Archinect - News

LACMA sets April 2026 opening date for David Geffen Galleries

2024-10-30T18:26:00-04:00

The LA Times is reporting that the new David Geffen Galleries at LACMA will finally open to the public in April of 2026. This ends speculations as to when exactly the 110,000-square-foot Peter Zumthor design would debut after multiple delays to the orginally $750 million project. Spaces inside the new building will be open to the public for a two-week period once the city grants a temporary certificate of occupancy (TCO) in May of 2025. The newspaper had previously reported the project budget to be in excess of $835 million as of our last update.

Peter Zumthor details LACMA’s design inspiration in new interview

2024-10-08T11:02:00-04:00

This must do something to the city—like the Pan Am Building in New York—but somehow today the courage is lost. It must mean something to the city that there is a shape that is hard to understand crossing the road. The owner’s representative in charge of our project recently said to me, “Peter, I’ve now started to understand what this building is doing on all sides.”

LACMA recently pushed back the opening of Zumthor's David Geffen Galleries to 2026 as Christopher Knight quoted an unnamed museum source in the LA Times as saying the project's budget (which had been an initial hurdle to clear) is now in excess of $835 million.

"In about a year, one end will open," Zumthor said, speaking of a public viewing period that could begin once the temporary certificate of occupancy (TCO) is obtained next May. "Some curators were critical of the spatial concept of the layout of the museum. But now since they can go and see the space for the first time, they start to like it. And they see the beauty of the handmade concrete body of the building—so I am told."

LACMA updates design details, public opening timeline for David Geffen Galleries

2024-09-16T13:04:00-04:00

Here’s a brief update on the progress of Peter Zumthor’s David Geffen Galleries at the LACMA. The project now won’t open in full until 2026, the museum's J. Fiona Ragheb wrote in a staff memo obtained by the LA Times. The memo states that public access may be granted for two weeks after a temporary certificate of occupancy (TCO) is obtained in May of 2025 and before the installation of the permanent collection. Galleries are to be arranged thematically based on six oceanic regions thereafter. Christopher Knight, who first reported the news, quoted an internal museum source as saying the project’s budget is now in excess of $835 million.

Francis Kéré teams with LACMA to design the new Las Vegas Museum of Art

2024-09-06T11:00:00-04:00

Las Vegas and Francis Kéré may seem like an odd pairing, but that’s exactly where the rammed earth pioneer and 2022 Pritzker winner plans to deliver his first permanent American public building for the new Las Vegas Museum of Art (LVMA) in direct partnership with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA).

Expectations are for the plan to begin construction in February 2027. The design yields a total of 90,000 square feet on a lot currently used for surface parking in Symphony Park near downtown Las Vegas. A Rendering appears to show the concept nodding to the desert vernacular in the mold of his other works and in line with the expected extreme heat challenges that will grip the city in coming years.

KTNV quoted a source as saying its design will quote Paul Revere Williams' nearby 1963 Guardian Angel Cathedral as one of its many influences and reported that the plan is to have the museum open by the end of 2028. Kéré says: "It is a tremendous honor, and a highlight of my profes...

LACMA shares custom-built glass facade details in new spring construction update

2024-04-16T13:39:00-04:00

New updates have been shared recently by the Los Angeles Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), charting progress on the $750 million new David Geffen Galleries from Peter Zumthor that is expected to finish construction by the end of this year.

According to the museum's most recent April 5th update, interior walls and exterior glazing are being installed on the site’s western side, facing north to Wilshire Boulevard. Work on the building’s MEPs is now underway, and the concrete pour for the roof decks has been completed to the east side of the site. Formwork, rebar installation, and concrete pours for the roof decks are also advancing on the Spaulding Lot.

This follows the March 8th update that detailed the removal of the site’s prominent tower crane. LACMA has yet to release a public opening date. (A recent look inside the project with its contractor Clark Construction can be found here.)

Image courtesy LACMA

Also of interest are the 243 individual custom-made glass facade components...

