But that’s not the only upheaval on Museum Row. “Neverbuilt’s” Sam Lubell walks us through the changes underway at the former May Company building, LACMA, where director Michael Govan and Swiss architect Peter Zumthor hope to replace all the Pereira-designed buildings and the Art of the Americas building with a 340,000 square feet undulating “inkblot”: and on the Southeast corner of the Fairfax-Wilshire intersection, the Petersen Automotive Museum, formerly a department store designed by Welton Becket, is soon to be swaddled in metal ribbons. Could we soon find the Fairfax-Wilshire intersection looking very different — and very curvy (see images below)?
NOTE: Since this segment was recorded, LACMA is reported to have changed the configuration of its design, to steer clear of the La Brea tarpits, instead weaving its way across Wilshire.
Image above, rendering looking southeast at the proposed museum for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; shown, architect Renzo Piano proposes to connect an auditorium in a “spaceship” to the former May Company building which occupies the northeast corner of the Fairfax-Wilshire intersection. Image, below, photo of the former May Company building, looking north and northeast.
Image above, rendering showing view east of the proposed “wrapping” of the Petersen Automotive Museum designed to evoke speed by architect Eugene Kohn of Kohn Pedersen Fox; image below, photo looking east of the Petersen Automotive Museum, located on the Southeast corner of the Fairfax-Wilshire intersection in a former department story designed by Welton Becket.
Image above, photo looking Northwest of model of architect Peter Zumthor’s proposed “inkblot” of a building intended to take the place of LACMA’s Art of The Americas building and all the buildings originally designed by William Pereira; image below, photo looking Northeast of LACMA.
Images collaged by Sean Habibi.