Wind-Whipped Art Museum Reception Is a Moveable Feast

A black-tie dinner Thursday celebrating completion of phase one of the Newport Harbor Art Museum’s building campaign weathered a last-minute change of venue--from wind-whipped tents on the corner of MacArthur Boulevard and Pacific Coast Highway (the new museum site) to the Fluor Corp. cafeteria in Irvine.

Guests enjoying a protracted cocktail reception marveled that the event had been switched so deftly from one site to another in the space of only 4 hours. But the main course wasn’t served until 10 p.m., and by the time featured speaker Frank Hodsoll, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, finally began his talk, he was almost drowned out by loud, convivial voices, and several tables full of guests already had departed.

Earlier in the evening, museum Board of Trustees President M. Rogue Hemley told the group of about 550 museum supporters that more than $10 million has been raised from trustees “and our close friends” for construction and operation of a new, $20-million museum on the 10.5-acre site pledged last year by the Irvine Co.

The event marked the official transfer of the land, which had been contingent on raising $10 million in private funding, an amount equal to the value of the site.

Hemley joked that the capital campaign for the building “goes public tonight, but there will be no stock offering.” Subsequent phases of the campaign must raise an additional $10 million for the building and $20 million for an endowment.

David S. Tappan Jr., chairman and chief executive officer of the Fluor Corp., declared that “when the museum is dedicated 3 years from now, it will join South Coast Repertory and the Performing Arts Center as the third leg of a cultural triangle for Orange County.”

Donald Bren, chairman of the Irvine Co., drew appreciative laughter when he recalled earlier tenants of the future museum site, a drive-in restaurant called Meryl’s and another eatery called the Zoo, which had “a full-grown gorilla” beckoning people to stop.

“Eating was only part of our agenda,” Bren continued. “This was a great spot to meet, to visit and to watch the world go by. This has always been the gateway to Newport Beach.”

In his remarks, Hodsoll said that Bren’s company’s gifts to the museum--which also include $1 million to underwrite a decade’s worth of exhibitions-- constitute “a magnificent piece of philanthropy, an inspiration to philanthropy across the country.”

Hodsoll, whose current agenda for the National Endowment is heavily focused on the importance of arts education, singled out the museum’s education program, which served 30,000 people in 1987. He reminded his listeners that “the silence of objects on the wall is a barrier to many people.”

Before the event, which was sponsored by The New York Times, museum architect Renzo Piano talked informally about the most recent evolution of his ideas, noting that schematic designs won’t be ready until late March, 1989.

The building will consist of four “fingers” or halls grouped closely together, with a “street” or corridor running through them. A series of gardens will allow “nature to penetrate the building,” he said. Drawing a parallel with the quiet courtyard of the mission at San Juan Capistrano, Piano said the museum building would “protect” the gardens like “an envelope.”

Visitors would drive to an elevated “flying carpet”--the 20-foot-high roof of the museum, pushed into the hill leading down to Coast Highway--and descend into the interior, dropping “into a sort of magic world.”

The roof will be made of precast concrete, the walls underneath will be stone and elsewhere there will be “a lot of glass.” Asked about color, Piano said it will be largely “the color of the light, filtered by nature”--altered by the type of plants in the gardens.

Of his apparent ability to let his ego take a back seat to the dominant role of art in a museum, Piano said: “A minimum of humility is a necessity. Otherwise you make a self-celebration.”