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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...

The set design from 'Parasite' is getting top billing at next month's Milan Design Week

2021-08-13T14:30:00-04:00

A large wooden table located at the center of the Park family's luxurious living room, which the Kim family hides beneath after their break-in, is one of the key props visualizing the theme of socio-economic class divisions. The table, designed by Bahk Jong-sun, is one of 126 pieces of Korean craftworks that will be on display next month during Milan Design Week 2021, the world's biggest annual design and furniture fair since its inception in 1961.

The Oscar-nominated "Parasite" set was created by production designer Lee Ha-jun based on a sketch from director Bong Joon-ho. Lee is a graduate of Korea’s National University of Arts stage design program. He was introduced to Bahk Jong-sun by the artist Seungmo Park, who also created original pieces for the set.

The Milan Design Week exhibition is themed "All about Attitude" and includes 20 other works by Korean artists and designers in a five-day show that opens September 5th at the Palazzo Litta. Bahk Jong-sun produced several 3D models of the fake mansion and interiors before constructing the set. Vulture has a closer look at the 2019 movie’s production design here.

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...

Historic Hollywood movie backdrops saved from the dumpster by Art Directors Guild

2019-12-26T11:15:00-05:00

Hillsides, houses, airports and cathedrals; cityscapes, landscapes and the ocean rocking toward the horizon; courtrooms and bedrooms, bungalows and castles; gas stations, skyscrapers, apartment buildings; the roofs of Paris and New York, corridors, tapestries, train depots and a mineshaft burrowing into an icy mountain. These are the 90 painted backdrops that remain of more than 200 saved through the Art Directors Guild Backdrop Recovery Project

The Los Angele Times takes a look at the Art Directors Guild Backdrop Recovery Project, a two-year-long effort aimed at saving some of the industry’s remaining iconic scene paintings.

Lynne Coakley, president of JC Backings, a Hollywood legacy scene painting company that produced iconic backdrops for movies that include Ben Hur, North By Northwest, and others, tells Mary McNamara of The Los Angeles Times, “It’s only in the last 10 years that we’ve started thinking of them as having historic value. For years, we thought of backings as a commodity; that’s our business.”

That perspective has changed in recent years as the value of these paintings has become better appreciated. Several of the works are heading to the new Renzo Piano Building Workshop-designed Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles.

Alexandra Lange discusses the film "Where'd You Go, Bernadette" and what it means for women in architecture

2019-08-19T08:00:00-04:00

I want this to be me and my friends, most of us in our mid-40s, and many of us looking around, now that our kids are tweens, and thinking, Hmmmmm, am I doing what I want? Am I saying what I need to say? The new midlife crisis is a career crisis, not a marital crisis.

It is rare for individuals in creative fields to be accurately portrayed in film, especially women. With the release of the film adaptation of Maria Semple's Where'd You Go, Bernadette, Curbed architecture critic, Alexandra Lange, writes to express her anticipation for the film's portrayal of the lead character, Bernadette Fox. According to Lange, as a mother, wife, architect, and woman, this character is someone many women in the profession can potentially empathize with. In her review, Lange shares what this fictional character provides for her and other female architects as well.

Lange explains, "Bernadette Fox was a wish fulfillment [...] Most women, most people, don't have a cheerleader waiting in the wings for us to get our shit together. We either mentor ourselves or, more often than not, our talent is absorbed by other people and other lives. We never get to be on a first-name basis with the world, the subject of a solo profile."

It's the details that make this film all to...

Architect Julia Koerner blends design, technology, and fashion to help Black Panther win an Oscar in best costume design

2019-02-25T14:43:00-05:00

Beyond the silver screen buzz and Hollywood glam, the Oscars highlight professionals in non-acting categories like best original soundtrack, set design, and costume design. This year, a film, which received several awards and nominations, shined through its use of 3D printing and architectural design concepts. In the film Black Panther, architect Julia Koerner used traditional techniques combined with digital technologies to create the intricate accessories worn by Queen Ramonda.

Left, a Zulu woman in the traditional headdress of a married woman; center, a conceptual costume sketch by Ms. Carter (design) and Ryan Meinerding and his team (concept artists); and right, the headdress as worn by Angela Bassett designed by Julia Koerner and Ruth Carter. Credit Getty Images; Marvel; Marvel/Disney

Inspired by African patterns presented in the initial design sketches of Ruth Carter, Koerner's Zulu hat and shoulder mantle were designed to look as though it were created by technology from the f...

Can you recognize these blockbuster movie hotel rooms?

2018-12-26T15:39:00-05:00

Architecture and film have had a longstanding partnership. Many iconic blockbuster hits would not have been the same without the magic of talented set and stage designers. If you're planning your next movie marathon, check out these 7 famous hotel rooms that have dawned the big screen. Thanks to the creative imaginations and talents of architects Jelena Popovic and Barbara Lew, these famous hotel rooms were brought to life.

