#506 - Design Review LACMA by Peter Zumthor

Introducing the LACMA Design Review

0:00This is The Second Studio, hosted by the Architecture and Design Office fame. My name is David Lee, and with me is Miranda Bauderone. The two of us are architects, partners at the office, and of course, hosts of the show. Well, you don't like that pronunciation. Bauderone? And hosts of the show. And today we're doing a design review episode. Some of our favorite episodes are these. We don't do them often enough. And today we're going to talk about- Whoa, whoa, whoa. You're speaking for the two of us here? You don't like the design review episodes. I like the after hours. And today we're going to talk about the LACMA Extension Museum, done by Peter Zumthor, designed by Peter Zumthor.

0:37Can you tell us what LACMA stands for? Nope. And the executive architect was SOM, and I think they provided the engineering also. Project cost, reportedly, $800 million. Oh, it just increased by $50 million all of a sudden. From your article, yeah. Well, that was something that Christopher Hawthorne wrote, previous guest of ours, and I trust him because he's- Because he's an accountant. He's a- Yeah. Sponsors. The second studio is brought to you by Chaos. They make award-winning design and visualization tools, and they're really pushing the boundaries with AI. As we all know, AI is shaking up the

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Arriving at the Museum Plaza

2:07interior design workflows. This is the second studio with the two of us. Here we go. So there's been a lot of controversy about this building for the last like 15 years, 15 years in the making. Yeah. Well, it got approved in 2019. I know, but it's been in the controversy, the discussions about it have been around for quite some time. And finally, it's constructed a lot of excitement in the architecture industry. Everyone's excited. Everyone's wanting to know what we think. And what do we do? We wait.

2:41Actually, I have a friend who texted me. She's like, oh yeah, I saw your story. Like you guys went to LACMA. What do you think? I'm like, we're doing a recording about it. You have to stick to. We're like, it's been open for a while. What took you so long to get there? I have to say, I do very much enjoy the experience of the elevator that gets you up to LACMA. It's a small moment. It's only a two level parking lot, but it's a glass elevator. And I feel like I'm being like dug out of dirt, of earth, you know, and rising up. I don't know. I just really enjoy

3:12the elevators. That's the best part of the plaza, I think. It is cool. So underground parking, but the elevator around it has an atrium that's cut out that's open to the sky. So you get that contrast of parking garage darkness and then natural light coming down this shaft of light. And it's interesting because you don't have to search for the elevator. One, the parking garage is not that big, but you see it as this thing of light and you walk toward it like a moth to a flame. But it's nothing really special. I mean, it's just a hole and a glass box.

3:42But it also is an example of, you know, things could be a lot better if you just put a little thought into it instead of whatever else. So you do that and then you get into kind of like the big, you know, plaza that you see on Instagram, the one that has like the lights of the LACMA, people take selfies, and then there is like the booth where you get your tickets. I do have to say that main plaza, you know, with the big awning where you get your tickets, I really hate it. Oh, we didn't take a picture of that. Yeah, I agree. I'm like, okay, so I got this mini magical experience, you know, raising out of the dirt,

4:15you know, up to the surface, and then I'm welcoming by what? Emptiness? It just feels like, I don't know. I don't know. I feel like it's kind of like a little bit underwhelming of an arrival. You're right that when you arrive at the street level, I guess you're the plaza level. It's just the bulkhead of the elevator. So there's no like transition from the elevator cab to that space. You just empty directly onto it. Is that why it's too contrasted? Well, it's sad, but it's more like, yeah, like, well, and also, I mean, I'm sure they didn't design

4:48the whole plaza based on like, you know, me coming out from the elevator, from the parking lot. You specifically. You know, I'm sure there is different, you know, access points to that central plaza. So I get it, but it just feels like a lot of emptiness and not a sense of like center or arrival or, you know, I don't know the moment. And the big awning, I find a little off-putting because again, there's nothing underneath really, but like three set table and like two booths to buy

5:18tickets. So the plaza might feel weird too, because, um, like, I don't, I don't know how to describe this, but like, you know, the, the, both LACMA structures, the Zoomthor one and the, uh, not Eisenman. What am I saying? The Brenzo piano one, they feel like they're on one side and they both front kind of like open space, like with a dirt space. And I suspect they're going to develop more there. So that's also maybe why it feels a bit asymmetric or whatever, but I agree where the ticket booth

5:49is. It's not a great ticket booth. The audience is not. This is a modern art museum area. Like this should like, I don't know. I'm thinking, you know, I mean, if I think modern art museum, I think of Pompidou, like it's, it's, it's a little bit like hard to beat, but in the same time, it's, it, it didn't require much around it, you know, and still was made like interesting. So I don't know. I'm just thinking they need something or they need to have performance or they need to have something.

