Meeting Place of Museum, Merchandise

The recent opening of the temporary home of the Craft and Folk Art Museum (CAFAM) in the May Co. department store on Wilshire Boulevard raises some issues concerning museums and landmarks against the backdrop of a changing and challenged Fairfax District.

As for the temporary museum being tucked away on the store’s fourth floor, it is a delight, particularly the colorful, playful entry designed by architecture icon Charles Moore, with an assist by Steve Dumez and UCLA’s Urban Innovations Group (UIG). The effect is inviting.

Also engaging is the current inaugural exhibit space, styled by Joseph Terrell of the interior design firm of Alcasar Terrell, featuring objects from CAFAM’s permanent collection. These include an exquisitely carved rocker by woodworker Sam Maloof, skeleton mariachi figures by Pedro Linares and contemporary lighting fixtures by Ron Rezek. The diversity dazzles.

The May Co. will be the museum’s home while a much-needed larger facility is built a few blocks away as part of an imaginative mixed-use 21-story tower, consisting of the museum, stores and office space on the lower floors, topped by 66 condominiums.

The commercial and residential development of the air rights will help subsidize the museum’s operations.

The project--which in preliminary design marks the southwest corner of Curson Avenue and Wilshire Boulevard with a cylindrical tower crowned with what looks like a large crystalline sculpture--is being developed by the Ratkovich Co. in association with the museum.

The architectural team is Richard Weinstein and UIG, assisted by the firms of Gensler and Richard McGee and associates.

Construction is scheduled to start early next year, with completion in late 1992. That, of course, is assuming the project wins the necessary approval, beginning with a request for a zoning adjustment this Tuesday.

Let’s hope the various review bodies involved appreciate the creative effort by the development and architectural team, and grant the necessary approvals.

Meanwhile, the temporary museum has been attracting large crowds since its opening two weeks ago.

“Merchandising and museums are obviously a nice fit, especially crafts and folk art, since so many of the objects are produced for consumption, and therefore are very accessible” observed Patrick Ela, CAFAM’s executive director.

Terrell, who has designed numerous museum installations in a distinguished career, thinks CAFAM’s experience raises a larger issue concerning cultural facilities.

“I believe there is a good argument for less imposing museums--museums that are not monuments for architects or mausoleums for donors--and more modest facilities within the fabric of everyday life that don’t intimidate people,” he said.

Terrell noted the success of satellite exhibit spaces of museums in office buildings in New York and in what he described as cultural malls in Japan.

“Just think, if there also were in the May Co. store vignettes of the Contemporary Art, County, the Getty, the Norton Simon and other museums, how exciting it would be, and how many more people could experience and appreciate art,” he said.

His remarks prompted the thought that instead of expending so much money on new and expanded facilities in these days of dwindling public funds and threatened landmarks, cultural institutions should consider renovating and utilizing existing buildings, or more simply improving the quality of education and assisting needy artists and art organizations.

But that most likely would not satisfy the edifice complex of those in position and power.

CAFAM’s efforts are a compromise of sorts. The new facilities are not set off on a distant hilltop or behind a maze somewhere. Rather, they will be integrated into a real environment, albeit at a slight loss of an architectural identity. But there will be a decided benefit in the museum’s economics and accessibility.

Meanwhile, the popular success of the temporary facilities makes a strong argument for a continuing outreach exhibit space in the May Co. store.

As noted by Terrell, as well as Ela, the store is ideally located, near a variety of diverse communities in an increasingly urban neighborhood that is scheduled in

the next decade to be served by Metro Rail.

“Changing museum exhibits, however modest, would lend an extra dimension to the store and to the area,” Terrell said.

Helping also is that the building is one of the city’s more distinctive Streamline Moderne-styled structures.

Its massive, four-story, gold leaf-glass encrusted tower (supposedly representing a sleek perfume bottle), framed by two flanking wings of black granite, form an anchor to the Miracle Mile Historic District. It was designed by the architectural firm of Albert C. Martin & Associates and built in 1939.

Making Terrell’s suggestion particularly pertinent, the May Co. building is threatened with demolition under a major redevelopment plan proposed for the area by the Forest City Properties Corp.

The plan calls for two new office towers, one on the site of the May Co., a 600-room hotel, 2,139 new apartments and 381 congregate living units to be added to the already existing 10,000 apartments in the neighboring Park La Brea.

However, the required draft environmental impact report of the plan submitted by the developer failed, in the opinion of local community groups and various city offices, to adequately address the issues of density and traffic, and, among others, how the May Co. building might be saved.

As a result, the report is being amended. The hope here is that the plan will be radically amended to, among other things, preserve the May Co. building.

Complicating the situation is that also being circulated now is a draft environmental impact report for yet another major project in the Fairfax District, this one developing the Farmers Market property for an ambitious mix of retail, residential, commercial and hotel uses.

Happily, the existing Farmers Market would be preserved, along with the historic Gilmore Adobe.

Both projects have their sweet and sour aspects, not unlike a heaping portion of heavily flavored stuffed cabbage served at one of the appealing ethnic eateries in the neighborhood.

The plans also are heavily flavored, and, like a portion of stuffed cabbage, time is needed for their proper digestion, along with, no doubt, a nice glass of hot tea to cut the grease. That is on next week’s menu.