↓ Regent Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills, CA

From the film Pretty Woman - Image courtesy of Expedia

Staring Julia Roberts and Richard Greer, the film takes place in this Los Angeles hotel. In the film, the onscreen chemistry between Roberts and Greer depicts a classic Cinderella story where two unlikely people fall in love.

↓ Park Hyatt Hotel Tokyo in Tokyo, JP

From the film Lost in Translation - Image courtesy of Expedia

In Sophia Coppola's romantic comedy, Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson display platonic love in the alluring city of Tokyo. As the two s...

Hollywood movies are influencing LA's newest crop of buildings

2017-08-11T15:44:00-04:00

L.A. now boasts the tallest building west of Chicago—the Wilshire Grand Center in the Downtown district. “If you watch the opening sequence of Blade Runner from 1982 and look at how it imagines L.A.’s skyline in 2019, you can’t help sense life emulating art" Meanwhile, the creators of the sumptuous new Waldorf Astoria Beverly Hills traveled back in time for inspiration...“We studied everything from the decor of the movie sets to the style of leading Hollywood actresses”

Back in the day, Hollywood movies used to draw their inspiration from the city of Angels as many of LA's most iconic buildings played starring roles in Tinseltown. Today, the tables have turned and the cities architecture has begun taking a note or two from Hollywood. Proving that the expression "life imitates art" has some weight to it, Architectural Digest examines how LA's newest crop of buildings looks like they walked off a Hollywood set.

Jane Jacobs and Robert Moses star in “Citizen Jane: Battle for the City” documentary, coming to U.S. theaters in April

2017-03-20T16:15:00-04:00

The historic feud between Jane Jacobs and Robert Moses is hitting the silver screen in “Citizen Jane: Battle for the City”, a fairly new feature-length documentary directed by Matt Tyrnauer and produced by Robert Hammond (co-founder and executive director of NYC's Friends of the High Line). Following premieres at DOC NYC and the Toronto International Film Festival last year, “Citizen Jane” will be released in theaters and on demand in the U.S. on April 21.

Set in the 1950s and '60s in New York City, the film centers around Jane Jacobs' fight against Robert Moses' ruthless urban “renewal” schemes that targeted NYC's “slums” and its vital communities — a situation that many cities worldwide still face today. It also sheds light on European modernist ideals of architecture and urban design finding its place in the U.S., according to one film review.

“We realized that no one had done a film about Jane Jacobs,” Producer Robert Hammond said in a statement. “She came up with her own common s...

Check out these watercolor illustrations of the settings of some of this year's biggest films

2017-02-24T12:37:00-05:00

Boryana Ilieva is an architect and artist. For the past two years, she’s been engaged in a project, dubbed “Floor Plan Croissant”, in which she paints the house and apartments that serve as the settings for films. Employing watercolor as her medium, Ilieva has studied the architecture of some of this year’s biggest films, all of which have been nominated for Academy Awards.

Fences

La La Land

Elle

20th Century Women

Toni Erdmann

Like her work? Support Ilieva on Patreon.

Jeff Bridges and Maggie Gyllenhaal to star in a new movie about Mies van der Rohe and Edith Farnsworth

2017-02-06T13:23:00-05:00

The story of Mies van der Rohe and Edith Farnsworth—the namesake commissioner of the famous glass house—is rife with sex and scandal. According to the typical narrative, Farnsworth, a nephrologist of some acclaim, didn’t just want one of Mies’ buildings, but also the man himself. When things didn’t pan out that way, she took revenge by heading to the courts.

But, as a former Screen/Print revealed, that story isn’t just inaccurate—it’s laden with sexist assumptions. Namely, that a woman couldn’t simply be dissatisfied with an architectural “masterwork” because of its formal flaws. She had to be driven by “feminine” emotions.

Anyway, it’s still a good story. And now it’s heading to the silver screen. According to Showbiz 411, Jeff Bridges will be starring as the German architect and Maggie Gyllenhaal will play Farnsworth.

Watch the trailer for the new film 'the Architect'

2016-06-07T18:11:00-04:00

When a couple sets out to build their dream house, they enlist the services of a visionary modernist architect, whose soaring ideas are matched by only his ego. The woman is swept away by the uncompromising creative artist whose personality provides a stark contrast to her practical husband's. She is so taken she hardly notices the Architect is building HIS dream house.

The latest film to satirize the profession, the Architect stars Parker Posey, James Frain, and Eric McCormack and was written and directed by Jonathan Parker.

It's not immediately clear if the architect is modeled after anyone in particular. The character's appearance resembles a certain British designer a bit, while the work looks a bit like a more curvilinear Richard Meier project.

What do you think? An unfair portrait of architects or a spot-on satire of the discipline's more hubristic tendencies?

The Architect - Trailer (2016) from Parker Film Company on Vimeo.