6:19They probably do. We just weren't there during performances. Yeah. Well, every time I go, it's like that. So I don't know. Let me know what day to go then. That awning structure canopy that's, that's covering the ticket booth is underwhelming, especially in the context of, you know, you have these two structures, one by Benzo piano, another by Zoom Thor. And they're like, you know, we could nitpick about the architecture, but there's, it's still, it's architecture architecture, you know, it's of a certain status and level and pizzazz or whatever you want to say. And you have this very kind of,

6:50it's just like a nothing. It's also weird because the ticket booth is like in the middle of the plaza, but there's a front and back to it. So like, it doesn't make sense. The positioning is weird. It just feels like everything has been placed one after the other without consideration of what was there already before. You know, maybe they didn't know what was going to happen next, but I did not know exactly where the Zoom Thor building, is it David Geffen, what is it called? Geffen? Where that building was located relative to everything else. So when you pop out of the

7:22elevators, you know, you, you walk through the doors and it's like, it's right there. I probably have a photograph of it, but there's the first thing you see is the, is one end of the squiggle of the gallery, this massive concrete thing right there. It's a bit jarring to see and its relationship to the plaza. It's almost like it doesn't belong. Let me say this, let me put it this way. Um, the spaces around the building, I didn't have any problem with, but how it faces the

7:58plaza felt, that was the most awkward part of it actually. And I don't know if it's because that's the end that has like a square, uh, off squared off bottom and glass versus the top is curved. And then the original writing, I don't think it was square. I think it was curved. But that's what I'm saying. I think the, uh, the, I don't understand the master plan of, of, um, of the whole project. The master plan. Um, I mean, it's a huge site, right? If you look at it on the map, it's, it's a huge site, but it feels a little bit piecemeal. I'm not sure. But anyway, so we get

Entering the Concrete Gallery

8:30there, get our tickets under this underwhelming canopy and then, okay, we're walking toward this like concrete spaceship. And the first thing I'm thinking is like, where do we enter?

8:43Because there's no arrows. There is no sign with an arrow saying like, enter this way. I'm like, where do we enter? And then I see this massive stair and I'm like, okay, um, I have a stroller, so I can't take that. So do I have to walk all the way around this? Um, and the entry was actually kind of underwhelming too. Cause you know, we took the elevator. It's just basically like, well, it's just here, here's an elevator, push the button and then go up. I didn't mind it. I didn't

9:14mind it, but it felt a little unusual for a museum. You know, like, I feel like museums are usually like not super secure, but kind of like it is the whole procession. Like, you know, there is like lockers room, big lobby, souvenir shop, like, you know, the whole thing. And then you get to the meat of what you paid for. Right. And this one didn't really feel like the usual museum. It was more like, okay, I'm going to enter this building and see what I find. And once we got up and the elevator door open, I also thought we would enter some sort of lobby,

9:47you know, another kind of like of layering of space before we get to it. And no, the elevator opens and you're in the exhibition. Yeah. And, and that was kind of interesting again, because, you know, unusual and kind of like, like trimming off all the fat from museums and just getting to the point was, um, was interesting. If I didn't know who designed it and then someone afterwards told me this was a Herzog and de Miron building, I'd be like, I could see that. You're thinking someone would tell you this is a Herzog and de Miron? I said, if I saw this building and I didn't know who designed it and someone told me afterwards that

10:20this was done by Herzog and de Miron, I would have, I would say like, I could see that being designed by them. Yeah, sure. The structure is not an eight is not a typical museum like you described. It's more of an urban response and more about, I think, engaging with space at a large scale in that way. And it doesn't care about the, the, the typical procession stuff, which I actually, I liked and appreciate a lot because it's, um, it's like, I feel in architecture,

10:52architecture, especially for public works, we often have these ideas of how to do something differently, but then it, it doesn't get to happen because you have the boards and like the fucking community people and then the developer people and the investors and everyone's like, no, we gotta have the lobby and the coat check. We gotta have all this stuff, which you probably do have a coat check somewhere, but you gotta have all these things. And then pretty soon an, an, an, an interesting idea, uh, an idea that's at the scale of like site planning idea, like, you know, massing scale idea doesn't happen because you have to layer in all of this stuff.

