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| ZGF Architects' Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center. Photo: Hunter Kerhart Architectural Photography, 2025 |
Construction of the California Science Center's Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center is now virtually complete. Some viewers may find ZGF Architects' stainless steel-clad structure uncomfortably derivative of Frank Gehry. But maybe an homage is justifiable. Gehry's first big public commission was the California Science Center's Air and Space Gallery (1984), the building that the Oschin Center effectively replaces. Closed for decades, the old Air and Space Gallery, with a fighter jet projecting from the exterior, is just steps away. It launched Gehry's career even as So. Cal's aerospace industry crashed and burned.
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| Exterior of Frank Gehry's Air and Space Gallery with Lockheed F-104 Starfighter |
Comments
> industry crashed and burned
Speaking of crashing, LA and the science museum in 2025-2026 has an interesting parallel with LA and the science museum back in 1984, when Gehry's work in Expo Park premiered.
New York Times, November 11, 2025:
In Hollywood, commercial advertising has long been overshadowed by the
far more glamorous film and television work….Just like television and film shoots, though, commercial production in Los Angeles has plummeted. Production in the third quarter of this year was 18 percent lower than last year, and 40 percent lower than the five-year average, according to a new report from FilmLA, the local government organization that tracks production in the area.
The exterior of WD Hall has no fundamental connection to the inside. The skin of the building is just an ornamental envelope.
That's what the Oschin Center exposes. You can recreate WD Hall with some ribbons of stainless steel. Had the cladding of the new OCMA been stainless steel, it too would have seemed derivative. As it is, that building did not escape criticism about its empty shell.
To see how things might be better done. Compare Walt Disney Hall to DS+R's US Olympic Museum. The facade there twists and expresses on the outside the circulation patterns inside the building. Or, look at Zumthor's LACMA. The building is designed inside out. It's done so well that what there is of a facade (the ribbon of glass) seems almost unnecessary.
In many ways, Gehry's earlier work was more authentic. In the Aerospace museum next door, the struggle to break through the box is evident on the inside and outside. The same struggle is evident in his Santa Monica house. The initial design for WD Hall was like that too, but something changed...
--- J. Garcin
How did it "burn"?
The LA metro still has the highest employment level for Aerospace Engineers.