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.
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.
In October 2017, when the project received much criticism, Piano shared with former LA Times architecture critique Christopher Hawthorne, "I cross a bit my fingers. It may work. We shall see." However, here we are four years later, and the project is finally complete. In addition to its spherical addition, the museum campus is connected to a restored Saban Building (formerly known as the May Company Building).
"Leading up to the opening, the Academy Museum has planned a series of virtual programs kicking off in April 2021 around the Oscars®," shares the Museum. An exciting lineup of exhibitions and collections is to be housed within the Museum. LA-based interdisciplinary firm wHY Architecture has spearheaded the Museum's gallery design will cover three floors of the newly renovated Saban Building.
Visual renders provided by wHY Architecture last year showcase a set of exhibition spaces that intend to "engage people at all levels." wHY's Creative Director, Kulapat Yantrasast, shared last April, "you can come in, enjoy a quick montage of scenes from iconic movies, or spend hours exploring the craft of costume design or the history of animation."
Bill Kramer, Director and President of the Academy Museum shares in a statement, "when we open, our programs will also come to life in our theaters and in our public spaces to deepen the visitor experience. Our screenings, panels, symposia, and educational programs are key components of how our visitors will interact with the museum and learn about filmmaking.”
To view more photos of the completed museum campus see below.
14 Comments
I drove by this a couple of weeks ago, excited to finally see it. Unfortunately, it didn't particularly impress in the midafternoon light, up close. Maybe I was expecting too much...
it feels very late 90s. or maybe 70s.
It looks like a giant bio-mechanical alien tick, extending its feeding appendages to suck the life-force out of the poor May Co. building.
The May Co. building looks great, btw. They did a nice job restoring it.
Not a big fan of spherical buildings like these architecturally, no matter how delicately detailed and put together. They don't respond to their context and are always inward facing and self-centred, perfect analogy of Hollywood actually, so Piano nailed it!
have you seen the building across the street? this one is too good for its context!
Yeah, fuck that context...so here's Bigness: https://politicshyperwall.files.wordpress.com/2017/10/koolhaas-rem-bigness-1994.pdf
I do like how the glass sphere overlaps the concrete sphere...
yes, thats cool, perhaps the overlap couldve been a bit lesser ... seems very wasteful
Does anyone care about how a buillding performs, or is sculptural appearance the only thing that matters?
Renzo's work is invariably and objectively high performeance. Appearance is entirely subjective.
As mid pointed out, viewing this building in context is critial to aesthetic evaluation.
it's hard to judge performance from pictures though, and when there is clear data there isn't much to talk about. the fun is in discussing the subjective.
What, no leaks?
Speaking of context, the building across the street (the Petersen's auto museum), even though lame fits the LA cultural context entirely. This one somehow does not. However, we are so starved for good civic architecture in LA, that anything is welcome (except Zumthor's turd coming up in close proximity)
The mismatch between form and function is the principal reason why this project is hundreds of millions of dollars over budget and years behind schedule. Piano interest is in rhetorical performance as an aesthetic device, less so how things actually work.
It's not unique to his practice of course, just an observation that his genius is more around getting people to pay for his buildings and honor his vision, and less so that he has some special magic that allows performance and aesthetics to harmonize efficiently.
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