11:28So I liked the fact that the, that some of that was taken out and it, and it left a more pure, you know, architecture in terms of the massing and site planning. Yeah. And I mean, I think we should have to remember it's not called, uh, you know, the Geffen museum, it's called the Geffen gallery. And I think, I think that does make a difference because it doesn't feel like an institution. It feels very much. So like, uh, like a gallery, you know, so we get up there and then, you know, you open the door and then we land on this, uh,

12:00weird sculpture. That was like scripture of a horse without heads. It was just butts and legs. And our son was pretty confused and looking at it like, what animal is this? And I'm like, I don't know the name of this specific animal, but it was kind of, it was very interesting because again, in your preconception of museum or even art gallery, it's always like the white surface, pristine, bright light, and the art kind of like popping off the wall or off the floor, right? Like again, like the white canvas. And in this case, you enter into this dark, rough,

12:35raw concrete box, cold, not bright at all. I mean, bright because of the light that came in, but like the walls are not bright and the art might or might not stand out from the wall surface, you know, because of the colors. And that was actually very, very interesting because

12:53you don't really experience that in again, museums or gallery, unless maybe it's like one room out of the museum that they made darker because, you know, it's complimented the art or something, but not like throughout the whole experience. And, um, and the size of the spaces too, is really big. Like, it's not like, again, you enter one room, there is painting on each wall, and then you move on to the next. Like it's, you don't really know why and where you're going to find the art as you walk around, which was kind of interesting. Like the, the informalness of

13:25where everything is, uh, you didn't know what to expect. Yeah. Which I was, I think it was very neat.

Zumthor's Intentions Versus Reality

13:31I, I, I'll jump to the end and tell you my just tech key takeaway. I love this building. It's not exactly what Zoom Floor wanted though, which is interesting. Like he was quoted saying that, and maybe he was speaking a bit exaggerated, that there's not a single Zoom Floor detail in the project. Left in the project. Left in the project. And if you look at his renderings, you know, they're, they're, his studio doesn't, they don't do photo realistic renderings. They're like, you know, kind of collagey or whatever. But the palette and the, the execution was quite

14:07different. It was more like beige. The, the rendering show, the spaces being a lot lighter, like, like bright, brightness wise. Um, I think actually some of the walls had like some texture on them. It was more like, yeah, like a beige, not limestone. What's the, what's the, not travertine. What's the word? I don't know, but, but something, a stone like that, not like a concrete, uh, parking garage aesthetic, which is this closer to. Um, and it'd be in, uh, you know, I wonder what he thinks of the project now compared to what he wanted it to be. But at a conceptual

14:43level, the big gestures are pretty close, I think, to his, his sketch. Um, minus, I think there, there's a few, uh, ends of the structure that are squared off. And I don't know if that was done for value engineering purposes, or I don't know if that's something that he actually approved and wanted to take place. Um, from some angles and perspectives, those orthogonal ends are fine. And other parts, they feel very out of place and, and weird. I think the interiors that you're

15:15describing though, I love, I, I actually, I, I want to also say though, that I don't really give too much credit to zoom for, for that. The reason why I say that, I mean, obviously he authored, you know, it, the reason why I say that is I have seen dozens of conceptual projects that employ the same general logic of floor planning, which is to say an open kind of like rhizomatic space

15:47that is where the edges are, are less defined. In this case, they're, they're, they're less, it's, it's narrow, but they're less defined because they're soft curves, but the edges are less defined. So you have a field condition, even if it's a narrow squiggly structure.

