The Blob that Ate Wilshire Boulevard...CritiCally assessing Peter Zumthor’s proposed...
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49 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD NOVEMBER 2014 perspectivecommentary CritiCally assessing Peter Zumthor’s proposed 400,000-square-foot redo of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art— or indeed any major project in progress —is a risky enterprise. A sizable privately developed urban project that primarily serves the public tends to get people riled up. All that is much more so these days, since New York’s Museum of Modern Art, of which LACMA might be a West Coast quasi-equivalent, has harmed its reputation because of two highly interventionist building cam- paigns, the first by Cesar Pelli in 1984 and one by Yoshio Taniguchi in 2004. Under no circumstances should the gigantism, commercialization, and appalling design judgment that has ensnared MoMA poison another major museum, and certainly not one as important as LACMA. Designs are not buildings. Designs are not even half buildings. Designs are promises, flashbulbs of an idea. This past summer, Zumthor exhibited a newly revised design at LACMA, a black The Blob that Ate Wilshire Boulevard Architect Peter Zumthor talks about the evolution of his design for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art BY SARAH WILLIAMS GOLDHAGEN 6TH STREET WILSHIRE BLVD 5 6 4 3 2 1 Peter Zumthor says his design for LACMA has developed in the months since the museum released his revised scheme in June 2014 (left and below). 1 LA BREA TAR PITS 2 PAGE MUSEUM 3 PAVILION FOR JAPANESE ART 4 BROAD CONTEMPORARY ART MUSEUM 5 RESNICK PAVILION 6 LACMA WEST (THE FORMER MAY COMPANY DEPARTMENT STORE) concrete-and-glass Rorschach inkblot of a building raised 30 feet off the ground, oozing this way and that around the La Brea Tar Pits, with one part bridging Wilshire Boulevard before landing in a parking lot across the street. However prematurely, we must still try to understand and assess this work, because it is surely one of this country’s most important current civic projects. How to proceed, then? By trying to understand Zumthor’s design process, that’s how. This happens to be a topic that he and I have discussed several times over the course of many years— most recently this past summer, at his exquisite country home in Leis, Switzerland, about a 90-minute drive (depending upon the strength of your stomach) from his office in Haldenstein. Zumthor begins most projects with an in-depth analysis of the site, of which he builds one or more large models. From there, he works slowly, and he works iteratively: once, he told me that for the Swiss Sound Box pavilion (Expo 2000, in Hanover, Germany), it took him nearly two years to come up with the 22 “rules” guiding the design. The design concept is only a start. Zumthor revisits it repeatedly, rethink- ing the site plan and its program, considering multiple structural solutions, visiting and revisiting the circulation system and the configura- tion of the interior spaces. Then he rethinks it all again. Long after most architects of his stature (he won the Pritzker Prize in 2009) would have handed off drawings to design associates, leaving them mainly in charge, Zumthor is still thinking. This can go on for some years. Our recent conversation confirmed that whatever gets built will be different— indeed, might be quite different—from IMAGES: © GARY EBNER (TOP, RIGHT); ATELIER PETER ZUMTHOR & PARTNER, (TOP, LEFT) JUNE 2013 JUNE 2014
Transcript of The Blob that Ate Wilshire Boulevard...CritiCally assessing Peter Zumthor’s proposed...
49architectural record november 2014 perspectivecommentary
CritiCally assessing Peter Zumthor’s proposed 400,000-square-foot redo of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art— or indeed any major project in progress —is a risky enterprise. A sizable privately developed urban project that primarily serves the public tends to get people riled up. All that is much more so these days, since New York’s Museum of Modern Art, of which LACMA might be a West Coast quasi-equivalent, has harmed its reputation because of two highly interventionist building cam-paigns, the first by Cesar Pelli in 1984 and one by Yoshio Taniguchi in 2004. Under no circumstances should the gigantism, commercialization, and appalling design judgment that has ensnared MoMA poison another major museum, and certainly not one as important as LACMA.
Designs are not buildings. Designs are not even half buildings. Designs are promises, flashbulbs of an idea. This past summer, Zumthor exhibited a newly revised design at LACMA, a black
The Blob that Ate Wilshire Boulevardarchitect Peter Zumthor talks about the evolution of his design for the los angeles county museum of artBy Sarah WilliamS GoldhaGen
6TH STREET
WILSHIRE BLVD
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6
4
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2
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Peter Zumthor says his design for LACMA has developed in the months since the museum released his revised scheme in June 2014 (left and below).
1 LA BreA TAr PiTs
2 PAge MuseuM
3 PAviLion for
JAPAnese ArT
4 BroAd
ConTeMPorAry
ArT MuseuM
5 resniCk PAviLion
6 LACMA WesT
(The forMer
MAy CoMPAny
dePArTMenT
sTore)
concrete-and-glass Rorschach inkblot of a building raised 30 feet off the ground, oozing this way and that around the La Brea Tar Pits, with one part bridging Wilshire Boulevard before landing in a parking lot across the street. However prematurely, we must still try to understand and assess this work, because it is surely one of this country’s most important current civic projects.
How to proceed, then? By trying to understand Zumthor’s design process,
that’s how. This happens to be a topic that he and I have discussed several times over the course of many years—most recently this past summer, at his exquisite country home in Leis, Switzerland, about a 90-minute drive (depending upon the strength of your stomach) from his office in Haldenstein.
Zumthor begins most projects with an in-depth analysis of the site, of which he builds one or more large models. From there, he works slowly, and he works iteratively: once, he told me that for the Swiss Sound Box pavilion (Expo 2000, in Hanover, Germany), it took him nearly two years to come up with the 22 “rules” guiding the design. The design concept is only a start. Zumthor revisits it repeatedly, rethink-ing the site plan and its program, considering multiple structural solutions, visiting and revisiting the circulation system and the configura-tion of the interior spaces. Then he rethinks it all again. Long after most architects of his stature (he won the Pritzker Prize in 2009) would have handed off drawings to design associates, leaving them mainly in charge, Zumthor is still thinking.
This can go on for some years. Our recent conversation confirmed
that whatever gets built will be different— indeed, might be quite different—from iM
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