Las Vegas Museum Names Architect
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| Kéré Architecture, rendering of Las Vegas Museum of Art |
Supporters of the planned Las Vegas Museum of Art have named Diébédo Francis Kéré as architect of the institution's 90,000-sf, $200 million building. This week Las Vegas city council formally approved use of the site, adjacent to Symphony Park, for the museum. The project has drawn praise in Las Vegas and fire in Los Angeles for LACMA director Michael Govan's pledge to lend that museum's art and installations to the Las Vegas museum.
The choice of Kéré is out of Govan's playbook. Like Peter Zumthor, Kéré is a Pritzker-prize-winning architect (2022) who has never done a major building in the U.S. Born in Burkina Faso, Kére is the principal of Kéré Architecture in Berlin. His work is known for sustainability. The LVMA rendering combines elements of the African desert and Las Vegas's boomtown architecture. Kéré says he drew inspiration from the "tranquility" of Los Angeles architect Paul Revere Williams' nearby Guardian Angel Cathedral, a mob-funded icon of mid-century modernism.
Elaine Wynn, the Las Vegas museum's principal financial supporter, called it "a personal legacy of giving something back to my city." But she told the New York Times that "she does not see the museum as a future home for her own collection." The high point of the latter is a $143 million Francis Bacon triptych of Lucian Freud.
The museum's opening is penciled in for 2028.
Comments
If LACMA plans to leave no core of its collection perennially on display, then why not let Vegas take some goodies that would otherwise be in LACMA's storerooms? That strategy could even be considered a public good.
> smaller, it's also lacking the exhibition
> space to display new works
It's going to be a TikTok/Instagram museum, so in a way "Las Vegas" fits "LACMA" and "LACMA" fits "Las Vegas." It's also increasingly a museum of contemporary art, and (per LA Times) not a very good one at that.
i have a suspicion that when Govan's/Zumthor's building opens, all the floor-to-ceiling windows of the building's perimeter will make LACMA seem even smaller, less substantial, more compromised. But views looking out over the street or park, etc, will be enjoyable - or distracting - like the blinking, shiny lights of a Vegas casino's signs are. That's being both sarcastic and serious.
Again, for the TikTok generation (and short attention spans), the new LACMA will be just what the doctor ordered.
> is due to Urban Light.
Given the fountains associated with certain cultural institutions, including the former ones of LACMA's design from 1965, I recall thinking Chris Burden's installation would be somehow flat, not popular or enjoyable. Although water provides kinetics that stationary objects lack, Urban Light ended up as a better calling card than I originally estimated it would. That's why I reserve final judgment of Zumthor's building----for the museum's sake, I do hope it's successful.
As for water, LACMA's Hello Girls by Calder, dating back to 1965 had better return. But if Govan hasn't bothered with that, then his work with Peter Zumthor will be flat, TokTok or not. There's plenty of space under the pylons of his building for a water feature, and pavement is lifeless. For comparison, the Lucas museum is supposed to have some large water features.
Maybe it lacks the prestige because it has way too much work on display that probably should not be. If they can loan a lot of that out, both museums can benefit with one having a tighter collection and the other having things to display. It's not too much of a commitment from LACMA. And future directors can always choose to cut ties.
> incorporating water features in its
> development?
The carrying capacity of resourceful humans is surprisingly high. If I had been around over 60 years ago, I'd have assumed that by the 2020s oil and gasoline supplies from and for the US would have been greatly depleted. I just saw this and am totally surprised, even dumbfounded:
> March 11 (Reuters) - U.S. crude oil production
> lead global oil production for a sixth straight year,
> with a record breaking average production of
> 12.9 million barrels per day (bpd), the Energy
> Information Administration (EIA) said in a
> release on Monday.
BTW, the LA area saw a lot of oil production over 60 years ago. There was/is a well-known oil well not too far from LACMA, which I believe is now concealed by a shopping center. I'd have assumed that oil pump would be dried up long before today.
That makes me think of what's going on in Dubai of the United Arab Emirates. In the past, I'd have assumed such a dry, hot, desolate part of the world wouldn't manage what has occurred there over the past 20-30 years.
In turn, what's going on in cities like today's San Francisco (ie, not Detroit or Baltimore, etc, but SF) would have been unimaginable even 10, much less 50, years ago. So never say never.
> surrounds the metropolis.
The ocean off the Eastern Seaboard, btw, is both warmer & has generally smaller waves. Some complain that, compared with the sea around Florida or further north, the water of coastal LA is too cold to be enjoyed. But that's sort of a buffer since it discourages hurricanes---they're fueled by warm water. Coastal LA (not so much inland) may have the most temperate climate in the US, although users of backyard swimming pools will disagree.
My principle inquiry is: Does it rain?
Per Wiki,
Average yearly precipitation (in mm) for selected cities in North America:
Phoenix...183
LA 362
Detroit...872
Chicago...1,038
New York City...1,258
Miami...1,712
The geyser fountains originally in the moat of 1965-era LACMA did give a kinetic energy to the museum's tract-house layout.
Meanwhile, the Mirage Hotel's fake volcano was recently demolished. That hotel is being partly torn down to make way for a rock-'n-roll-themed hotel. An art museum mixed in with such things is analogous to LACMA's new building having floor-to-ceiling windows as a distraction for the visitor.
Although I flinch about what Lucas/Zumthor/LACMA are doing, I'm really curious how things turn out. So I very much hope for the best, but I'm also preparing for the worst. Peter Zumthor has already stepped away from taking full responsibility for his design, which he implies has been value engineered.
As for water and LA, although ancient Romans did create huge aqueducts to bring water to Rome, the technology of artificial irrigation (eg, LA's William Mulholland and the movie "Chinatown") does make the LA Basin and its large population a test case in the history of Mediterranean-type climates.
I disagree. Every kid deserves fine art as a school trip. Vegas is that region's logical venue.