From the Ground Up

In front of Union Station near the entrance ramp to the northbound 101 Freeway stands a statue of Junipero Serra. The 18th century Catholic priest oversaw the building of 21 missions in California. He also is responsible, indirectly, for the massive Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels under construction a few blocks away.

How so? Architect Jose Rafael Moneo won the cathedral commission in 1996 by crafting a “Shrine to Junipero Serra.” Santiago Calatrava, Frank Gehry, Morphosis and Venturi Scott Brown & Associates also submitted models.

Why was Moneo picked? Answers--or at least the raw evidence--are on display at a new museum offering big names in a small space: the A+D Museum of Architecture and Design.

Situated on the ground floor of the historic Bradbury Building downtown, the A+D Museum has recently unveiled its first exhibition, “Urban Innovations: Shrine to Junipero Serra.” The show, to run through March 21, will feature models and drawings by the five finalists, along with writings and photographs documenting the selection process.

The idea for a permanent exhibition space took root after New Blood 101, a show featuring the work of 101 young California architects, drew 3,000 people to the Pacific Design Center two years ago. The event was one of several organized by Stephen Kanner of Kanner Architects, architect and USC professor Joe Addo and their mentor, Bernard Zimmerman, who teaches at Cal Poly Pomona.

“Those exhibitions happened once a year,” Kanner said, “whereas the whole point of this museum is to create an ongoing entity where the public can be exposed to exhibits, maybe four or five a year. It’s something that doesn’t stop and start.”

Last summer, the New Blood 101 trio began brainstorming with Elizabeth Martin, who would become museum director; Anne Marie Burke, its future director of development; and Los Angeles Conservancy member John English about the possibility of creating a center devoted exclusively to architecture and design. Attorney Joe Hart and Ogilvy & Mathers ad executive Rebeca Mendez later joined this “founding committee.”

Taking as models the Storefront for Art and Architecture in Manhattan, San Francisco’s now-defunct 2AES (Art and Architecture Exhibition Space) and European design museums in London, Amsterdam and Basel, Switzerland, the group gradually arrived at a common vision for a modestly scaled center focusing on local artists and design projects.

Concepts aside, the most important questions from a practical standpoint--where would the museum be situated and how would it be paid for--suddenly became nonissues when real estate developer Ira Yellin offered to house the A+D Museum, rent-free, in his Bradbury Building.

“When Ira heard the words ‘architecture’ and ‘museum’ in the same sentence, he said, ‘Joe, you can have the space.’ To not worry about rent for a while--that’s a major plus,” Addo said.

Also pitching in are downtown artisans and merchants who’ve donated services to augment the museum’s privately donated $30,000 start-up fund. (Currently under the auspices of the Architectural Foundation of Los Angeles, the museum has filed for nonprofit status.)

“In the past, when you talked about starting a museum, people often thought in grandiose terms,” Addo said. “We decided, instead of looking for that million-dollar check, we’d think in terms of finding like-minded people and $1,500 donations and goodwill. This is being done from the bottom up, rather than top down.”

Kanner, a director of the local chapter of the American Institute of Architects, says the A+D Museum’s sidewalk-friendly location suits one of his goals. The association “really wants to bring architecture into the public realm, to make it less a body of professionals who are untouchable and more a group that’s really connected to the public,” he said.

“The museum,” he said, “is not just about models and sketches, but [about] taking people through the process. Like Joe said, it’s not a museum with a capital M; it’s more grass-roots, more humble.”

Humble, maybe, but good connections have enabled the founders to call in some high-profile favors. To round up work by the big-name architects for the inaugural exhibition, Kanner said, his friend Zimmerman had “immediate access to Frank Gehry and Thom Mayne [of Morphosis]. Other members of the committee reached out to [Robert] Venturi and [Fernando] Romero. Everybody has their points of contact.”

Picturing a Cathedral as Butterfly or Tree

Before the opening, Martin and Burke were still awaiting materials for the debut show and could only visualize what the exhibit would look like, as carpenters and painters applied finishing touches to the 2,000-square-foot gallery.

Retiring to a cafe at the nearby Grand Central Market, Martin, an architect, curator and consultant who has organized programs at UCLA’s Hammer Museum and other venues, described the cathedral “sketch exercise.” “What they had in mind was,” she said, “you take the essence of a cathedral and you create a sacred space that embodies all of these concepts.”

For example, she said, “Santiago Calatrava’s model is like a butterfly, in that it has this beamed roof system.” Burke, an architect with Pugh-Scarpa who directed special projects for UCLA’s department of architecture and urban design, added, “Santiago conceptualized it as if they were palm fronds that would open up and allow the light to filter into the space. Venturi designed his model around a cloverleaf pattern because he said Los Angeles is a city of highways.”

The museum’s second exhibition, “Urban Innovations: L.A. Competitions” (April 14 through June 6), will feature municipal project designs, including work submitted for the federal courthouse in Los Angeles. Also on display will be models by architects in the competition for the California Department of Transportation’s new L.A. building, including work by Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas, who was recently named to redesign the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and by Mayne, the winner of the Caltrans project.

“Los Angeles has always been known more from a residential object point of view,” Martin said, mentioning Los Angeles architects Richard Neutra, R.M. Schindler and Charles and Ray Eames, best known for private home designs.

“Los Angeles has been in this adolescent phase for a very long time, but now our city is entering adulthood because now we’re starting to build a lot of civic buildings and institutional buildings. We wanted to capture this moment.”

For “Urban Innovations: Next Phase: 2x7” (June 20 through Aug. 31), 14 students--two from each of the region’s seven architecture and design schools--will have a chance to demonstrate their ingenuity through exhibits they’ll create in the gallery space. “It’s important to not just show the Frank Gehrys who are at the top of their game but also to bring in the new blood,” Martin said. “We’re making a statement that as a museum, we want a diversity of voices.”

This initial series highlights architecture, but the museum will eventually make good on the other half of its name, Kanner said. “Including design in the title opens it up to even a broader spectrum--landscape architecture, product design. The purpose is to explore many specialties and architecture.”

Referring to his recent visit to the new Manhattan boutique designed by Koolhaas, Kanner said, “I was just at the Prada show in New York, which is about technology, graphics, fashion. In a way, the more we move into the future, the more these disciplines are merging.”

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“Urban Innovations: Shrine to Junipero Serra” at the A+D Museum, Bradbury Building, 304 S. Broadway, downtown Los Angeles. Tuesdays through Sundays, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. except Thursdays, 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Admission is free. (213) 620-9961.