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 raised since."
The news of faltering fundraising efforts comes as the project receives the green light from the Los Angeles City Council to use the air rights above Wilshire Boulevard to span over the street. The highway-like overpass represents one of the most contentious aspects of the design outside of the project's proposed demolition of the William L. Pereira- and Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates-designed facilities that currently occupy the site.
Describing the situation further, Knight adds, "LACMA’s crumbling infrastructure is a genuine predicament. But weak philanthropy, a longtime but misleading L.A. stereotype, is not the reason the museum’s funding campaign has stalled. Instead, the weakness is in a poor idea that has met escalating costs."
Archinect contributor John Southern recently shared his thoughts regarding what museum's steady progress might mean for Los Angeles after attending a discussion between LACMA Director Michael Govan and University of Southern California Dean Milton Curry.
In his essay, Southern writes: "While it was a remarkably informative evening, Govan’s discussion with Dean Curry was a sad reckoning for me in that I realized that L.A. has stopped being the city that dares to dream and take architecture to the limits of rationality. Gone is the messy urbanism that gives birth to an art acropolis hovering over a lake of methane, and with it a challenge to the status quo (architecturally speaking, anyway). I believe that we have entered L.A.'s post-rational period, where cultural institutions are governed by bean counters, lawyers, and social media marketeers, and where the chaos of the growling metropolis has been caged in a concrete pen—appealing only to the Instagram crowd who will continue to blithely occupy Chris Burden's Urban Light in their fleeting attempts to remain immortal."
This project, much like Hudson Yards in New York City seems to represent an even more egregious assault on common sense than it did in 2001 with the presentation of LACMA's initial Rem Koolhaus-designed, radical reinvention because the economic and political climate has changed so. The cultural elite who govern a (quasi-) public institution like LACMA - typically promote bricks and mortar of significant design as the ultimate in civic trophy creation. In more certain times the projects can be important contributions to civic life. Not right now, however. Now, especially given the lagging support of those who pushed this project over the "finish line," it appears to be morphing into a vanity project of great arrogance, eclipsing the case for a saner, environmentally friendly and mission-focused project that promotes collection care, growth and display and the recognition that LACM thrives because of its accessibility to a broad swath of the public. A less instagram-friendly project design accomplishes those goals might be less exciting than the innovative Zumthor project, but culture is a long game, and $700 million is a lot of money, especially now when the "swamp" appears to be overtaking our notion of civic responsibility and service.
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Voting with your wallet. Let's hope this shitty design is abandoned in it's entirety. Although what will likely happen is a scaled down version to reduce costs. The Tar Pits are a fitting metaphor for this.
Maybe Scorcese could write an Op-Ed in the LA Times, lamenting the loss of great architecture, and the death of drive-in movies?
The lack of publicly released floor plans and the supposedly flexible plan makes me suspect that it is all set to be shrunk without much detriment to the "design". What LACMA is going for is essentially a $600m warehouse.
$700m. And if they wanted a warehouse they wouldn’t be reducing the sf by 10,000.
The waste in Govan's scheme is mind-boggling. A vast sum of money will be spent to destroy LACMA's present physical plant and replace it with something that is less by all measures.
Right. But Govan is a big fan of open warehouse exhibitions with no fixed themes. I’d love to see just where that $700mil is going - an inordinate amount on structure just for that span?
Yes, plus the cantilevers on all sides, giant panes of glass, and whatever fancy concrete mix and surface finish they are going to try to achieve here.
From the renders released so far, which are the only reference available to the public apart from the abstract models, the results seem underwhelming for the money spent.
This project, much like Hudson Yards in New York City seems to represent an even more egregious assault on common sense than it did in 2001 with the presentation of LACMA's initial Rem Koolhaus-designed, radical reinvention because the economic and political climate has changed so. The cultural elite who govern a (quasi-) public institution like LACMA - typically promote bricks and mortar of significant design as the ultimate in civic trophy creation. In more certain times the projects can be important contributions to civic life. Not right now, however. Now, especially given the lagging support of those who pushed this project over the "finish line," it appears to be morphing into a vanity project of great arrogance, eclipsing the case for a saner, environmentally friendly and mission-focused project that promotes collection care, growth and display and the recognition that LACM thrives because of its accessibility to a broad swath of the public. A less instagram-friendly project design accomplishes those goals might be less exciting than the innovative Zumthor project, but culture is a long game, and $700 million is a lot of money, especially now when the "swamp" appears to be overtaking our notion of civic responsibility and service.
Nicely put.
Civic responsibility died decades ago, if not longer. LACMA designs by both Rem and Zumthor are evidence of the Pritzker Effect (a.k.a. ”My shit doesn’t stink”).
It's not hard to imagine why people aren't excited about this building. I wonder if they polled prospective donors. From the street, it is merely two slabs sandwiching a lot of glass, and almost nothing else. No hooks, no elaboration, no articulation, nowhere to get a sense of self or place, of local and world identity. It's not even wild and wooly. From above, it is just a blob.
In a sense, it is non-architecture. Zumthor has pared down almost everything to the point it almost isn't a building. And I can see it being valued for that esthetic.
But what is it about? It's not about being a cultural landmark. It's not even about being a museum, and I've expressed my skepticism about how well it will function as one. As transparent as it is, it doesn't break down walls to bring art out into the world—the pictures will only appear as tiny squares from the plaza, from Wilshire.
It's not about anything, except maybe someone's vaulting, abstract ambition and a diminished sense of who we are.
Govan wanted the Dia:Beacon in LA. Unfortunately he opted to construct a $700m warehouse to achieve that effect.
I've never been convinced by the "For the sake of art" arguments but this building doesn't even look remotely Instragammable.
Current estimates by the LA County Treasurer has placed the cost of the new LACMA at up to $900 million and is seeking to cap the county's commitment and protect it from overruns.
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