Ready to make his mark on LACMA

A chuckle and a pause. That was the first reaction from Renzo Piano, the affable Italian architect, when he was asked last week whether there is more than the usual pressure on him to deliver ooh-and-ah-worthy goods as he shepherds the expansion and ungarbling of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s six-building mishmash of a campus. After all, the two most recent big-ticket projects for L.A. cultural institutions, Richard Meier’s Getty Center and Frank Gehry’s Walt Disney Concert Hall, have been widely celebrated as architectural gems.

Yes, said Piano, who was in town as LACMA announced a green light for construction after raising $156 million, the projects are “comparable” in a broad sense. “But competing would be a stupid idea.”

Piano said he is friendly with Meier and Gehry and is a fan of their signature L.A. works. “The Getty, of course, is an acropolis, a good acropolis, a great place to be,” he said, while LACMA “is in the middle of the town, it’s in the middle of life,” and so his and his museum client’s objectives amid the bustle differ greatly from those of the hilltop aerie Meier built for the world’s richest art institution.

As for Disney Hall, “it’s a great example of life and joy, and I love that building.” Piano said he thinks his work shares with Gehry’s “the sense of joy and the sense of rebellion ... a peaceful rebellion, not a bad one. But the way I will do it is different, in a different language.”