Archinect - News

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...

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."