Letters: Save the tar pits

Re “A natural question,” Aug. 15

Let’s ignore the ruin made long ago of the coherent original design for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Let’s ignore Wilshire Boulevard’s forbidding monster with stripes in public-toilet green. Let’s ignore the drawing for the new museum, which looks as if a tarp was dropped over other buildings.

Instead, let’s talk numbers.

How many sites are there for museums? How many other ways does the city vitally need to spend money, including on the arts? How many good deeds could be done by donors with museum rebuilding money ?

While those are being determined, let’s count how many places on the planet have tar pits like the one in Los Angeles. That’s easy: One.

Should we encroach on the La Brea Tar Pits, even a tiny bit?

Michele Hart-Rico

Los Angeles

LACMA had to go to Switzerland to find an architect to re-imagine and redesign our museum — because? This goes to the heart of one of our great Los Angeles dysfunctions: Euro-New York centrism.

It is hard for me to believe that between L.A.’s many great architecture institutes, we have not been able to cultivate our own first-rate architects. This is rhetorical because of course we have, but for some reason we hold onto this “look eastward” mentality.

We Angelenos are quite distinct as a species. Why do we not respect our own talent, landscape and history? I suggest this reason: Many of the people who run our institutions are not Angelenos. When they move here, they too often carry a belief that they are bringing “culture” to the hayseeds of the West.

If LACMA must knock itself down, at least use an Angeleno to rebuild it.

Karla Klarin

Santa Monica

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