Design and Architecture
Berggruen Institute, 'Condemned to Be Modern'
Billionaire philanthropist Nicolas Berggruen has likened his planned research center in the Santa Monica Mountains to a secular monastery. Swiss architecture firm Herzog & de Meuron is designing it. What is the Berggruen Institute, and will the building please the neighbors? And in Condemned to Be Modern at LA Municipal Art Gallery, artists from Cuba, Brazil and Mexico examine the legacy of modernism.
By Frances Anderton • • 28m ListenPhoto: A rendering of the Berggruen Institute in the Santa Monica Mountains. (Herzog & de Meuron)
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2 storiesBerggruen Institute: Herzog & de Meuron's 'secular monastery'
A rendering of the Berggruen Institute in the Santa Monica Mountains Image courtesy of Herzog & de Meuron There's an ambitious plan for a site high in the Santa Monica Mountains, west of the 405 and just north of the Getty. Nicolas Berggruen, the billionaire investor and philanthropist, plans to build the Berggruen Institute , a research…
Read the story21 minCondemned to Be Modern
Alexandre Arrechea, Havana, 2015 Image courtesy Galeria Nara Roesle In the late 1950s, the art critic Mario Pedrosa said that Brazilians were condemned to be modern. He was writing about the country's love for everything new. That also applied to Brasilia, the modern architectural city designed by Oscar Niemeyer that became Brazil's capital in…
Read the story6 min