16:03And then you plop down, it would seem to be random orientations and distances kind of like geometric cubes or cubic shapes. And it's like a, it, it, it's almost like you're outside, even though you're inside with that type of space that you flow around. I have seen this type of project many, many times. I've drawn some stuff like this before. So I actually don't think that when I say I love the interior space, it doesn't mean that I'm putting zoom through on a pedestal

16:35because of it. I've seen this before conceptually. What I love is that it was done. And to be able to experience a space like this, you know, I've experienced it before, but, but finally, let's say, um, is, is like, well, yeah, here's, here's actual conceptual architecture made close, you know, to closely made to, to reality. And it produces the effects that we think it should. And so to me,

17:07it's proof that a concept and a conceptual plan can have the impact that we want it to. And if more people would just allow us architects to do that, we could produce more things that feel as, as good as this. Um, there's actually a project done by Herzog and de Miron in Spain, which I'd seen, which maybe that's why I think about it. It's, it's, uh, I don't know what it is actually, but it's in Barcelona and it's like a floating triangle, uh, a floating triangle and the ground

17:38level has, um, uh, is all open. So it produces this kind of like dark space with brightness on the perimeter. Right. And the ceiling of the, the triangle, which is the underside of it is, is all mirror. Um, and it's sort of, it has, you know, a similar kind of feeling of this like sandwich. So you have the strong horizontal plane above you and then the ground, which is, or the floor in this case, you know, below you. But I thought it was really wonderful to walk through because of

18:10the way it was laid out. Yeah. Yeah. Do you want me to give you, give you my opinion?

Exterior Impressions and Hardscape

18:14You didn't like it. So I think, I think I went there and I kind of wanted to hit it. I don't know why. Maybe because it's just this big, massive concrete thing. Um, I did like it. I wouldn't say I love the building. I wouldn't say I, it moved me at all. Um, I would say I probably prefer the interior over the exterior. I'm not convinced by the exterior at all. I mean, there

18:45is some nice, you know, like sunshade details and, you know, like things like that, but like the overall form, you know, shape, placement, scale, uh, the scale is impressive and it's impressive that it's so much concrete, but I don't know that I love it. And I don't know that I found it, you know, uh, pretty or that interesting. Um, I think the, the interesting thing to me is the scale of it

19:16because it's this massive thing. I don't think I've ever seen like one single gesture, you know, take over a site like this in such a minimal way. Right. Yeah. Um, that's kind of what's impressive to me, but like, I wouldn't say it's a beautiful building or I would want to go back and stare at it. Like not particularly, um, see, I felt the opposite. The, the fact that it's elevated is interesting. I also felt a little bit off put it by the fact that there's nothing happening at the base really. You gotta be kidding me. Yeah. So I, I, I very much enjoyed the, the, the, you know,

19:48gift shop and whatever, and actually the design of the gift shop I really liked. Because there's gifts, that's why. But no, no, I really love the perforated, uh, panel they had on the wall and the shoving system. I thought it was really cool. And the lights in the space and the height and whatever, all of that stuff. And then the stair outside, this giant stair felt like a little awkward to me. It was just kind of like this leg that was almost felt added onto the building. It was kind of sticking out in a weird way. I wasn't really sure. I really liked the moment where we had lunch that kind of like turned the corner and there was a fountain. And I think maybe it's just

20:19my own sensibility. Like there's a, a ton of hardscape around the building. Um, and for me, it's, it's too much hard surfaces everywhere. Uh, I very much enjoy the moment where there is the fountain with the, the Calder mobile, because it just, again, kind of like starts to engage the sites with the art and the architecture. And I found that dialogue a lot more interesting than like a big piece of concrete landed on another big piece of hardscape where I'm not sure what the dialogue is in this particular example. So there's a photograph of us of a model, uh,

20:52that, that his office did, and it showed the groundscape as being very different in that, in that, um, in that photograph, it's a sketch model or it's a sketch model in the sense that it's rough and small scale. I don't know if, if, if, uh, I don't mean to say sketch and as if to say that it was not, uh, a design that he was, uh, you know, intending to, to, to go with, but the groundscape in that case was like, you know, cardboard rough and it had like, uh, it had contours to it and there was like a crack in it. So it had a dynamic quality to it, which produced a much stronger dialogue

21:27between the ground level and this, this floating ship. I agree with you though. I think the building would be more interesting if, if the dialogue between the ground level and the structure was not so much just concrete and then concrete because the ground level is basically flat and it's a different type of concrete. It's like, it's not stained, it's colored or whatever it is, but it's still just flat concrete. And then the, obviously the, the floor of the building is raised, and it's also just flat concrete. So there's not really a lot of like resonance between those two.

