Quote of the Day: Carolina A. Miranda
"When architect Yoshio Taniguchi designed an expansion for New York’s Museum of Modern Art in the early aughts, he famously told the trustees that if they raised enough money, 'I’ll make the architecture disappear.' Zumthor’s galleries will follow you home and haunt you."
Comments
I find myself now hoping that a reviewer really likes the Geffen/Zumthor/Govan building. But, hey, opinions are like the proverbial butthole. Everyone has one and they all stink. lol.
G. Garcin has implied that unless an observer really likes the Geffen, he or she must be a [quote, unquote] rube. Since critiques of almost anything almost always range from good to negative, plenty of people must be rubes.
A LACMAonfire blog entry a few years ago referred to the 1965-1986 LACMA in non-complimentary terms. At the time, I felt defensive about that viewpoint. That's in spite of knowing for a long time the Pereira-1986 buildings weren't praised. But since they reflected the support of hundreds of major donors, including the Ahmansons, Hammers, Bings, etc, those buildings - good or bad - symbolized a thumbs up.
I wonder what the details of the early 1960s were when Richard Brown presumably worked with William Pereira in creating an art museum, something which most other American cities had already done. Since Brown favored Mies van der Rohe, I had the vague (and probably very wrong) impression the former director therefore never tweaked whatever designs came out of Pereira's studio.
When Brown was terminated by LACMA's board not long after 1965, I now wonder if that was because a lot of people overseeing the museum were unhappy about his work with Pereira. There were basic flaws in Pereira's blueprints that even people not into the look/format of early 1900's Beaux-Arts buildings (eg, Richard Brown?) should have been able to detect.
The 1965 buildings forced LACMA into the wrong direction for decades, That caused money to be wasted on renovations and add-ons in the early 1980s and then in 1986. Govan spent (and also regrettably wasted) money on modifying the 1965-1986 campus, including installing a new staircase in the Ahmanson Gallery.
Then there were waste of funds on projects like this:
https://lacmaonfire.blogspot.com/2008/07/lacma-opens-latin-american-galleries.html
> Is LACMA curator Virginia
> Fields speechless over
> Jorge Pardo's redesign of
> the Arts of Ancient America
> rooms?
^ That alone made me want to see the Art of Americas building torn down. Actually, in 2020 I still felt a slash-and-burn approach to the older campus was too extreme. Again, that was due to caution about LACMA's budget, a respect for the museum's donors since 1965, and a "waste not, want not" outlook.
I also didn't realize what museums like the one in Houston with its Moneo-designed galleries of 2020 had managed to create, much less what many cities (both large and small) throughout the US had built in the early 1900s.
Mea culpa.
Yet, here she is, bloviating about things she does not understand.
She's a hack.
--- J. Garcin.
No, she's a rube. lmao.
tomteicholz.substack. com:
Before the demolition of the former William Perreira campus and its buildings, LACMA had a long wall that listed donors to the museum. It was not a list of the super-rich (although there were some) but rather included hard working long time residents of Los Angeles who believed in Los Angeles having a major art museum.
It included names you might recognize such as Harvey Mudd, and others you wouldn’t such as my brother-in-law’s parents, Sam and Frances Myman. That wall is gone. I do sincerely hope that it will either return or that a new locus will be found that lists and remembers those donors. Erasing them is a grievous mistake.
Then we could have created a serviceable venue to display one of the world's greatest art collections. Right now, it's little better than an E.R. waiting room.