| NEWS | DESIGN | BUILDING | DESIGN TOOLS | ENVIRONMENT | CULTURE |
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Broad Contemporary Art Museum | |
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Renzo Piano's New York Times Building | |
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Broad Contemporary Art Museum Unfortunately, the directional change came just before construction, and the resultant plaster canopies trimmed in "Renzo Red" feel a little like a well-detailed afterthought. The same is not true for the three-story BCAM (pronounced "bee-cam"). Mimicking the solid masses of existing LACMA buildings, its limestone-clad walls proclaim "institution." Rob Jernigan, Gensler's principal-in-charge, observes that "the building is a simple, very well executed form that is beautiful and functionally driven. Purity, simplicity, 'less is more' – Renzo believes that." As expected from Piano's firm, it is the details that distinguish this project from its predecessors. LACMA President Melody Kanschat is not alone when she marvels, "I was blown away by the intricate detail that the architectural team worked out on this project." The exterior is fastidiously accented on three sides by ostensibly parasitic red circulation systems. Exit stairs creep up the east and west walls like metal ivy suspended from slim beams above, reminiscent of a Schindler appendage. An escalator transports visitors directly to the third-floor galleries, while forming a lively southern edge for the adjacent park, created atop the subterranean parking garage. Such flaunted circulation recalls industrial warehouses, those homes for contemporary art before established museums such as LACMA became interested. Continuing inside, as Jernigan describes, "a big red elevator pumps blood from the street into the heart of the building." In fact, this moving glass room is art itself, internalizing architecture as sculpture. Contemplation Piano seems to be striving to perfect contemplative gallery space in museums such as the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, and culminating with BCAM. In both, walls float courtesy of uniform base reveals, air flows through custom wood floor vents, and indirect sunlight illuminates the top galleries. The BCAM galleries are more successful, however. A cooler, paler palate shrewdly forms a backdrop for the flamboyant contemporary content, while expansive column-free spaces allow wall configurations based solely on curatorial needs rather than structural ones. The decadently detailed glass ceiling is more consistent than the High's coned skylights, and therefore impinges less on the spatial and artistic experience. Within a symmetrical plan of six equally sized galleries, Piano achieves a surprisingly wide array of galleries in BCAM. Ceiling height and wall arrangement vary by level, while wood flooring above becomes concrete at grade. Daylight illuminates the top galleries, but merely orients on lower levels. Louvers shield southern glazing on the top two levels, but their absence connects the first-floor visitor back to the site and city. Fluctuating conditions become downward procession, forcing visitors to experience space relative to what has preceded. How else to explain the feeling of liberation upon exiting the "sacred" museum spaces through ground-floor galleries barely containing Richard Serra's coiled steel forms? The palpable energy in the rooms was either the pent-up result of extended reverence or the hemmed-in result of constricted space. The steel curves burst with tension and instability — something I've never felt with his sculptures before. Spinal Surgery In the "profane" world, observes Piano, "all cities are a mess." "The question is how you tie this mess together," he continues. "In this sense, LACMA can be like San Gimignano in Italy." Piazza references sprinkle conversations with the design and client team, but such romantic visions come to mind infrequently when strolling along LACMA's subtly reoriented "spine." >>> Discuss this article in the Architecture Forum... Leigh Christy is an architect and writer living in Los Angeles.
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