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Overview
Since 2004, LACMA staff and trustees have been working closely with world-renowned architect Renzo Piano to develop a master plan for the LACMA campus. The task laid out for Mr. Piano and the rest of the design team was to transform the museum both inside and out, creating dynamic, light-filled spaces for viewing art, enjoying the surrounding park, and exploring the treasures of LACMA's encyclopedic collections.
Transformation: The LACMA Campaign is a comprehensive fundraising campaign that will strengthen LACMA's ability to serve the public in the future. LACMA is evolving into one of the most exciting and forward-thinking art museums in the country under the guidance of CEO and Wallis Annenberg Director Michael Govan. It has a unique role as a civic and cultural leader in Southern California—a dynamic, diverse region that is widely acknowledged as the creative capital of the world. Support for the campaign will enable LACMA to build on its successes, serve the community, and become one of the best places in the country to view and learn about art.
The Physical Plan
Since LACMA's inception, the museum's outstanding collections have grown dramatically and in a manner that reflects the dynamic attributes of the region. Yet, as the collections have grown, space constraints and an awkward building configuration have limited the museum's ability to share them with the public in a meaningful way.
In 2005, LACMA announced Transformation: The LACMA Campaign, with the goal of transforming the art-viewing experience at LACMA. LACMA sits in Hancock Park, the site of the world famous La Brea Tar Pits, in LA's Miracle Mile. The twenty-acre site is bounded by Wilshire Boulevard and 6th Street, Fairfax and Curson Avenues. Renzo Piano has designed a master plan that capitalizes on LACMA's unique location in the center of the city. The plan will dramatically transform LACMA's campus by adding exhibition galleries, public spaces, gardens, and a new building devoted to exhibiting contemporary art. LACMA's buildings and collections will be woven together along a central concourse, allowing visitors to navigate easily through galleries featuring work from ancient times to the present.
Groundbreaking took place in 2005, and the first phase was completed in February 2008 with the opening of the Broad Contemporary Art Museum and related features detailed below. Additional phases of the master plan are currently being planned. Throughout construction and renovation, the museum will remain open to the public, with collections on view and special exhibitions programmed across the campus.
Phase I
BP Grand Entrance
LACMA's visitors now enter the campus through the BP Grand Entrance—a covered space off Wilshire Boulevard, in the center of LACMA's campus—which houses art installations, ticketing, information, and other amenities. Ogden Drive between 6th Street and Wilshire Boulevard was permanently closed to accommodate this building, which visitors enter via landscaped piazzas along both Wilshire Boulevard and 6th Street. Museum visitors orient themselves in the BP Grand Entrance as they come and go from the Ahmanson Building to the east, the Broad Contemporary Art Museum to the west, and the main parking garage to the northwest.
Dona S. and Dwight M. Kendall Concourse
A covered concourse now links the twenty-acre campus from west to east, providing a walkway for visitors to follow as they explore LACMA's collections from ancient times to the present.
Ahmanson Grand Staircase
The staircase, installed in The David Bohnett Foundation Atrium,
leads from the concourse to the plaza level and, because of its
central location, links the eastern portion of the campus to BCAM
and LACMA West while also redirecting the flow of foot traffic
through the building. Tony Smith’s Smoke, a massive aluminum
sculpture, is the first piece installed at the foot of the
staircase.
Reinstallation of Permanent Collection
LACMA's encyclopedic permanent collection will be rearranged and reinstalled during the course of the building project. The collections will be presented in an innovative array that will create a better and more comprehensive experience. Visitors will be able to enter the collections in different ways, discovering new insights and connections among the artworks. The modern, American, and Ancient Greek and Roman art galleries have been reintroduced, with the Latin American art galleries to follow in late July 2008.
Broad Contemporary Art Museum
LACMA Trustee Eli Broad and his wife, Edythe, made the lead gift in Transformation: The LACMA Campaign with the naming of a building devoted to the display of contemporary art and the promise of loans from their foundation and personal art collection. The building features over 60,000 square feet of light-filled gallery space and is situated along Wilshire Boulevard between LACMA West and the Grand Entrance Pavilion. In addition to supporting the capital and endowment campaign, the Broads have established a multi-million-dollar fund for art acquisition that will be used to increase LACMA's holdings in contemporary art.
Façade
Two specially commissioned temporary artworks adorn the Wilshire Boulevard façade of BCAM. A pair of fabric scrims that measure 54 feet wide by 52 feet high serves as an outdoor canvas; the inaugural project is by John Baldessari.
6th Street Parking Garage
LACMA visitors now park in an underground garage with a five-hundred-car capacity and an entrance at 6th Street and Ogden Drive. Glass-doored elevators bring visitors to the North Piazza.
Phase II
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Renovation of LACMA West, which will contain the Boone Children's Gallery, expanded education and gallery space, a restaurant, book and design stores, administrative offices, and special events spaces.
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Additional special exhibition space.
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Various art installations across the campus.
Phase III
BP Grand Entrance
Entrance Hall Elevation Looking West (detail)
© Renzo Piano Building Workshop
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WebCam
Campus map
Learn more about Transformation via email; or call Michael Ruff at 323 932-5882.
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