Take an inside look at the form-making process for LACMA's new David Geffen Galleries

2024-02-06T12:15:00-05:00

LACMA’s Unframed blog recently profiled the work of contractor Clark Construction to build the concrete structure for the Peter Zumthor-designed $750 million new David Geffen Galleries extension. The concrete will be left untreated to match its architect’s long-established aesthetic and elevate the "hand of the craftsman."

Work will now commence on the installation of the 347,500-square-foot gallery’s interior walls, plus its exterior facade glazing, MEP systems, and roof-level horizontal decks.

"The building has no columns!," Chris Bell, the project executive for Clark Construction, shared with Unframed. "Instead, there are seven 30-foot-tall park-level pavilions that support the entire exhibition space. That's three football fields long with supporting cantilevers that hold people, glass, artwork — cantilevers that are 60 feet long. Being able to achieve and balance the structural and architectural requirements, it's a feat unto itself."

The update comes after LACMA celebrated t...

Plans for new LACMA-backed Las Vegas art museum emerge

2023-12-27T08:00:00-05:00

Around three years after the Nevada Museum of Art (NMA) in Reno suspended its plans to move forward with a Las Vegas branch of the museum, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) and the foundation of the philanthropist Elaine P. Wynn have announced an unprecedented partnership to launch a new museum in the city called the Las Vegas Museum of Art (LVMA).

As The Art Newspaper reported, plans for a new Las Vegas Museum of Art have the approximately 60,000-90,000-square-foot cultural facility commence in 2028 and cost around $150 million to construct in five-acre Symphony Park. LACMA is supporting the effort, which will (hopefully) fill the void left after the first Las Vegas Museum of Art closed its doors in 2009 over a lack of funding. Backers now have until 2025 to submit a design proposal and project timeline to the city.

“Our efforts to work with local and regional museums to share our collections and programs to larger and more diverse audiences are a priority in this joint effort,” a spokesperson for LACMA told TAN. “Las Vegas is currently the only city among the 30 largest in the U.S. to lack a standalone art museum [that is not a member of American Alliance of Museums]. It promises to be a valuable addition to the city and the cultural landscape of the region.”

No architects have been named to the project at this time.

...

Christopher Hawthorne goes 1-on-1 with Peter Zumthor in LACMA makeover preview

2023-10-06T13:12:00-04:00

Zumthor describes the wing as “a concrete sculpture,” with floors, walls and ceilings of exposed concrete. There will be bronze surrounds on the window and door openings throughout the building. When I visited Haldenstein, he and his colleagues were weighing final choices for the color palette of the walls at the base of the new wing, inside the various legs. “Lively, not dark colors, to give identity to different spaces,” he said. “And then you come up into this world of concrete.”

Ahead of next year’s anticipated completion, Peter Zumthor says his sculptural new David Geffen Galleries at LACMA will be bereft of the most recognizable traces of his Pritzker-winning design signature — a claim the museum's director Michael Govan then refuted. The man who once said, “the real core of all architectural work lies in the act of construction,” pointed to a faulty concrete pour at the outset and difficulties with the site’s foundation as factors that forced his design to be streamlined. The paring down of the overpass-like wing connector that covers Wilshire Boulevard was another point of contention.

Critics like Mimi Zeiger have described the project as “environmentally tone-deaf.” Hawthorne has thus far withheld any criticisms of his own, preferring to cover the project through a more explanatory journalism.

Construction on the new building is now 65% complete as of October 1st. The article mentioned the new wing may not be fully opened to the public until 2026.

...

LACMA and Snapchat unveil third Monumental Perspectives AR collection across Los Angeles

2023-09-09T08:00:00-04:00

The third collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)’s ongoing Augmented Reality Monumental Perspectives series has been unveiled to the public, featuring works of five artists that offer insights into the histories of their own unique pockets of LA’s patchwork mosaic of communities.

