Oschin Center Tops Out
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| Image courtesy California Science Center |
Construction of the Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center—housing the space shuttle Endeavor—has topped out, reports the California Science Center. The $425 million project by ZGF Architects is expected to be completed in mid 2025.
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| Rendering of Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center. Courtesy California Science Center |
Comments
I watched a video yesterday about Egypt's new national museum, which is partly open and soon to be complete. I'm amazed at how very impressive things like that are in today's world. That has altered my impression of LACMA, if not other museums in LA too. So what was okay or passable, say, 20-50 years ago really doesn't really cut it nowadays.
The museums in Paris, as another example, observe what's going on in other cities and say, "Hold my beer."
In any case, the Zumthor building and GEM have more in common than you think:
(1) Both are not hermetically-sealed white boxes.
(2) Both engage with the outside to broaden the user experience.
(3) Both use processional spaces as display spaces (terrace galleries at LACMA and stairways at the GEM).
(4) Both filter the outside light in ways that mark the passage of time.
In my opinion, the Zumthor building does these things better than the GEM. The facade of the GEM shows how a lesser architect cannot handle the complexity of designing a building inside/out.
> outside to broaden the user
> experience.
My hunch is Zumthor's building will contain windows that are unnecessarily intrusive or overdone. Since they'll also apparently come with draperies makes me think they may end up giving a flaky or frivolous quality to the museum.
If LACMA had as many great sculptures or non-light-sensitive objects as the Egyptian museum does, then all the perimeter square footage would be more versatile. But something about this makes me think of the narrow space in the old Ahmanson Gallery, when the atrium was open and display areas wrapped around it:
https://unframed.lacma.org/sites/default/files/attachments/135_20231129_3Z7_9233.jpg
However, If Zumthor-Govan's-Geffen's new wing gives as impressive a first impression as this video implies of what's going on in Cairo, it will be a success:
https://www.youtube.com/live/h_YUnXwoTCM?si=ZzO3nFHVnRP5IoCn