http://www.latimes.com/entertainment-2013-811,02698525.story
Hello Everyone:
This week we're back to normal, sort of. No I'm not having computer issues again, I have to pay my annual tribute to the state of California for the privilege (cough) of driving (cough). I have to send in my registration and get my bi-annual smog check. For you this means the possibility of another set of sporadic posts. I'll do my to keep on top of things. Onto to today's topic.
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Peter Zumthor
dezeen.com |
Our friend Christopher Hawthorne, the architecture critic of the
Los Angeles Times, really wants everyone in the City of "Angels" to love Peter Zumthor, the architect of record for the proposed redesign of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Mr. Hawthorne wants us to lover Mr. Zumthor so much that he recently traveled to Mr. Zumthor's hometown of Haldenstein, Switzerland, in order to flesh out the man behind the architecture. Christopher Hawthorne describes peter Zumthor as initially reticent but once he warms up to a situation, he can be quite personable. In a way, it's good to meet the man behind the architecture and get a sense of what makes him tick. Quite honestly, I think Christopher Hawthorne is trying just a little to hard to sway the people of Los Angeles to get on board with this proposed redesign of the venerable museum.
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The Serpentine Gallery Pavilion
londondesignfestival.wordpress.com |
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Kolumba Art Museum
bartojmarch.blogspot.com
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What is it about Peter Zumthor, the Basel, Switzerland born and raised son of a cabinet maker that made Michael Govan, the director of LACMA, choose Mr. Zumthor to redesign his museum? Mr. Zumthor, who won the 2009 Pritzker Prize, has in recent years accepted a small number of foreign commissions such as the Serpentine Gallery in London, two years ago, while turning down others. Mr. Hawthorne experienced the Zumthor Atelier designed buildings up close and came to believe that those buildings exposed a central paradox for the proposed LACMA project. It also made him understand the qualities that attracted Mr. Govan in the first place-the human scale, attention to detail and craft, and its deep connection to the European landscape. However, in a blog posted on Planetizen's website on July 25, 2013 by Jonathan Nettler, "Ink Blot or Birdsh**? Museum Design Tests L.A.'s Urban Psyche,"
(http://www.planetizen.com/node/64336), Mr. Nettler asks what will this $650 million makeover contribute to the urban environment?
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Model of aerial view of the new LACMA
designboom.com |
Excellent question Mr. Nettler. Well, Nettler Peter Zumthor's answer to your question is "...the openness of the design, the easiness, the looseness, you can only do in L.A." Jonathan Nettler takes a more pragmatic point of view, "How does it look to a family walking along Wilshire Boulevard?" Will this be an improvement over the current campus? As I've mentioned in previous posts about this very same topic, details like cladding, lighting, landscape, and so forth still have to be worked out. Mr. Nettler seems to agree with Mr Hawthorne that a more porous relationship between the campus and the street and greater visibility of the art work would create more pedestrian friendly experience. One important question Christopher Hawthorne does raise is how will Peter Zumthor
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Detail of Current LACMA
archdaily.com |
meet the challenge of building the largest commission of his career.
Los Angeles has a history of not being a great place to do public commissions such as museums. Jonathan Nettler points out that Los Angeles has a history of neglecting its public spaces. However, this is slowly changing. Emphasis on slowly. Mr. Nettler argues that the city and county should be constructing more pedestrian-oriented environments, especially one close to the proposed "subway-to-the-sea" station. Mr. Zumthor's challenge is to build in an environment that is completely different than his native Alpine valleys and lakesides. It is that deep connection to the landscape that, according to Mr. Hawthorne, that is in danger of being lost. Thus Peter Zumthor will have to really have to consider the museum's connection to the street and, in the greater context, the city itself.
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Steilnesest Memorial
arch2o.com |
That sense of connection to the place, evident in Mr. Zumthor's great works prompts the question, can the architect's sensibility to site and landscape be made portable? Will Mr. Zumthor be like other foreign star-itects making their debut in Los Angeles and fall victim to the complexities and contradictions that is the city? In recent years, the museum has expanded north and west with new buildings designed by Renzo Piano with mixed results. Chris Burdon's installation piece,
Urban Light, makes an attractive forecourt and the Broad Contemporary Art Museum is really an over-large building that turns its back to Wilshire Boulevard and provides a tempting billboard canvas.
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Therme Vals 3
panoramio.com |
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089919-lis-zumthor-0241
movingcities.org |
Mr. Hawthorne poses one final question, will the big question is will Peter Zumthor's proposed redesign of LACMA have the same appeal as the Louis Kahn's West Coast masterpiece Salk Institute? Or will it resemble Rafael Moneo's Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angeles of Isozaki Arata's Museum of Contemporary Art, which he considers subpar architecture. These are fascinating questions and it remains to be seen whether or not the LACMA redesign will fall victim to the complexities and contradictions of Los Angeles or rise to the challenge and be embraced by the city and vice versa. I'm still not quite sure who Christopher Hawthorne is trying to convince, himself or his readers, regarding the viability of the museum make over. As much as he tries to take an objective stance, his enthusiasm for the project seeps through his words. The ultimate test will be once it's actually built and opened. Will it bring the people in or just be another trophy piece? It all remains to be seen.
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