The series’ final trove includes Victoria Fu, Yassi Mazandi, Rashaad Newsome, Rubén Ortiz Torres, and Alison Saar. Each is accessible through Snapchat’s Lens Explorer tab. The initiative is being funded as part of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation’s larger $250 million The Monuments Project project. LACMA President Michael Govan says each work “challenges us to examine the individual and communal legacies we are leaving today and how we are shaping the future of Los Angeles.”

Rubén Ortiz Torres, Dead Heads (2023). Image courtesy Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Yassi Mazandi, The Thirty Birds (2023). Image courtesy Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Fu will offer a virtual take on a subject,...

LACMA's Zumthor makeover makes construction progress

2023-08-02T12:43:00-04:00

Construction work has been coming along in California at the $750 million makeover of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Urbanize LA reports.

The outlet just shared new aerial progress photos by Hunter Kerhart of the new amorphous two-story David Geffen Galleries building, which now also bridges over the Miracle Mile section of Wilshire Boulevard where a collection of four now-demolished buildings, designed by William Pereira and Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates, once housed the museum's collection.

Completion of the Peter Zumthor-designed new 347,500-square-foot structure is anticipated in late 2024.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Urbanize LA (@urbanizela)

LACMA construction update: Falsework is in place as David Geffen Galleries' structure comes into focus

2023-01-05T17:36:00-05:00

The ongoing makeover of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) has reached an important step as Urbanize LA is reporting that construction falsework is now in place for the $750 million new David Geffen Galleries by Peter Zumthor.

The rest of the falsework should be installed by the end of January. The temporary metal structures are required to support the construction platform for the 350,000-square-foot wing as it bridges over Wilshire Boulevard from west to east, where it replaces William Pereira’s pavilions and other buildings that were demolished to make way for the futuristic-looking consolidated exhibition spaces.

Additional shoring, formwork, rebar installation, and concrete pours for the basement-level and elevated horizontal decks continue to the north and west side of the construction site for the two-story addition. After reaching its midway point near the end of last summer, the project is now on track to be completed sometime in 2024.

Falsework is in place above ...

Finally complete, the Watts Towers’ restoration is a turning point for public art in Los Angeles

2022-12-06T18:17:00-05:00

One of Los Angeles’ most significant cultural landmarks, Simon Rodia’s monumental Watts Towers sculpture, finally re-opened last month after a five-year multimillion-dollar restoration effort spearheaded by LACMA.

The project was overseen by the museum’s Senior Conservation Scientist Dr. Frank Preusser, Art Conservator Elisabetta Covizzi, and other staffers whose focus fell mainly on repairing the aging concrete and makeshift armature of the 100-year-old towers in addition to cleaning, stabilizing, and reattaching its many thousands of vulnerable ornamental elements.

Image of Elisabetta Covizzi working on Rodia's sculptural canopy at Watts Towers. Taken May 4, 2022, by Sara Chao. Image via Covizzi's Instagram ©master_conservation.

The complex had been standing largely unaltered since a previous late-90s restoration aimed at seismic upgrades was completed in 2001. A decade later, LACMA began organizing a City Hall-backed effort that identified critical areas of need with help from t...

LACMA makeover: Five active cranes signal midway point for $750 million Zumthor project

2022-07-13T12:20:00-04:00

A significant next step has been taken in the construction process that will eventually culminate in Peter Zumthor’s brand new David Geffen Galleries building for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) as it inches closer to its anticipated 2024 completion date.

According to Urbanize Los Angeles, two new tower cranes are now in operation at the site, in addition to the three that were brought online back in October. The project is now approximately at its midway point after a delayed start in 2020.

Image courtesy LACMA

LACMA says it has recently completed concrete pours on the western portion of the mat foundation for the estimated $750–$900 million project, which replaces William Pereira’s 1965 “floating campus” trio of buildings (and their 1986 Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer-designed extension) in favor of the controversially smaller, new two-story building that bestrides Wilshire Boulevard next to the La Brea Tar Pits.

Previously on Archinect: In Los Angeles, institutions build, but...

Cranes have risen at the site of LACMA's upcoming David Geffen Galleries

2021-10-05T17:29:00-04:00

A year after we last checked, a trio of tower cranes has risen at the former site of LACMA's lost William Pereira- and Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer-designed buildings, showing the most visible signs of progress on a controversial $750-million remodel of the Mid-Wilshire campus.

