2014-05-14T20:36:00-04:00

Though Piano has taken several passes at the sphere, it hasn't coalesced into a convincing set of architectural ideas. The theater design remains gimmicky, alienated rather than emerging confidently from its site, as Piano's best museum projects do. By refusing to budge on its construction timeline, the academy is doubling down on the least-promising elements of the design. Sure, some refinements might smooth out some of its more obvious wrinkles. What they won't do is salvage the design...

Design tweaks can't overcome Academy Museum's dramatic flaws

2014-04-16T14:07:00-04:00

If Brougher and other academy leaders can compel the architects to reconcile the clear potential of the new wing's interior spaces with its unconvincing, unwieldy exterior, they may be able to salvage the design before construction begins. If not, they may well have an architectural flop on their hands when the museum opens in 2017 — not to mention the third disappointing Piano building within a quarter-mile radius.

Motion Picture Academy unveils Renzo Piano's design for LA film museum

2013-04-16T15:25:00-04:00

Italian architect Renzo Piano, Los Angeles architect Zoltan Pali and officials from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences unveiled preliminary designs Thursday for a $300-million film museum at Wilshire Boulevard and Fairfax Avenue. The architectural centerpiece of the 290,000-square-foot complex, just west of the campus of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, would be a giant glass-enclosed dome, which Piano refers to as the "sphere" and the "soap bubble."

Los Angeles Gets a New Renzo Piano-designed Museum

2012-11-19T20:31:00-05:00

In 2016, if all goes according to plan, Los Angeles will have a new architectural showpiece and yet another place of pilgrimage for movie buffs—the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. Created by the organization thanked in Oscar acceptance speeches, and designed by Genoa-based architect Renzo Piano and Los Angeles–based architect Zoltan Pali, the museum is envisioned as a place to celebrate both the history and future of film, with galleries, screening rooms, and an interactive education center.