21:59I mean, I feel like it's, it's kind of like it would, to me it would have been maybe more successful if the building was really floating off the ground, meaning to say there's only just maybe like the elevator coming down and the rest was completely empty and it was this floating saucer, you know, above the plaza. I think that would have been super cool. Or if again, there was more interaction between, you know, the up and the down, the plaza and the building and, and more mingling with activities and stuff. I mean, I think I like the space with the fountain because people gather and there is like things happening and, you know, like you can sense the life around the building

22:34where otherwise, I don't know, I just felt kind of like lonely and didn't really know what to do. There's some really massive areas like this that are the, you know, the art is the part that you probably didn't care for. I have, um, I had a couple of thoughts with, with the low, the ground level. The first is in some moments of it, I embrace the starkness and the flatness, uh, and the austerity and the, the, the scale. Um, I think for me, it's almost like just the bigness of the space

23:12and the, the peculiarity of, of it. It's so uncommon that it, it feels, um, it, it causes you to pause and kind of reflect and think. It's not dissimilar, frankly, to like when you're in a chapel and you have this massive volume of space in the chapel or the cathedral. And it's just, it's different. Like you don't feel that anywhere. And to feel that I think is, for me, has a lot of value. But I feel like I feel that in like a church or space when there is beauty in that space. And I

23:44just feel like the hardscape here doesn't really go well with the building. Like I could, you know, I could probably get that feeling if I, if it felt beautiful or, or, or calling or something, but it just didn't really give me that impression. Well, what if, what if the ground was different, but the building was exactly the same? The ground was different. Uh, yeah. Yeah. Or even if the ground was maybe just gravel, I think maybe I have an issue with the color and the texture of the ground and the actual building material that don't seem like they're already vibing together.

24:14I agree with that as well. You know, like one is beige, the other one's gray. One has like, you know, the, the, the board form, um, you know, like, uh, imprints. The other one has like a rake texture and like some funky prints. They're like different, but not different. It's one of those things where they're not different enough or they're not the same enough or, or they should not be more similar, but, but, but they're, they're not different enough. You know, I, I agree with that. Um, but I, uh, the other thought I had was like, okay, what happens if this structure were plopped down on a different site and you had more things like infiltrating underneath it,

24:48you'd also feel probably differently, you know, about it. Yeah. Or like, I don't know. I mean, if I imagine this is all grass underneath. Yeah, I know. You know, I think that, that could have been really cool. I don't know if that would work because of the sunlight. Yeah, I probably wouldn't, but, or if it was sand or if it was water, I mean, I think, I think there's just not, I don't know, not enough dialogue or contrast or, or things happening down there for me. Um, and that stair, I, I don't know. I wasn't, you don't like the stair. No, it just feels like it's sticking out in the middle and

25:20Well, you know, here's the thing. So when you have a floating structure like this, the question is how does it touch the ground and how to, how to, how do you, how do you use it? How the people get up there? And, um, or like a spiral stair or like a curved stair. I think here would have probably made more sense to me than like these shapes. Yeah. I don't agree with that. I think like, it feels like, you know, the stair that deploy from like when you exit the airport, when you land in next small airport, you know, like, yeah, I don't have a problem with that. Well, I, I do. My thing is like, if you do a spiral stair, then you're mimicking an elevator. And

25:54I don't think that's what the stair wants to be. I think the stair wants to be a stair. The elevator wants to be an elevator. Or like a curvy stair or something that works with the shape of the building. It does. Where is it? I'm trying to find a picture of this, that stair. It does work with the building because it just, it just, um, like you see the edge of the stair. No, it works from this view. It becomes a slab. Yeah, it works from this view. But when you're actually coming from the side, you come in to enter the building. It doesn't feel like it works there. So I don't know. They should have looked at the view from, uh, the, you know, the underwhelming canopy. Well, that's what I'm saying though. Um,

26:27the view from the elevator is the worst view of the building.

26:34Yeah, fine. But like the view you approach the building is most likely where you get your tickets from. Yeah, I know what I'm saying. It's just the worst view of the building is this. Okay. Well, they should have thought about that. I mean, that's what you're going to experience. Does not look good in this angle, does it? No, it does not. It looks terrible. The curve and the angle, like that, that, that, yeah, it doesn't. There's also, that's a wide angle shot, but still.

