As LACMA celebrates its 50th birthday this week, the project for the museum’s new design by Swiss architect Peter Zumthor appears to be moving forward. But should it?
Joseph Giovannini is an architect and critic based in Los Angeles and New York, and this weekend he wrote a piece for the Los Angeles Review of Books arguing that it’s time to stop the project due to many failings, including its ‘unoriginal’ design and a secretive process that’s allowed the architect to function as an artist.
Michael Govan is the director of LACMA and he explains that many a great building has emerged from a process that provokes a “palpable sense of worry.”