The heavily criticized Peter Zumthor-designed project is expected to be completed in 2024. Urbanize Los Angeles highlights a report that cites internal emails between Los Angeles County officials warning that the final cost of the project could rise to as high as $900 million. This coupled with the museum’s existing financial troubles is a cause for major concern. However, the site of recent construction activity is a positive sign.

Previously on Archinect: LACMA Set to Reopen Amidst a Year of Construction, COVID Lockdown and Harsh Criticism

The construction process for the new David Geffen Galleries began in 2020 with the demolition of four older buildings designed by William Pereira and Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer.

LACMA's demolished buildings will live on thanks to this Los Angeles artist

2021-08-02T14:23:00-04:00

The proposed installation is the work of Cayetano Ferrer, a Los Angeles-based artist who has long had an interest in the ways in which issues of design and memory intersect. It is being executed in collaboration with landscape architect Bron Ruf. Ferrer acknowledges that working with fragments of a building whose demolition was loudly contested and for which many Angelenos felt a deep nostalgia is a loaded thing.

The Pereira-designed pavillions have been at the center of the doomed effort to save LACMA's original La Brea campus from what critics say is an unnecessary and expensive redevelopment campaign. Ferrer shares he got the idea while working on a conservation research project at LACMA's Art + Tech Lab in the midst of the debate over the beloved modernist buildings was reaching its conclusion. Ruf is currently a vice president at the landscaping firm Moss and Associates.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by @tano4g

The demolished pieces will be reassembled and installed in a new pocket park adjacent to the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood. Some of the fragments will be exhibited in a one-day show at the Commonwealth and Council gallery in Pasadena.

You can read Carolina Miranda's full interview with Ferrer here.

LACMA Set to Reopen Amidst a Year of Construction, COVID Lockdown and Harsh Criticism

2021-03-30T13:44:00-04:00

Following a move from Purple to Red in California's tiered safety classification structure, The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) will again open its doors to the public on Thursday after a year of lockdown that left the 60-year-old museum critically and financially uncertain as it looks to complete an ongoing $750 Million refurbishment project.

Aerial rendering of the new LACMA, slated to open in 2024. Atelier Peter Zumthor & Partner / LACMA.

In advance of a new Peter Zumthor complex opposite the museum's original campus on Wilshire Boulevard, LACMA's COVID-19 experience has been marked by the demolition of several key structures on-site in April that have shrunk exhibition space significantly in preparation for the long-awaited new building complete with 110,000 square feet of "inclusive" galleries sheathed in glass and supported by seven pavilions that serve as hosts to the education, shopping and dining functions lost in the restructuring.

It's certainly been a long year ...

Three museums in the LA County announce plans to open doors to the public

2021-03-19T20:55:00-04:00

Museums have lain dormant while pandemic restrictions aimed to keep the spread of COVID-19 low. However, with vaccine rollouts and cities entering new tier levels, museums are preparing to welcome back visitors in-person. On March 10th, the completion of Renzo Piano's long-awaited Academy Museum of Motion Pictures announced it would open its doors this Fall. KCRW reported earlier this week that three more LA-county museums have plans to re-open their doors.

Hammer Museum. Image © Tony Hisgett via Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

"With dwindling coronavirus numbers, LA has entered the red tier and allowed museums to open at 25% capacity," shared Steve Chiotakis during his Greater L.A. Podcast. LACMA announced it would open its doors on April 1, with safety protocols in place. The Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (ICA LA) has opened their doors and welcomes visitors by appointment. The Hammer Museum also announced its plans to open mid-April.

LACMA will be reopening on April 1, with Membe...

Long-awaited floor plan and interior gallery images of Peter Zumthor's LACMA redesign emerge

2020-09-18T17:03:00-04:00

There have been countless unknowns surrounding LACMA’s vast rebuilding project: the nature of the landscaping, whether the underside of the massive concrete structure would feel like a pleasant, shady spot or an oppressive freeway underpass, where the museum’s playful Alexander Calder fountain sculpture might go. The biggest question mark has hovered over the form and nature of the galleries...

