LACMA by Zumthor: An 'Inkblot' on the Landscape

If you head West on that ride, the endpoint will be the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, which right now is itself the subject of a PSTP exhibit, "The Presence of the Past: Peter Zumthor Reconsiders LACMA." The exhibit's restrained title masks the surprise you get on seeing the show. In addition to plans and models telling the story of the site, dating back to prehistory and the tar pits, the main event is towards the back of the Resnick Pavilion -- a huge dark gray concrete model of a dramatic new building being proposed for the site, by Swiss architect Peter Zumthor, that has been described variously as an "inkblot," an "amoeba" and a "black flower."

In the first of an ongoing look at this project, architecture reporter Edward Lifson and LACMA director Michael Govan give us a brief history of the site and how the new building would remake this part of Wilshire.