Posted on by codylee

LACMA update

LACMA campus and La Brea Tar Pits. Image credit: Monica Almeida, The New York Times.
LACMA campus and the La Brea Tar Pits alongside Wilshire Boulevard. Photograph by Monica Almeida, The New York Times.

We recently explored LACMA’s new campus plans – codylee.co/lacma.
In short, architect Peter Zumthor has designed a massive new pavilion to replace a dysfunctional set of older buildings. However, officials from the Page Museum identified that Zumthor’s new building could encroach upon and damage the adjacent La Brea Tar Pits, which are an active paleontological research site with important deposits of Ice Age-era fossils.

Today, revised designs show Zumthor’s amoeba-like building sparing the tar pits and instead spreading across Wilshire Boulevard. This is insane bold.

LACMA campus update, with the original plan in shown in dotted lines and the new version in solid lines. Image via Atelier Peter Zumthor & Partner.
LACMA campus update, with the original plan in shown in dotted lines and the new version in solid lines. Image via Atelier Peter Zumthor & Partner.

The extension across Wilshire would be next to the landmark Variety building where LACMA executives moved into 14th and 15th floor offices last year. It would bridge Museum Row, connecting the Page Museum, LACMA, and the Academy Museum on the north with the Craft & Folk Art Museum, Architecture & Design Museum, and Petersen Automotive Museum on the south.

Museum visitors would have aerial views onto Wilshire, and drivers would have views into the building while they suffer through the neighborhood’s notorious traffic. Perhaps walking through the museum’s six-lane span will complement the experience of walking under Levitated Mass on the other side of the campus. In the meantime, Angelenos are already thinking of disaster-related hashtags to describe the impending street closures.