With the fate of Los Angeles' beloved LACMA museum making headlines since Swiss architect Peter Zumthor received the bid, public response to its redesign has been primarily negative and controversial. With construction well underway despite the recent pandemic, images of museum interiors and gallery plans have been shared.

Ground level floor plan courtesy of LACMA

Exhibition floor plan courtesy of LACMA

Core gallery render of David Geffen Galleries. Image © ATELIER PETER ZUMTHOR & PARTNER/THE BOUNDARY

Los Angeles Times writer Carolina A. Miranda provides the public with a breakdown of what to expect thanks to renders and a long-awaited floor plan. Miranda shares, "other than necessary mechanical systems and bathrooms, the building's entire second story will be devoted to galleries, a total of 110,000 square feet of exhibition space. The galleries are composed of two dozen rectilinear spaces — basically, boxes — arranged in clusters and surrounded by interstitial spaces that will also ...

Demolition of LACMA complex is well underway

2020-08-20T14:28:00-04:00

The Ahmanson Building is the last standing structure of four buildings being demolished at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The Leo S. Bing Center is completely gone; construction workers are removing the foundations of the Hammer and Art of the Americas buildings. Demolition of the Ahmanson began this week, museum representative Jessica Youn said Tuesday, and should be completed “in the last quarter” of this year.

Workers have made swift progress demolishing the history William L Pereira and Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates-designed buildings on the Los Angeles County Museum of Art campus.

Demolition of Los Angeles County Art Museum @LACMA continues @MiracleMileLA #LosAngeles @KNX1070 pic.twitter.com/VSjbdILB8V
— Frank Mottek (@frankmottek) August 11, 2020

Of the three existing buildings, two have been wiped away with the third currently undergoing demolition. LACMA envisions completing the demolition of the existing buildings sometime toward the end of 2020 so that work on the Atelier Peter Zumthor-designed replacement structures can begin. A completion date for that project has yet to be announced.

Six alternative proposals for LACMA site are revealed

2020-04-27T16:58:00-04:00

The Citizens Brigade for Saving LACMA has announced a list of finalist entries for the group’s LACMA Not LackMA design competition that includes proposals from Barkow Leibinger, Coop Himmelb(l)au, Kaya Design, Paul Murdoch Architects, Reiser + Umemoto, and TheeAe (The Evolved Architectural Eclectic).

The Citizens’ Brigade to Save LACMA is unaffiliated with the registered not-for-profit advocacy group Save LACMA that is moving ahead with a proposed ballot initiative seeking greater transparency and public accountability for the Atelier Peter Zumthor-designed proposal that is currently under construction.

Describing the intention behind the competition, Citizens’ Bridgade to Save LACMA co-chair Joseph Giovannini explains in an announcement, “Our call for ideas was to open and make public what has been a closed process, and to present alternatives that inspire and show a way forward for a LACMA that is improved, fresh, and practical, not reduced and compromised.” Greg Goldin, fellow ...

LACMA demolition is underway

2020-04-08T17:08:00-04:00

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art confirmed Tuesday that it officially began demolition work, part of the controversial $750-million project to build a Peter Zumthor-designed main building. The work that began Monday focused on the museum’s 1965 Leo S. Bing Center, a 600-seat theater designed by architect William L. Pereira that has been used for film screenings, musical performances, talks and other events.

A LACMA spokesperson tells The Los Angeles Times that demolition crews are adhering to social distancing guidelines during the demolition process in an effort to limit the spread of COVID-19.

Does LACMA have its financial house in order?

2020-02-21T14:37:00-05:00

According to the museum’s most recent 990 tax forms, filed in 2018, LACMA is carrying $331 million in county bond debt that was used to pay for construction of the Resnick Pavilion, the Broad Contemporary Art Museum, the Pritzker Parking Garage and other projects. In addition to that debt, the museum has $112 million in other liabilities, such as accounts payable and accrued expenses. This brings LACMA’s total debt to almost $443 million.

