LACMA isn’t trying to sell fancy condos, it’s trying to sell an art museum. This isn’t about safe deposit boxes in the sky for foreign oligarchs, this a building that will require contributions from art patrons and museum donors, and these renderings speak their language. [...]
More David Hockney than Zaha Hadid, they evoke a feel rather than architectural facts.
— peopleplacesspaces.com
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So Hawthorne says the renderings look "undercooked" and Douglass-Jaimes says they are just right ... but none of them produce anything more than anecdotal evidence to back up their claim.
Why investigate when it's so easy to speculate?
Isn't starchitecture a business founded on vagueness? Not an attack on Zumthor, as I really respect his work. As with many things these days, I just don't see controversy here.
Eventually these discussions come down to taste. You either have it or don't. I think it's nice. I'm guessing the critics just want a digestible narrative other than "tar pits" which makes as much sense as most of the B.S. These days. Being inspired by natural forms seems better than some faux-contextual narrative B.S. By the Rem Babies.
EI, I think the 'investigation' should consist of understanding past Zumthor office representation methods and how they relate to the completed, built project. It establishes the pattern I guess.
I appreciate the writer's connection of the LACMA renderings back to the Serpentine Gallery renderings. It's an important connection, and helps illustrate Zumthor's typical means of representation, which have NEVER been hyper-realistic. They are vague in material, form etc., but consistently specific in feel. Here's another example of the representation vs. the built project:
The specificity between the feel of the representations and the built outcome is consistent across many of his projects. They might read as vague to someone used to hyper-real renderings, but I would argue they are always quite specific in feel / experience.
It is very sad that an architect like Zumthor, who hasn't really produced a dog of a project in his life (unless I'm missing one), is being second-guessed like this over the realism of the renderings. IMO it's a total misreading of his work. Sure, LACMA is the largest, most expensive, and possibly the most complex project of his career, in a climate and context he hasn't worked in before. These issues are questions for me, and I'm excited to see if Zumthor can do it. However, I don't see a reason for the hand-wringing after some marketing renderings, or even concern based on the design at this point.
Sorry for the long post.
I tend to agree with those saying this is a lot of fuss over nothing. I just wish someone would have actually investigated something. You know, call up someone in Zumthor's office and ask some questions ... get a quote or two. Call up the client and ask them some questions ... get a quote or two.
However, I suspect if you did, both the client and the architect would say, "Really!? The rendering style is what you care about? Isn't there a better story to be told here?" So instead all we have is a bunch of people speculating and putting way too much (undeserved) focus on the renderings.
One could investigate in that manner too, but I would assume the client would have nothing but good things to say for the sake of the $$$, and the architect, like most architects, would be able to rationalize anything. It would have helped to provide some depth to the articles, you know, like a journalist - I agree with you.
As I mentioned before, I think the most helpful method of investigation is just understanding Zumthor's office's approach to representation in the past - the previous drawings and models are what I would call 'evidence' illustrating the approach and how computers have been used (or not) in Zumthor's studio over the years. If Chipperfield's office produced drawings like this, the project and the process would be a lot more suspect IMO.
Oh well, I'm still excited to see the project and how it relates to Wilshire, Los Angeles and the art.
I think it's profoundly disingenuous to state that these are about feel rather than fact, when the feel has been so highly manipulated. It's commonly understand that certain liberties are made with regards to concept level renderings in general, but the insistence with the LACMA renderings on an unbelievably bright and warm undercroft borders on comical. For my money, they are specifically manipulated to mitigate the criticism that the undercroft will be dark, overbearing, and lifeless. The most egregious example being...
Not everyone here has been criticizing the renderings. I do not like the design they represent. I am highly familiar with Zumthor's work and with his previous renderings. Just because someone is an amazing architect doesn't mean that person is incapable of producing a bad design in his/her career.
I love LACMA, my family has been members forever, I know the space and the surrounding urban fabric intimately and this plan appears ungainly and awkward not only for the city context but for the museum interiors as well.
If you're going to raze the Pereira work and guve yourself tabula (nearly) rasa you should be able to come up with something more cohesive and inviting than this limiting sinew.
Also, just about the only part I like so far is the overpass. Yes it will be dark underneath--but as someone always looking for shade on the streets of LA, that sounds great to me. And it will make a nice billboard for the museum.
Exactly, mantaray. The design itself sucks. To say that just the renderings do is juts a matter of decency. I hope this design never gets built.
Zumthor is an amazing architect, but this "design" just shows that he cannot scale up.
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