New Look for a Landmark
The old sentinel on the hill is about to undergo major surgery.
After 66 years of public service, Griffith Observatory has been showing signs of age--technology dating back to Eisenhower, scabs sloughing off a once-glowing visage, tired exhibits struggling for relevancy in a new century.
And although the observatory has helped some 67 million people transcend their everyday lives in a vastness of sky that is often obscured in hazy Los Angeles, it is itself woefully cramped.
So after years of planning, city officials will close the observatory for more than two years, beginning in January, to conduct a major overhaul and expansion.
Next year’s groundbreaking will mark the resolution of a vexing dilemma: How to expand a building, whose Art Deco architecture and copper domes are one of the city’s greatest landmarks, without marring it?
For answers, architects did not gaze to the galaxies. They looked to the dirt.
The expansion will take place underground, more precisely under the front lawn and entrance. There, workers will excavate more than 30,000 cubic yards of earth to build a new 200-seat theater, modern exhibits, a cafe and a terrace opening onto the hillside and overlooking the lights and boulevards of Los Angeles.
“The great part is that the building will be doubled in size but no one will see that,” said Stephen Johnson, the principal architect, from the downtown firm Hardy, Holzman and Pfeiffer.
In one corridor, fiber-optics will project an image of constellations that would be seen in that day’s sky if the sun were not blanching them out. Officials say the sweep of space depicted there and in a revamped planetarium upstairs should be far more realistic than the shows visitors see today.
No more lifeless spots of light; the stars will actually twinkle.
“We want people to be overwhelmed by the cosmos,” said Edwin Krupp, an astronomer and director of the observatory. “The forgiveness that used to be there for a lesser technology is gone. There’s a different kind of expectation now.”
The new technology will also mix with new discoveries in astronomy. A view from one of NASA’s modern telescopes will be depicted on a 150-by-25-foot porcelain wall underground. And to get there from the entrance, visitors will be able to take a main route or descend toward the theater through a mock “wormhole,” a highly theoretical shortcut between different reaches of space.
(Because it is only a mock wormhole, you won’t get crushed into a subatomic-sized speck--so it is safe to bring your kids.)
City parks officials, who run the observatory, first realized the need for renovation in the 1970s and founded the nonprofit Friends of the Observatory (FOTO), partially to raise money toward that goal.
“Nobody thought it was going to take this long,” said Camille Lombardo, executive director of the group.
It wasn’t until 1990 that a master plan was adopted. Architects honed the design in the last few years, particularly the 35,000-square-foot subterranean addition. They say the excavation will not undermine the seismic stability of a structure that was built like a fortress after the 1933 Long Beach earthquake.
The estimated cost of the entire project is $63 million. FOTO has raised $47.5 million so far, including $31.5 million in city and county bonds and general funds. It is seeking the rest from various foundations and individuals. Some of the money is even coming from the brain on the Starship Enterprise, Mr. Spock.
Actor Leonard Nimoy and his wife, Susan, read a newspaper account of the fund-raising and decided to donate $1 million. The money will help pay for the barrel-shaped lecture hall and theater, which will be called the Leonard Nimoy Event Horizon theater. Nimoy, who played Spock on “Star Trek” and lives in Los Angeles, said he has been inspired by science museums since his childhood in Boston.
On a recent trip to New York, the Nimoys visited the Rose Center for Earth and Space--a state-of-the-art, $210-million museum that replaced the old Hayden Planetarium last year and fast became one of the city’s most popular attractions.
Nimoy hopes that updating what he calls Griffith’s “charming” technology will have the same effect and instill a sense of curiosity in a new generation of children.
“Griffith has a chance to become a world-class place,” the actor said. “It can expand your ideas of the things that can be accomplished, and the wonders of exploration.”
Aiming to Inspire the Public
As more of a museum than a research institution, the observatory has always been devoted to inspiring the public. When Col. Griffith J. Griffith willed part of his fortune in 1916 to build his eye-to-the-cosmos on Mt. Hollywood, he envisioned an observatory for the masses.
His many critics, meanwhile, thought he was a pompous scoundrel and saw his benevolence as a tax dodge or a way to redeem his public image after he shot his wife in the face. One citizen wrote: “On behalf of the rising generation of girls and boys we protest the acceptance of this bribe. . . . “
The City Council accepted it anyway, and the observatory, completed in 1935, has since become L.A.’s nexus between Earth and space. On that scrubby bluff in the Hollywood Hills, children and their parents, and grandparents before them, have first seen the rings of Saturn or traced the Belt of Orion or spotted the perceived bears and lions and scorpions that guided human civilizations for thousands of years and have since virtually disappeared from our modern-day consciousness.
The promontory is as polyglot a location as any in the city. Talk in the parking lot is a virtual Babel spoken by people of all types enjoying one of the few free attractions around. (The planetarium is the only part of the facility that costs money to enter, $4 for adults.) About 30% of the visitors come from the L.A. area, while 25% come from out of state.
Officials say the expansion is not meant to draw more visitors than it does now. While it may seem anachronistic in this Internet age, the building still lures about 2 million people every year.
What they now see as they enter the building is striking craftsmanship tainted by flighty additions made over seven decades.
Next to the rotunda entrance, for example, with its vaunted Hugo Ballin mural and travertine marble, is a gift shop with gaudy spray-painted walls and stars that might fit better in a Go-Gos video. Exhibits block windows that have sea-to-mountain views. Soundproofing board clogs the marble arches to squelch the echo of a thousand schoolchildren’s voices.
