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Peter Zumthor released new renderings for his LACMA redesign last week, and boy are people not impressed! We talk about the "undercooked" look of Zumthor's snaking concrete inkblot plan for the museum, and experiment with a new segment devoted to ranting on the podcast. You've been warned.Listen... View full entry
On a newly-launched website, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art has released renderings of the proposed Peter Zumthor-designed building, which would replace four existing buildings designed by William Pereira. In total, the new building, prosaically named the Building for the Permanent... View full entry
It once seemed like a herculean, if not insurmountable, challenge – raising $600 million or more for an ambitious modernist building to serve as the new home for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
Skeptics abounded when plans were first announced three years ago. But momentum now seems to be shifting in LACMA's favor with the announcement this week of two major donations that will push the fundraising campaign near the halfway point.
— Los Angeles Times
The donations together amount to the largest the museum has ever received. Elaine Wynn, a major collector and co-chair of the museum, pledged $50 million. Former Univision chairman A. Jerrold Perenchio has promised to give $25 million for the project.Both donations hinge on the successful launch... View full entry
We swear, no BIG or Trump on this episode. We discuss the donation of Lautner's breathtaking Sheats-Goldstein house, complete with jungle, nightclub and infinity tennis court, to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, to become the museum's first acquired piece of architecture (along with a sizable... View full entry
I want the house to be an educational tool for young architects, and I want to inspire good architecture for Los Angeles - James Goldstein — LATimes
In a most generous move, public in Los Angeles is assured to have access to a masterpiece designed by legendary architect and maintained by its colorful owner Jim Goldstein who dedicated a good part of his living to the healthy survival of the house."Even though he had the Concannon Residence... View full entry
L.A. has always been a place of experimentation, but now it appears to be in an architectural arms race, a competition to build the tallest, shiniest, and weirdest buildings. Adding to some Angelenos’ trepidation is how many of the projects popping up around the city are museums—built to last for 40 years or more, which is an eternity in a city known for knocking things down. — LA Magazine
Related:Is Zumthor's inkblot the right size for LACMA's art?Urban blight: a review of the Petersen Automotive MuseumThe Broad Museum opens its doors for a look beyond the veilTurn the 2 into housing (or a park or a solar array): Christopher Hawthorne's pitch for one of LA's most awkward freeways View full entry
Students and professionals nearly filled up the Bing Theater at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art on Tuesday night to listen to guest lecturer Caroline Bos, co-founder and principal urban planner of UNStudio. Bos spoke about UNStudio’s design process that continues to shift even after her... View full entry
Amelia Taylor-Hochberg, Editorial Manager for Archinect, reviewed "Shelter" the debut exhibition at the Architecture and Design Museum’s new location in Los Angeles' Arts District. Despite what you might assume "Shelter isn’t about designing for the 21st century family, or the millenial, or... View full entry
While the LACMA's retrospective of Frank Gehry is based off a previous show organized last year at the Centre Pompidou, Musée National d’Art Moderne, its Los Angeles locale (plus an additional gallery not present at the Paris show) provides a different context. Some critics took a fawning... View full entry
On September 15, Ma Yansong, Founder and Principal Partner of MAD Architects (Beijing, Los Angeles), will speak at LACMA as part of their Distinguished Architects Lecture Series.According to the press release, Yansong will discuss several forthcoming projects including the Harbin Cultural... View full entry
Many have challenged the logic of a Swiss building in Los Angeles [...]
In a sense, all of the criticisms can be boiled down to a single accusation: quality architecture does not belong in Los Angeles. [...]
Contextualism in Los Angeles requires more innovation than matching roof heights or aligning cornices; its ecology is one of large and oversized cultural objects that act as signposts amid sprawl.
— lareviewofbooks.org
Situating LACMA in "master builder" Peter Zumthor's career overall, architects Sharon Johnston and Mark Lee (of the LA-based firm Johnston Marklee) discuss what distinguishes his work in a city with a somewhat confused attitude towards icons and context.More on Zumthor's LACMA:Is Zumthor's... View full entry
Julia Ingalls reviewed "Work on Work" the current exhibition at Los Angeles’ Architecture + Design Museum, co-organized by Gensler and UCLA’s cityLAB. Therein she writes "This feeling of being at an un-airconditioned business conference is not helped by the next section of the exhibit, in... View full entry
“I hate to throw things away,” explained the Pritzker Prize-winning architect Shigeru Ban to a packed audience at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art last night. On the projection screen, one of his first works as an architect was displayed: an exhibition of the work of Alvar Aalto, who Ban... View full entry
What will Zumthor's plan do for the museum's art and its audience? An art museum presents our histories in visual form; is LACMA making room for enough stories? [...]
Los Angeles is one of the world's four major centers of art production. Yet the museum has no permanent-collection galleries that tell a California-authored story of contemporary art. [...]
The proposed Zumthor building is also awfully expensive given its modest gain in exhibition space.
— latimes.com
Not to worry, Gowan said, we’ll just pop in extra entrances if and when we need them. — Los Angeles Review of Books
Veteran architecture critic Joseph Giovannini writes a long format, meticulous, repetitious, detailed, campy, foxy, fundamental, accurate, conjectural, civic, economic, organizational, institutional, back of the house, sobering, exemplifying, nerdy and most serious to date criticism of LACMA... View full entry