Carolina Miranda of The Los Angeles Times takes a hard look at the finances for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) as the institution prepares for the imminent demolition of its legacy William L. Pereira Associates- and Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer-designed campus to make way for a $750 million Atelier Peter Zumthor-designed replacement facility.

In the report, Miranda compares LACMA's assets and debts with those of other leading cultural institutions around the country, finding that the Los Angeles museum is carrying an abnormally high debt-ratio. The worrisome financial situation has already lead to a series of revisions for the project, including a one substantial downsizing.

Demolition of William Pereira-designed buildings gets underway at LACMA

2020-01-14T13:56:00-05:00

Demolition has started to take place at the existing Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art (LACMA) complex, where a collection of buildings designed by William Pereira and Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates are expected to give way for a new structure designed by Atelier Peter Zumthor.

According to Urbanize.la, the institution began to demolish the existing complex as the new year got under way. The existing collection of Late Modernist and Postmodern buildings will be cleared to make room for a new single-level gallery space designed by Zumthor set to span over Wilshire Boulevard to the south.

The controversial plan for the 350,000-squar...

Save LACMA group could challenge museum proposal at the ballot box

2019-12-16T20:48:00-05:00

Save LACMA, a non-profit entity that has formed in response to public outcry against the controversial Atelier Peter Zumthor-led replacement proposal for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) campus, has announced that it is considering placing a ballot measure on the 2020 ballot that could challenge the standing of the project as recently approved.

In a fundraising email sent to the group's newsletter subscribers, Rob Hollman, Board Chair for Save LACMA, writes that the group has recently retained the services of the ballot initiative law expert Bradley Hertz and the Sutton Law Firm, where Hertz is a Partner.

Bird's eye view looking east. Image by Atelier Peter Zumthor & Partner/The Boundary

In the message, Hollman writes, "After thoroughly briefing Bradley on LACMA's situation, and the museum’s insistence on moving forward with demolition of its existing campus to clear space for an unpopular, undersized and underfunded new building by Peter Zumthor, he suggested a bold li...

LACMA overpass maneuver is approved by Los Angeles City Council

2019-12-06T13:41:00-05:00

One of the more contentious elements of the controversial Atelier Peter Zumthor-designed Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) redesign project has been unanimously approved by the Los Angeles City Council.

This week, the Council approved the project's planned span over Wilshire Boulevard, The Los Angeles Business Journal reports. A significant portion of the plan had already been approved by the legislative body, but the overpass element required special approval due to the radical nature of the design and the fact that the building would cross over a public street. The overpass element has been highly controversial in public and critical discourse, and represents an effort on the part of the architects and LACMA Director Michael Govan to create a single-level mega gallery. Criticism of the plan includes a relatively helter-skelter approach to the urban design for the areas surrounding the proposed museum, including Hancock Park, where the museum is located.

Describing the urb...

LACMA fundraising effort stalls as museum turns into a ghost town

2019-11-14T15:45:00-05:00

Money just isn't coming in like it used to. At least, that's the case for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, where efforts to raise $650 million to fund a new Atelier Peter Zumthor-designed expansion have hit a rough patch.

Christopher Knight, American art critic for The Los Angeles Times, provides an update on the fundraising efforts aimed at bringing the contentious (and by Knight's analysis, deeply flawed) LACMA replacement proposal to life. Knight explains that fundraising for the new museum is behind schedule and shows no signs of improvement. To make matters worse, the needed total has unofficially increased by $100 million, according to anonymous sources.

In his Op-Ed, Knight writes, "Over the past 16 months, Los Angeles County Museum of Art fundraising to erect a controversial new building, replacing most of its Wilshire Boulevard campus, has virtually ground to a halt. Four-fifths of the $650 million needed had been pledged by summer 2018, but next to nothing has been ...

