One LACMA, Undivided?

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art has launched a planning process that could transform its sprawling campus on Wilshire Boulevard into a more unified complex with a grand entrance and a distinctive architectural presence.

Talks are still in preliminary stages, museum officials say, but they have set three goals: to link disparate parts of the complex, which has evolved in fits and starts over the last 40 years; to create a more beautiful and welcoming environment; and to provide visitors with a more coherent journey through the encyclopedic art collection.

While emphasizing that “everything is on the table” and that no decisions have been made about the plan, the architect or the budget, museum director and President Andrea Rich noted key elements that are likely to be part of any design that is adopted:

* The main entrance will be shifted west, to the intersection of Wilshire and Ogden Drive, where a new building will be constructed. The block-long section of Ogden that now connects Wilshire Boulevard and 6th Street will be converted to a pedestrian zone or restricted to cars entering the museum’s parking structure. The parking structure will be renovated or rebuilt--possibly moved underground with a sculpture garden on top.

* An east-west axis will be established through the center of the campus to tie the museum’s original buildings to LACMA West, the former May Co. building purchased in 1994 by Museum Associates, LACMA’s private support group. To accommodate the central concourse, the Ahmanson building probably will be reconfigured or replaced with a new building in a different location.

* The entire project--including the adaptation of existing buildings and the addition of new ones--will be designed in accordance with the museum’s recently established centers for American, Asian, European, Latin American, and modern and contemporary art. The new organizational structure is intended to integrate related components of the collection that have been separated in traditional curatorial departments.

“This is all very speculative,” Rich said of the proposed project. “There are lots of different options, and none agreed to [yet]. We have to deal with issues of feasibility, engineering and codes before we know what we can do.”

Like most museums, LACMA has evolved sporadically, which created a jumble, Rich says. “We don’t have good circulation. Nobody knows where they are going at LACMA. At a certain point, you have to stand back and say, ‘Wait. Maybe it’s our generation’s job to sort all of this out.’ That’s what we are talking about.”

Art collector and philanthropist Eli Broad, who serves on the museum’s board of trustees, views the project as “a big opportunity to build a distinguished building by a world-class architect” while increasing gallery space and creating a cultural magnet for the city. “I think LACMA and Los Angeles deserve that,” he says. “The question is: How do we get there from here?”

The board of trustees has given its unanimous support to the project, he says. “But it’s a long way from saying ‘I’m for it’ to getting a plan and resources to carry it out.”

The museum has received $10 million in county funds to help create a link between separate parts of the campus and improve public access. But much more money will be needed. As to the price tag, Rich will only venture “less than $1 billion.” Broad says it will take “well over $200 million” to do the job right. Both suggest the project could be done in phases, however.

“I will be a big financial supporter of the effort, but I can’t do it myself,” Broad says. “When I’m committed, I would hope that other wealthy individuals and our great foundations, who have been very good to LACMA over many decades, would likewise get committed.”

Rich has been urged to mount a capital campaign and launch a building project ever since she took charge of the institution in 1995. But she says it would have been irresponsible to do so before reorganizing the museum’s staff and operations and stabilizing its finances.

The building project got off to a rocky start several months ago when the museum sent a request for proposals to various architects and planners--Rich will not say who--and received few responses. “We put the cart before the horse,” Rich says.

At that point, it was decided that the museum required “a physical-needs assessment, not a creative vision,” she says, so LACMA engaged Lord Cultural Resources Planning and Management Inc., a Toronto-based firm.

With Lord’s study in hand, museum officials have again begun talking to architects, including Los Angeles-based Frank O. Gehry, but only in an exploratory way. The architect probably will be chosen in a limited competition involving six or eight candidates who have yet to be determined, Rich says.

“It’s got to be a great architect,” Broad says. The person chosen should be in a league with Jean Nouvel, Daniel Libeskind, Rem Koolhaas, Zaha Hadid, Renzo Piano and other internationally renowned figures, he says, while declining to state his preference.

The processes of developing ideas and establishing the budget will proceed simultaneously, Rich says. “We are testing the feasibility of this whole plan, which means [assessing] interest on the part of patrons, collectors, donors. That will go on for the next six or eight months. At the same time, physical planning and architectural selection will be going on. At a certain point, those processes are going to cross paths and decisions will have to be made,” she says.

“I hope that within the next year we will have our act together in terms of fund-raising goals and the architect. But I don’t want to build expectations. I want to do this right, and thoughtfully. I don’t want to give LACMA an extraordinary physical environment and no money to run it.”