Let's Consider an Alternative to the "Black Flower."

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/culture/la--et-cm-lacma-design20130908,01609488.print.story

Los Angeles County Art Museum Entrance
arcthemagazine.com

Hello Everyone:

Today we're going back to the subject of the proposed redesign of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, only this time we're taking a different approach.  Los Angeles Times art critic Christopher Knight proposed using the factory model for the new LACMA instead of using Peter Zumthor's proposed "Black Flower" design.  In Mr. Knight's article, "Zumthor's LACMA design has potential, but think of the factory model," published on September 7, 2013, Mr. Knight suggests that instead of spending $650-million on an architecturally ambitious design Michael Govan, the museum director and his board should try the one of the following:

Proposed redesign for LACMA
designboom.com

1) Hire an able engineering firm to build a big and strong factory or warehouse.

2) Engage a talented architect to retrofit an existing factory or warehouse to accommodate the specific needs of an art museum.

3) Open it to critical acclaim and public enthusiasm.

This isn't really rocket science when stop and think about it.  What it really is simply adaptive reuse.  It's not novel and has had success both here in Los Angeles and in Europe.  According to Mr. Knight it's a relatively quick and inexpensive way to put up an aesthetically pleasing art museum.  Let's look at some examples, shall we.

Geffen Contemporary (Temporary Contemporary)
metro.net

Our first example is the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, originally called the Temporary Contemporary.  Designed by local architect Frank O. Gehry, the space opened in 1983 in Little Tokyo, original intended by the newly organizing Museum of Contemporary Art to be a temporary exhibition space.  Well, thirty years later, it's become a permanent museum for contemporary art.  The Geffen Contemporary was the former home of the 1947 Union Hardware buildings that were minimally renovated by Mr. Gehry.  The warehouse proved such a hit with the art museum going public that they wouldn't hear of closing down the space in favor of an architecturally less ambitious, albeit new, MOCA building on Grand Avenue.

Hallen für Neue Kunst
de.wikipedia.org

Soon after, the success of a rehabilitated warehouse-turned-art museum happened in Europe.  The Hallen für Neue Kunst (Hall for New Art) in Schauffhausen, Switzerland.  The rehabilitated textile factory made its debut as a museum for a private collection.  This was eventually followed by Mass MOcA (1999), a refurbished textile and electronics factory and the Tate Modern (2000), which has become one of London's most visited museums, took over the defunct Bankside Power Station on the Thames.  Michael Govan's own former employer, Dia:Beacon, opened in 2003, is housed in a former box-printing facility in upstate New York.  The real question is how does rehabilitating an old factory or warehouse make for a successful and viable art museum?  How do they function as hospitable places to view art?

Christopher Knight readily admits that some factory and warehouse spaces are not suitable spaces for viewing art.  However, Mr. Knight does point out that most these spaces are more than adequate for art museums.  What was the lesson that Mr. Knight learned?  Again, he readily admits that since art is produced in industrial spaces, it would stand to reason that they would look great in similar environments?  After all, MOCA, Mass MOcA, Hallen fur Neue Kunst, the Tate Modern, and so forth are dedicated to modern and contemporary art (there is a difference) so why wouldn't an ancient Graeco-Roman statue or an Old Dutch Masters painting look good in a warehouse?  Mr. Knight guesses that they would probably look fantastic in an industrial space.  Yours truly could definitely imagine the Venus de Milo or a Pre-Raphaelite painting in the Arts District in Downtown Los Angeles.  It would make them seem a little rarefied.  Yours truly does agree with Christopher Knight's assessment that great art works in any great space.  All that's required is good lighting and a bench to sit down every now and then.

Instead of fretting about the architecture of a museum or other cultural space, the emphasis should be on the content. Here's a point that we both agree on.  Adaptive reuse is not something that's come about recently and only suited for loft/condominium conversions and cultural spaces.  It's been applied towards schools and offices spaces in places around the world.  Industrial spaces are the most flexible and functional type of spaces.  Like Mr. Knight, yours truly believes that the merits of an industrial space-turned-art museum are based on the content then on similarity of building type.  Industrial spaces speak the language of the everyday-the vernacular.  Art does not.  Yet, the contrast between the vernacular and the rarefied speaks, as architect Robert Venturi so succinctly put it, "the complexity and contradiction" of architecture.

If you want another example of this type of contrast, look only towards Frank Gehry's Bilbao Guggeheim Museum, in Bilbao, Spain.  Mr. Gehry's, historically, has made use of industrial material such as chain link fencing, galvanized steel, and corrugated metal for some genuinely amazing work.  The Bilbao Guggenheim uses galvanized metal to create the undulating curves that echo Frank Lloyd Wright's original design.  However, according to Mr. Knight, what makes this particular art museum a success from an architectural point of view, is Frank Gehry's sensitivity to the commonness of the material.  That's been the hallmark of Mr. Gehry's success.  This not to imply that Peter Zumthor's proposed design is not without it's good points.

Peter Zumthor's proposed design, still in the preliminary stages, references the La Brea Tar Pits in a post-modern way.  The design calls for a raised single story building with undulating wall that avoid the funky curves of the Guggenheim in New York or the doughnut-shaped Hirschhorn Museum in Washington D.C.  Orthogonal rooms are placed within the curvy perimeter, which functions as a glassed in promenade with city and park views.  While Mr. Knight likens the aerial view to the map of Los Angeles, yours truly thinks it refers to the primordial ooze that was the tar.  According to Mr. Knight, the proposed plan builds on the 2001 proposal by Dutch architect Rem Koolhaus.  This design proposed tearing down all the buildings and replacing it with a single pavilion, raised off the ground, covered with a canopy.  Yours truly saw the model and in a word, really?  Like Mr. Koolhaus, Mr. Zumthor recognizes there' no need, other than nostalgia, to keep buildings that function poorly, have been radically altered, and now, require expensive renovations.  Such is the case with the 1965 William Pereira building or 1986 kind of Egyptian gallery designed by Norman Pfeiffer of Hardy, Holzer, Pfeiffer Associates. I always thought the latter was too darkly lit for art and former was not well organized in terms of exhibit space.  So maybe starting over isn't such a bad idea.

Re-designing the Los Angeles County Art Museum also requires creating a lot of smaller interior gallery spaces, something Mr. Zumthor has limited experience in-Kunsthaus Bregenz (1997) in Austria and Kolumba Gallery in Cologne (2007).  While modest in size, they present evidence of the care taken by the architect in the way he approaches his designs.  The currently proposal is a work in progress.  One example cited by Mr. Knight is a vast room that appears to be made of concrete with a floating translucent ceiling that diffuses the light.  The model, at scale, presents a ceiling height of forty feet.  This is very tall for a museum or gallery space, even for large works.  While it's great to get totally absorbed in great art, you don't have to make it a crushing experience.  Mr. Knight speculates that the very tall space could heighten the emotional experience of looking at art or gazing out onto the surrounding landscape.  Personally, it sounds like it might be a slight case of over doing the experience.  Perhaps, again according to Mr. Knight, the most unexpected design element is the color, black.  Yours truly agrees that the color choice does run counterintuitive to beige travertine, granite, marble or the light grey marble.  The precedent for this is the Serpentine Gallery (2011) in Kensington Gardens.  Finally, Mr. Zumthor states that powerful architecture is about atmosphere, not form.  This true for a rehabbed industrial space or any great museum.  The proof is in their success.

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