Step into a translucent replica of artist Do Ho Suh's NYC home at LACMA, starting next month

2019-10-18T15:45:00-04:00

Drawing from his own experiences of migration, esteemed artist Do Ho Suh is known for his monumental fabric installations that recreate his previous residences around the world, as his way of exploring the concept of home, personal identity, memory, and the architecture of domestic space. Recently, LACMA was recently gifted Suh's “348 West 22nd Street, Apartment A, Unit-2, Staircase” (2011-15). The museum will begin exhibiting the installation at the Resnick Pavilion starting November 10.

Do Ho Suh, Apartment A, Unit 2, Corridor and Staircase, 348 West 22nd Street, New York, NY 10011, USA (detail), 2011–2014, Polyester fabric and stainless steel tubes, Courtesy of the Artist, Lehmann Maupin New York, Hong Kong and Seoul, and MOCA Cleveland. Installation view, MOCA Cleveland, 2015. Photo: Jerry Birchfield.

Do Ho Suh, Apartment A, Unit 2, Corridor and Staircase, 348 West 22nd Street, New York, NY 10011, USA (detail), 2011-2014, Polyester fabric and stainless steel tubes, Apartment A, 2...

In Los Angeles, institutions build, but they can't plan

2019-07-12T18:34:00-04:00

“We have this museum district,” says architect and theorist Dana Cuff, who oversees cityLAB, an urban research and design center at UCLA, “but the stuff that holds everything together is the part we call the city, and that is the part that Los Angeles has never gotten right.”

Carolina Miranda of The Los Angeles Times reports that despite a number of new and forthcoming institutional expansions coming to the Miracle Mile museum district in Los Angeles, the area's urban design is sorely lacking.

The problem, according to Miranda, is worse by the fact that the designers and directors of the forthcoming building projects, which include Atelier Zumthor's Los Angeles County Museum of Art overhaul, have largely ignored a planned subway extension slated for the district.

Miranda writes, "all of the development raises concerns about how the architectural pieces—and, more important, the public spaces around them—will come together after the last nail has been banged into place."

Dana Cuff of UCLA's CityLAB tells Miranda, “There is no there there,” adding, “there is no urban design that has been created for this chunk of Wilshire that will be one of the most pedestrian and populated parts of the city.”

'So far, I see no difficulties:' Peter Zumthor comments on his revised LACMA proposal

2019-07-05T13:34:00-04:00

Last week, Zumthor spoke about the project for the first time since museum officials presented a new plan in April. In an interview in the Zurich newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung first spotted by art writer William Poundstone, journalist Sabine von Fischer asked Zumthor about the controversy surrounding the museum’s proposal, and why the design has endured so many major changes.

Curbed Los Angeles quotes the Swiss architect from his recent Neue Zürcher Zeitung interview: "Zumthor’s early experimentations within the grid-like limitations of the existing site left him unable to 'establish a meaningful relationship with the various architectural and urban elements' on the LACMA and the La Brea Tar Pits campuses. The 'Black Flower,' Zumthor’s name for the original amoeba-like design, solved the problem, he said. 'When I began to respond to it with a free building form, we made the breakthrough.'"

Asked if the controversy surrounding his museum redesign bothered him, Zumthor revealed to the NZZ that LACMA director Michael Govan had told him that it was unnecessary for him to read it. "You do the design, and I'll do the rest, he said."

Model of future LACMA campus now on display

2019-06-28T19:27:00-04:00

The newest design for the LACMA campus, masterminded by Swiss architect Peter Zumthor, has received more criticism than your average museum expansion. LA Times writer Christopher Knight had some choice words about the futile nature of the proposal while Kate Wagner has dismissed it as little more than "a museum that benefits nobody and satisfies none of the needs of the art in its collection, nor of the public that will view it."

Model of Lacma Campus on display at LACMA. Photo by author.

In response, LACMA has dedicated a space to the exhibition of the new plan with a 15-foot model built in Zumthor's studio. The site model is a single slab of molded cement, reproducing several blocks of the Miracle Mile with abstracted precision to focus attention on an all-white volumetric model of the LACMA addition.