Academy picks French architect
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Academy Museum of Motion Pictures moved one step closer to reality with the announcement today that French architecture firm Atelier Christian de Portzamparc will design the project.
The academy’s board of governors approved the selection based on the recommendations of an architecture subcommittee whose members include Steven Spielberg, Curtis Hanson, producer Kathleen Kennedy and production designer Jeannine Oppewall.
“We did it!” said academy President Sid Ganis. “At least we did this part of it. We have been moving on this for four years now, and we have been inching toward the dream. Now we took a big leap toward the dream.”
Awarded the Pritzker Prize -- architecture’s version of the Oscar -- 13 years ago, De Portzamparc has designed the Cite de la Musique and Cafe Beauborg in Paris, as well as the French Embassy in Berlin and the LVMH Tower in New York City.
The academy initially discussed the museum with more than 100 architecture firms. “We did all of our research and all of our homework,” said Ganis. “We asked for an RFQ -- request for qualifications -- and some firms bowed out. Eventually, we got down to a very small number of firms and hit the road. We took a whirlwind trip to sites in Europe and the United States and looked at built work. We visited the architects and architects came to talk to us and the museum committee.”
De Portzamparc, a film aficionado, was the “happy and unanimous” choice. As for now, there are no formal plans designed for the museum campus, which will span eight acres, several buildings and open space areas and will be located next to the Pickford Center for Motion Picture Study in Hollywood, between Vine Street and Cahuenga Boulevard, and De Longpre and Fountain avenues.
Fundraising for the project begins next year. “It’s a big chunk of dough,” said Ganis, who declined to reveal actually how big a chunk. “It’s an extremely ambitious undertaking.”
Groundbreaking is scheduled for 2009; Ganis hopes the ribbon will be cut in 2012. “It’s what the academy should be doing -- show the world what the art of film has been, what film is about, what the academy is about and how film has influenced us culturally.”
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