Signs of Age Are Obvious
Those and other intrusions will be removed in the renovation.
But the biggest change to the existing facility will be to the planetarium--where visitors lean back and watch a light show projected onto the domed ceiling and see the constellations, etched hard in the faux sky, circle as they would on a clear mountain night.
While the spectacle still draws gasps of awe, the signs of age are obvious the moment you enter the dome. There’s the Jetson-like cartoon character telling you where to sit and the wooden headrests that would fit better in a Soviet dental clinic. There’s the low-tech renderings of Maya and other star-gazers and stars that look like flecks of paint. And at the center, there’s the 1960s-era Zeiss projector, sitting like Sputnik on a tripod.
“We’re way out of date,” said Lombardo. “The projector is old enough to be an antique.”
On a recent night, Mike Davis, a 32-year-old actor from L.A., was so unimpressed with a show about Venus that he left early. The professorial tone of the narrator was the biggest problem, but the seats and retro technology didn’t work to inspire him the way observatories have since he was a child.
“I’ve been to other planetariums where they could keep a 2-year-old enthralled,” he said.
He and his friend and her young daughter stepped outside to see the telescope and look over the grid of shimmering street lights. Despite the lackluster show and clouds that evening, he still recommended the place. “Look at it, it’s beautiful.”
Krupp, the director, said the planetarium’s seats will be replaced with more comfortable ones. And he will be happy to get rid of the Zeiss Mark IV--a projector so antiquated that staff technicians have to machine their own parts because replacements are no longer available.
“The planetarium now is really a chewing gum and baling wire operation,” Krupp said.
Fixing the Dome, Cleaning the Telescope
The dome itself must be repaired too. Currently the inner hemisphere of plaster is suspended about 6 feet from a concrete frame, which is leaking. Buckets have been placed between the two layers to keep rain from dripping on the visitors and inevitably ruining the illusion of a clear night sky. The new inner dome will be made of perforated aluminum.
As for other parts of the observatory, the telescope will be cleaned but not altered significantly. The outer shells of all three domes--the visible part, made of copper--will be buffed to a new-penny shine.
The new cafe will not serve French fries because the grease might drift up and settle on the telescope lens. Visitors will still watch the sparks jump off the Tesla coil, and they will still use the scales to determine that they would weigh, say, 32 pounds on the moon and 520 pounds on Jupiter.
Meanwhile, the observatory staff will move to other quarters during construction and will continue to answer the onslaught of questions that people call with about space. (Believe it or not, after the Northridge earthquake, when the lights went out, thousands of people walked into the inky night and wondered about all those strange needles of light in the sky.) Krupp hopes to have some exhibits set up wherever they land, which is yet to be determined, but is worried about the interim.
“How in the world will we serve people when we have an observatory in exile?”
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Griffith Observatory Expansion
Originally constructed in 1933-35, the Griffith Observatory will close in January for a two-year renovation and expansion project. In order to preserve the Art Deco exterior, the expansion will take place underground, largely below the front lawn. It will add 11,000 square feet of exhibit area to the present observatory’s 5,000 square feet. The observatory is scheduled to reopen in 2004.
Handicapped Access: New ramps and elevators will improve handicapped access and, for the first time, allow handicapped visitors to go to the roof.
GROUND LEVEL
Present exhibits will be updated, some relocated. Greenery near the observatory will be replaced but existing native oaks will be preserved.
Planetarium Dome: Copper plates will be removed and cleaned, and a waterproof membrane added. The copper on all three domes and the main cupola will be given a new-penny shine.
Projection Dome: The current planetarium show is projected on a cracking plaster dome. It will be replaced by a seamless aluminum dome. At 77 feet across, it is the largest planetarium dome in California.
MEZZANINE LEVEL
Exhibits in the mezzanine and basement levels will focus on outer space and space exploration. Connecting the old observatory with the new levels is the “Wormhole,” a corridor that will run underneath the pendulum.
LOWEST LEVEL
Located 28 feet below the lawn, the lowest level will feature the Leonard Nimoy Event Horizon, a lecture hall and theater named after the “Star Trek” star, who donated funds for the expansion. The theater, which will seat more than 200, will be rented out for fund-raising.
LASER PROJECTOR
An aging projector will be replaced by a Zeiss Mark IX. Features:
* Fiber-optic technology.
* With absolute astro-nomical correctness, the projector can show how the skies appeared up to 10,000 years ago or how they will appear 10,000 years into the future.
* The “starball” design allows multiple perspectives of space. For example, the projector can show how the constel-lations appear from Earth, along with how they appear from a space flight.
SUN CLOCK
Formally known as a “transit corridor,” this is a simple but precise astronomical instrument.
The transit corridor will use the sun to mark noon each day.
These devices were installed in 16th century European cathedrals. Even into the 19th century, people went to cathedrals to set their watches by the noon transit, or passage, of the sun.
Aperture: A small hole will be located at the top of a monolith.
Sunbeam: As the sun moves from east to west, sunlight passing through the aperture moves along the floor. The beam crosses the meridian line at noon. As the year passes, the sunbeam will cross the meridian at different points.
Meridian: On the summer solstice, when the sun is highest in the sky, the sunbeam crosses the meridian line at the point closest to the monolith. Its crossing at the most distant point marks the winter solstice, when the sun is lowest.
*
Sources: E.C. Krupp, director, Griffith Observatory; Department of Recreation and Parks; city of Los Angeles; Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates LLP; Friends of the Observatory
