 |
| Peter Zumthor's David Geffen Galleries. Photo: Hunter Kerhart Architectural Photography |
Urbanize L.A. has new photos of LACMA's David Geffen Galleries. A bird's eye view shows the final shape of the building.
Architect Peter Zumthor revised the shape throughout the building's long gestation. At various times the design has been compared to a blob, an ink blot, a tar pit, a flower, a Jean Arp abstraction, and a calligraphic slash. Carolina Miranda likened the ultimate (2019) design to the cartoon antlers of Bullwinkle J. Moose. The aerial photo appears to show some adjustments in the form of more angular contours for the northwest and south ends (top and left in the photo).
 |
| 2019 design |
 |
| Photo: Hunter Kerhart Architectural Photography |
Comments
Raw, gray concrete is not my favorite look for the surface of a building. I also notice there are recessed lights on the underside of the Geffen's overhang roof. They will require a cherry picker forklift for future maintenance. After a building grows older and older, features like those are notorious for being poorly maintained or outright ignored, particularly if a budget gets squeezed.
Ground-based floodlights are way easier to access and maintain. But the ones of the LA Superior Court building in downtown LA, completed in 1972, have long been switched off and abandoned. So if Paris is the city of lights, LA is the city of broken-down properties.
I hope the brutalist concrete format of the Geffen/Govan/Zumthor Galleries in future years is treated with some respect. The building will also need way more window washing than typical museums require. Budget: Ka-ching!
I'm being snide right now, but I really hope in the next few months I'll have to eat my words. Then when next year rolls around, I hope I'll really have to do that.
But if the building is a success, could not a second floor be added in the future?
I'm all for the above philosophy, but I'm also enough of a pragmatist that I probably would have gone with a multi-story design with more space.
I don't think it was a matter of not having the money. With a second floor they could have avoided bridging Wilshire and probably saved a little money.
Adding a second floor to the Geffen would be like adding a few more spirals to the Guggenheim! I can't imagine the architecture/design community standing for that.
*
Further, for the avatar's edification: Small countries could fit within the walls of DIA:Beacon. So, Mr. Garvan, the comparison is preposterous.
Please tell me it still has a home there.
Not enough money is often the reason various types of projects end up second rate. But things like allocating way too much space since 2020 in the Resnick for temporary exhibits of contemporary art certainly didn't cost less than having non-modern-contemporary artworks from LACMA's permanent collection on continuous display.
If the Geffen Galleries end up way too compromised, at least don't be dishonest about what led to that. I'm looking at you, Michael Govan---and LACMA's Board of Trustees.
They better at least patch up things with the Ahmanson Foundation.
> visitors on the upper floors than the
> lower floors so it’s often about how
> the space is used.
Exactly. Bingo.
> Govan has said that one of the
> great failings of the (demolished)
> Ahmanson building is that few
> visitors made it to the third floor,
When a tourist from Minnesota several years ago posted a negative review of LACMA and compared it unfavorably with the Minneapolis Institute of Art, I went ouch. But I knew from a superficial standpoint (ie, MIA's collection ain't necessarily all that much better) that person was correct.
William Pereira's buildings from 1965 and all the add-ons since then sure didn't conjure up visions of a Louvre, much less a MIA. So something had to be done. But the Zumthor building may not answer that problem as well as it should have. Hopefully that won't be the case.
However, I suspect the outcome will be a mixed bag, in the tradition of the museum's opening in Hancock Park 60 years ago.
With Ahmanson financial input, perhaps that could allow for accession of better-quality pictures, such as Getty's recently purchased GD Tiepolo portrait. The likes of that work, at present, are beyond LACMA'S reach, evidently.
When the original buildings were torn down in 2020, Govan and his people made no effort to have LACMA's collection of artworks from before the 2000s or 1900s on continuing display. Only modern and contemporary works were given that consideration (or honor).
Maybe one can claim they were required to do that due to Eli Broad's stipulation for the building he funded in 2008. But did Lynda Resnick for her wing have a similar requirement? (Hint: she's known to favor pre-1900's European art.)
That's why all the stuff in the Resnick Pavilion (built to house special, temporary exhibits) for the past 5 years devoted to modern/contemporary has been an extra slap in the face.
So, yep, LACMA is a "de facto museum of contemporary art, but not a very good one."
Who knows where she is now? The NYT did NOT scoop her up.
Speaking of which, it is no coincidence that all of the recent, feature articles on LACMA have appeared in the NY Times. The cultural critic at the LA Times has been relegated to trolling LACMA and feeding his fellow trolls. See above. Given how bad his takes have been, it would be poetic justice if he went down with the ship of fools.
To be sure, the museum director now needs to turn his attention to finding a benefactor who will support major acquisitions. The Ahmanson has never supported the acquisition of a major painting.
> has been relegated to trolling LACMA
> and feeding his fellow trolls.
LOL. You don't happen to be the "Save LACMA mob," "MAGA mob" or yadda-yadda person?
Regardless, when I see the debating points of people who have an opposing POV, and turn to ad-hominem or irrelevant comments, that's when I know something is amiss on their side of an argument.
Which is why I'm worried the Geffen Galleries will end up being William Pereira 2.0. But instead of features like an open atrium that eventually has to be walled off, the Zumthor building will have way too many windows, not enough wall space. Or spaces that are better for TikTok selfies and Instagram moments instead of a more serious viewing of artworks.
Whatever the case, when I see dullards like you talking about things they don't understand I know that the only argument they will understand is an ad hominem argument.
Why bother reasoning with idiots? Reason is not innate. And, you can't argue with stupid.