Archinect - News

Annabelle Selldorf goes inside her long-awaited Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego design

2022-04-29T12:06:00-04:00

“People always think we do sensitive historical renovations, but that’s not all we do,” “It matters a great deal because it’s new,” Ms. Selldorf said of the San Diego museum. “It’s my biggest new-built institution. And it stands on its own two feet.”

NYT writer Ted Loos went to San Diego for a visit to the just reopened Museum of Contemporary Art with the doyenne of the typology who talked about the renovation’s overarching mission to “greater clarity across the history of all the building types” and her personal desire to leave Irving Gill’s original 1916 structure “completely unencumbered.”

Image courtesy Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego.

Selldorf acknowledged the early preservation effort championed by Denise Scott Brown indicating that it was a major focus not to alter her 1996 design as much as possible, adding that it was her “only regret” that they didn’t meet before the project was inaugurated in 2015. She described the end result as “a space that is well-balanced, well-proportioned, calm, focused and not about gesture” and closed by mentioning its intention in the context of the development of the museum's audience.

“I thought about how I can bring people in, and make them feel like they are welcome there,” she said...

Save, renovate or demolish: Postmodernism's midlife crisis

2018-12-27T21:51:00-05:00

Heading into their fourth and fifth decades, deep into midlife architectural crises, needing face-lifts, they’re now vulnerable and back again in the public eye, eliciting concern and attracting a second look — and sympathy — even from people who never liked them. But will these loved-hated structures be saved, and should they?

Joseph Giovannini writes about the historic vulnerability buildings entering their fourth or fifth decade encounter and how the public distaste may, potentially, turn into a sudden nostalgia for certain veterans of a not-so-distant architectural era.

Citing recent controversial efforts to demolish or renovate PoMo landmarks, like Johnson & Burgee's AT&T Building, Graves’s Portland Building, or Venturi Scott Brown's Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, Giovannini writes: "The irony of purposely ironic buildings that joked with history is that they are themselves verging on history, and history more than beauty is proving their strongest defense."

As MCA San Diego plans to demolish much of Venturi Scott Brown’s 1996 extension, the architecture community petitions to save it

2018-07-30T15:29:00-04:00

Plans to expand the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, which involve demolishing part of Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown’s 1996 addition, have come under fire as architects fight to save the beloved postmodern work. With over 70 signatures, including those of Sir Terry Farrell, Paul Goldberger, Sam Jacob, Inga Saffron, and Robert A. M. Stern, a petition recently sent to the MCA board is asking the museum to reconsider the plans in favor of an approach that is "sensitive and respectful to the village of La Jolla."

In 1996, the museum hired the celebrated Philadelphia architectural firm to create a much-needed overhaul. The result was a $9 million expansion, that provided an additional 10,000 square feet of space, and a renovation, that restored the original front facade of the Mission-style building originally designed in 1916 by Irving J. Gill. Situated on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean, the museum in La Jolla—described at the time by Goldberger as "an exquisite proj...

Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego picks architect for expansion

2014-03-17T14:30:00-04:00

The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego has chosen the firm of architect Annabelle Selldorf to head a multimillion-dollar expansion that is expected to triple the size of the museum's location in La Jolla. Selldorf, based in New York, has worked for art-related clients including the Neue Galerie and the Acquavella Galleries on the Upper East Side. The San Diego museum will be the firm's first contemporary art museum project and its first project on the West Coast.