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When it finally opens on Thursday, the new Academy Museum of Motion Pictures will do so in a similar vein to so many of this year’s star-studded fall releases. The $484 million museum’s first act will be as a barometer for an industry looking once again to pack theaters and captivate audiences... View full entry
The long-awaited Academy Museum of Motion Pictures is finally opening its doors. The museum announced that timed advance admission tickets will be available through its website or app beginning August 5 in time for its opening on September 30, 2021 in Los Angeles. The Renzo Piano-designed... View full entry
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... View full entry
The much-heralded opening of the opening of the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles has been rescheduled from 30 April until 30 September of next year [...]
Los Angeles is in the grip of restrictions imposed by the state as coronavirus cases soar, making it difficult to envision greeting visitors as museums currently are closed due to pandemic concerns.
— The Art Newspaper
"We are putting the final touches on our stunning exhibitions and public spaces, and while we were ready and eager to welcome visitors in the spring, with the current surge of COVID-19, it would be irresponsible to maintain an April opening," said Bill Kramer, Director and President of the Academy... View full entry
Slowly, slowly, LA's new Academy Museum of Motion Pictures is inching towards its anticipated completion. The LACMA-adjacent, Renzo Piano-designed 300,000 square-foot museum campus on Wilshire Boulevard was forced to push back several official opening dates — most recently, the December... View full entry
Despite many construction projects being put on hold across the U.S., some regions, including Los Angeles, have continued on with business as usual. Word of the LACMA demolition came to light during the second week of April, while a neighboring project is also making progress. In the weeks... View full entry
The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures claimed the Oscars stage Sunday to tout its own forthcoming premiere: The long-delayed, much-anticipated Los Angeles museum devoted to filmmaking will open Dec. 14.
...The announcement ends some of the suspense surrounding the $388-million Renzo Piano-designed project, which has been a drama unto itself, its storyline filled with infighting, fund-raising difficulties, cost overruns and delays
— Los Angeles Times
According to the Los Angeles Times, most of the major structural work for the museum has been finished, but mechanical, electrical, and plumbing details including HVAC, elevators, and alarms, still need to be wrapped up. the museum will house 50,000 square feet of exhibition space... View full entry
Contrary to plans previously announced by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures will not open in 2019, or any time prior to the 92nd Oscars on Feb. 9, 2020.
The $388 million project on the site of the old May Co. department store on the Miracle Mile, which was first announced in 2012, was initially slated to cost $250 million and open in 2017, but it has been delayed several times now.
— The Hollywood Reporter
Rendering of the completed Academy Museum. Image: © Renzo Piano Building Workshop/ © A.M.P.A.S./ Images from L’Autre ImageThe Hollywood Reporter published a statement released by the museum last week: "The Academy Museum's intention is to create a unique and unparalleled museum experience... View full entry
"I cross a bit my fingers,” Renzo Piano told me. “It may work. We shall see.”
We were standing inside the concrete shell of the main auditorium of the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, an ambitious but troubled project that after a series of delays is expected to open in 2019. [...]
Construction workers hammered away all around us, producing a ring of noise that occasionally made it tough to hear Piano, who at 80 speaks more softly than he once did.
— Los Angeles Times
LA Times architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne dissects Renzo Piano's third Southern California project, the troubled Academy Museum of Motion Pictures which — plagued by delays and controversy — is currently under construction right next to his other two completed buildings, the... View full entry
The film academy on Wednesday drummed up excitement for its forthcoming museum on the Miracle Mile, releasing a batch of new renderings [...]
Pritzker-Prize winner Renzo Piano and architecture firm Gensler are restoring and reworking the Streamline Moderne-style department store built in 1939 to house a 288-seat cinematheque and spaces for exhibitions, an entire floor devoted to an “Oscars experience,” restaurants, and special events.
— Curbed LA
Sitting right next to Renzo Piano's other LA projects, the expansion buildings for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the new — and not entirely uncontroversial — film academy complex on Wilshire Boulevard is further coming along. While construction of the 130-foot tall 'bubble' theater... View full entry
“People used to complain that people went to New York to buy what they could buy in LA,” said Kathy Halbreich, the associate director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. “I don’t think that happens anymore. I think there’s a recognition that the city matters, that the people aren’t just there for the weather. You see a level of ambition that’s been ratcheted up.” — theguardian.com
A few minutes after sitting down to talk with Renzo Piano in his large, airy Paris studio Tuesday, I asked the architect about the progress of the film museum he is designing for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on Wilshire Boulevard.
"The academy?" he asked. "Ha. The academy is a good story.
"Look, I know you don't like that scheme," referring to my recent coverage of the design.
"I don't think it will be that bad. Actually, I'm struggling to do something good."
— latimes.com
"And so, you know, having named my son after him, what was I going to do? Of course I said yes." — The Architect's Newspaper
The Architect's Newspaper has an insightful interview with Zoltan Pali about his firm's decision to "consciously uncouple" with Renzo Piano's firm on the design for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts museum project. It's not always easy when you get matched up with someone, even if you've named... View full entry
I really like it. I don't get the hate for the sphere. I think it will be a cool space to enjoy in person, vs. just looking at drawings. - reader comment (NeutraFilmmaker67) — Curbed
Not that LA is so pristine with its architecture, mainly disliked and condemned by the form gendarmerie, the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures is looking better. It might be the ever so missing link which will tie-in all the disparate parts of LACMA from Fairfax eastward, even Zumthor's blot if... View full entry
Though Piano has taken several passes at the sphere, it hasn't coalesced into a convincing set of architectural ideas. The theater design remains gimmicky, alienated rather than emerging confidently from its site, as Piano's best museum projects do.
By refusing to budge on its construction timeline, the academy is doubling down on the least-promising elements of the design. Sure, some refinements might smooth out some of its more obvious wrinkles. What they won't do is salvage the design...
— latimes.com
