Not to worry, Gowan said, we’ll just pop in extra entrances if and when we need them. — Los Angeles Review of Books
Veteran architecture critic Joseph Giovannini writes a long format, meticulous, repetitious, detailed, campy, foxy, fundamental, accurate, conjectural, civic, economic, organizational, institutional, back of the house, sobering, exemplifying, nerdy and most serious to date criticism of LACMA Director Michael Govan commissioned and Swiss architect Peter Zumthor designing/designed/perpetually preliminary plans for LA's most extensive museum which considered architects like Mies van der Rohe early on and Rem Koolhaas in 2004. Existing museum was designed by William Pereira in 1968, later remodeled by Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates in early 80's with recent additions by, who else, Renzo Piano, the Museum Man.
I wish Giovannini had given more hi-end decision-making board of trustees 0.1% dirt instead of talking about pancakes and curves repeatedly. Of course, his secret architect allies are not saying a word.
3 Comments
Yay! for long form!
BOO! for the first half being filled with so much pointless rhetorical hot air!
As for the second half?
dunno yet, wasted my time on the first.
provisional summary: well, LACMA isnt giving us any details, so im gonna trash what i havent seen based on not getting what i wanted from what i have seen, which is bad because i have described it as bad using negative adjectives and some pretty sweet turns of phrase..
. . .but i haven't read the whole thing, of course . . .
and did you know Le Corbusier was an anti-semitic fascist? Its true. I read it on the internet. And duchamp didnt like art you viewed with your eyes, so we cant have a one-story museum, even though its not one story.
This is why we can't have nice things anymore....
He lost me when he compared the plan to a big box WalMart... really reaching hard for that analogy, think its the 20,003 time i've heard that go-to museum plan description.
inspired, the architect says, by the adjacent tar pool
[falls off chair laughing]
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