5 Architects Will Compete to Redesign County Art Museum

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art has selected five architects who will compete for the commission to design an extensive $200-million renovation and expansion that will include a new contemporary art structure and possibly the razing of the Ahmanson Building.

The five finalists--Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas, Berlin-based Daniel Libeskind, Jean Nouvel of Paris, New York’s Steven Holl and Thom Mayne of Los Angeles--have all produced critically acclaimed work. Each architect will submit design proposals in August, and a final selection will be made this fall.

Although museum officials stress that they have made no final decisions about the design of the campus, they acknowledge that the scope of the project will be significant. Along with renovations to the museum’s existing structures, officials are planning a new building for contemporary art; the possible demolition of the Ahmanson Building to create a pedestrian axis through the grounds; and the relocation of the museum’s main entry to Ogden Drive.

Museum officials plan to launch a major capital campaign before the end of the year to pay for the expansion and double the museum’s current endowment of about $87 million to cover the increased operating costs. The county, which owns the buildings and the land but does not operate the museum, has pledged $10 million to the project.

“I’m thrilled with this group,” museum Director Andrea Rich said in a telephone interview from her home in Ojai. “Each of them is slightly different, but each perspective is important to us.”

The plans for the renovation come at a time when museums throughout the world are seeking to raise their profile through high-end architectural design. The Museum of Modern Art in New York, for example, recently hired Yoshio Taniguchi to design a $650-million expansion of its 53rd Street site after a yearlong international competition. Similarly, Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron’s design for the Tate Museum of Modern Art in London garnered worldwide attention when it opened last year.

LACMA’s campus, by all accounts, is an outdated pastiche of mismatched buildings and architectural styles. “We have an architectural mess on our hands,” said LACMA board member Eli Broad. “This isn’t about another building or two--it’s about redoing the entire campus.”

Since abandoning its original Exposition Park home in 1965, the museum has gone through a series of incarnations. At that time, then-museum Director Richard Brown lobbied for the great German Modernist Ludwig Mies van der Rohe as the architect for the Wilshire Boulevard site. But Brown was overruled by his board, which chose local architect William Pereira. Pereira’s design--a blend of modern and classical themes--included three buildings set around a large reflecting pool. Soon after the opening, oil from the nearby La Brea Tar Pits began to seep into the pool, forcing it to be permanently closed.

In 1983, under the guidance of the expansion-minded Director Rusty Powell, the Ahmanson extension was built to accommodate the museum’s growing permanent collection. Three years later, Powell opened the Robert O. Anderson Building, a glass block and pink limestone structure designed by Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer that significantly altered the museum’s Wilshire boulevard facade. That was followed by the Pavilion for Japanese Art in 1988 and LACMA West--which occupies the old May Co. building just west of the main campus--in 1998.

By the time Rich was hired in 1995, it was clear to many board members that something had to be done to give the campus some cohesion. “There were some board members pressuring to build a building,” Rich said. “But I thought we needed to look inside ourselves, to figure out what our mission was. And then we really needed to bring in some experts.”

The quest for an architect began in earnest four years later. Last summer, Rich brought in local consulting firm Lord and Associates to perform an analysis of the museum, including how much new gallery space would be needed. She consulted with Art Center College of Design President Richard Koshalek about how to structure a competition. Koshalek, who has deep ties with the architecture community and was responsible for the selection of Arata Isozaki to design the Museum of Contemporary Art building in 1985, helped the LACMA board compile a short list of respected architects.

Rich then turned to Frank Gehry. Although the noted architect declined to participate in the competition, he sketched out various reorganization ideas that involved transforming Ogden Drive into a grand pedestrian entry. He also called for creating a second pedestrian spine that would link the various buildings, which would require tearing down the Ahmanson Building. A variation of Gehry’s proposal was sent to the 20 or so candidates on the museum’s short list.

In March, Rich and several board members, including Broad and Wally Weisman, flew to Europe and New York to visit many of the architects on the list. In London, the group dropped by the offices of Zaha Hadid, who designed the Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center, scheduled for completion in 2003, and toured Herzog and De Meuron’s Tate Modern. They also traveled to Koolhaas’ office in Rotterdam, Netherlands, as well as making stops in Paris; Berlin; Basel, Switzerland; and New York.

The five finalists selected this week will each be given a $200,000 commission to develop their designs. Though such commissions are standard practice in international competitions, the figure is particularly generous. They will have four months to come up with proposals, which will be reviewed by an advisory committee selected by Rich.

“This is just a start,” Rich said. “We’ve discussed a lot of possibilities. But the best scenario is that we end up with five ideas that are spectacular. And then I will build my case for the board.”

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A New LACMA Layout?

Tentative guidelines for reorganizing the museum grounds call for a new contemporary art building and a second new structure to replace the Ahmanson building. The current Ahmanson building would be demolished to make way for a pedestrian walkway.

Source: LORD Cultural Planning & Management Inc.

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