With a grand opening just a little over a week away, the Orange County Museum of Art (OCMA) has revealed the latest photos of its Morphosis-designed new South Coast home in the beachfront community of Costa Mesa.
Located on the campus of the Segerstrom Center for the Arts, the 53,000-square-foot museum will be inaugurated with five special exhibitions and 24-hour celebrations to honor the work that went into its design and three-year-long construction.
“The OCMA design represents a new model for museums based on public, urban, communal spaces with strong connections between interior and exterior,” Morphosis principals Thom Mayne and Brandon Welling shared.
“Engaging the urban realm with a public stair and ‘storefront’ galleries, the design invites visitors through sunlit atrium spaces, open galleries and an expansive sculpture terrace. The strong relationship in the building between indoor and outdoor space will encourage visitors to immerse themselves in the celebrated climate of Southern California, where light, air, and space have influenced generations of artists.”
The exterior grand staircase is an homage to New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and, as outlined above, serves as the base of the public areas, connected to the Segerstrom campus and large upper plaza roof terrace that doubles as an additional exhibition and performance space.
Another “dynamic” exhibition space is situated above the museum’s light-infused atrium, providing views of the grand stairs and lobby. Inside, the expanded galleries offer twice the amount of exhibition space as the museum’s previous Newport Beach location.
Museumgoers can cap their visits with a stop in the second-floor Verdant café, which offers gourmands a selection of plant-based California fare. Finally, the structure is clad in glazed terracotta panels that aim to undulate in conversation with the formal language of the campus’ neighboring architectural designs.
An exhibition focused on National 9/11 Memorial designer Pete Walker will highlight the new slate of special exhibitions, along with the return of the California Biennial.
Board President Lucy Sun said CEO Heidi Zuckerman and the rest of the curatorial team have “put together a brilliant and wide-ranging program to open our new home,” adding that “these five exhibitions pay tribute to our illustrious past, while offering a glimpse of what people can expect from the new [museum].”
“We welcome all to our new home,” Zuckerman emphasized finally. “We believe access to art is a basic human right, and so our new building beckons the many communities of Orange County and beyond to come and explore and make art a part of their lives.”
Following a ribbon-cutting ceremony on October 7th, the public celebrations kick off the next day with a 24-hour party that commences at 5 p.m. PST.
7 Comments
Plans, sections, and details please when available! Some of those connections look tough to detail.
TF am I actually looking at? did anyone who worked on this even get paid?
Amazing that people still pay for this fun house style.
We just added plans, elevations, and sections we received from Morphosis to the image gallery.
it's all fun and games until you need to display the art.
Thank you for finding and posting the drawing set, Archinect. This is a real service for a number of reasons.
The information is important, because it shows that --despite what appear to be disappointing forms and uses of materials --the plans and sections show a reasonably competent layout and organization. So the bones are good but the formal and spatial overlay fails to surprise or inspire-- at least to this architect. Maybe the patrons and visitors will overrule me.
Also, and with apologies for being persnickety, Costa Mesa is easily a coastal community, but 'beachfront' it is not. A look at property values there vs adjacent Huntington and Newport (or a map) would quickly confirm this.
Agreed. All the architectural exuberance appears mostly skin deep (and focused on just one side/above entrance, too) with internal gallery layouts/walls looking pretty standard. So hanging art shouldn't be too difficult.
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