Interior Surfaces and Art Display

26:54But my favorite part, um, definitely was the interior. I really like the roughness of the surfaces and the darkness of the museum in the contrast of the glass. I really love those curtains. I thought they were like really beautiful. But you know, the concrete, so again, the concrete being a concrete look and it being that rough are often actually critiques of the building because it, it wasn't supposed to be like that. And you could easily say the concrete was not executed at a high level. It's not clean. No, it's not clean, but I think it's, I think it's fine. I

27:25think it's good that it's not clean. And I think in a way it works here because they embraced it everywhere, you know, and it feel, I like that it feels rough. I like that. I don't know. I could almost imagine I'm in New York city and like a reclaimed factory looking at art, you know, I'm not in like a pristine members only museum, uh, to be able to, to, to see those pieces. Um, I did like the ceiling and like the, the triangular pattern and all the holes in the ceiling. I thought it was actually kind of cool rather than having like some awkward,

27:56you know, down lights here and there. They actually like repeated the whole pattern everywhere and just, you know, put the lights where they needed it to be. So I thought that was nice. My favorite part, it's kind of like random and not, you know, thanks to Zoom Thorin anyway, was the way they displayed art. So it's kind of like, welcome to my living room. Here is some like, you know, an ancient Greece vase I have on my table. Please take a look and enjoy. Um, I like that, but I think what I liked the, what I liked a lot too, was the, and again,

28:28that's not related to the building, but was the mix of the art that was presented in that one continuous space. The fact that there was no, oh, this is the old France room. This is the Italy room. It was just kind of like, they were, they were organized. They were more or less, or I think they were organized by body of water and not by, um, continents. So they are mingling a little bit more. But, um, I, I just, I like that there was like no doors and threshold and like wings to things. You just kind of like kept walking and you are finding, you know, different things,

29:01which I thought was an enjoyable experience. This is why I call it more of like an urban space. Like you just, you're just walking. You're just meandering. It's like you're walking through a city for the first time. You're just walking and you're seeing stuff. There's not like a, yeah, like a one way or like a goal or like you have to exit this space to go to the next. But this, I'm going to reemphasize my earlier point, which is like how many times, yeah, but how many times have we seen that, that idea in a project and how many times does it not actually happen because the actual project gets bogged down with like fucking exit signs or like whatever

29:31thing. Or things all get compartmented or, you know, like again in museum, they pull up like some temporary walls to like, you know, cluster things together. I think the nice thing was that the space is wide enough that you could change the art without changing the space, which a lot of museums and galleries don't do, right? Like it's kind of like the opposite. It's like here, the art is going to have to fit around what the space is like rather than the other way around. But it's also, it's concrete. You're not moving. No, you're not. It's also, what I like is that the project, you know, if you look at the plan, it's kind of a squiggly thing,

30:06but the entire perimeter is the gallery. There's no moment where you've reached like the end of the, the, the world that has been created. You know, sometimes you go into buildings and the architect has created a wonderful experience, but then you wander off path and you're like, oh, that's, I'm not supposed to go over there. Like this is, this is the, this is the edge of the universe. You know, I've reached the edge of Disneyland, you know, I'm not supposed to be looking over there. And now a little break for our show sponsors, architects, design leaders,

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31:11experience. If you're ready to grow your impact, apply now by tapping the Future London Academy link in our show notes.

Views to the Outside World

31:17But that, but that, and also I think the connection to the exterior world, again, you go to galleries or museum, it's very close-minded, focused on the art and the other distraction, right? But here it's super interesting that you have, like you said, like, you know, if you walk left or right, like the left side, whatever, you know, wherever you're going to go into the next room is always going to be, you're always going to be able to see outside. And that was kind of, um, it's kind of refreshing. It was kind of cool too, because you look left and you see the tar pits,

31:48you look right and you see ancient Greek stuff, and it's kind of like, where am I? Like, what time zone am I in? What, you know, era am I in? I think, I think it's wonderful. You know, and, and, and being displaced off of the ground level by this kind of height, it, that automatically triggers something in, in everybody where you, you, you are, you're questioning and pausing and reflecting, you know, automatically, like the high line produces that bridge, like a lot, any structure that's elevated produces that. I have to say that the height, yeah, the height of the floor, the gallery is, that is a good height. Like if you're slightly too low, you're still too connected to the ground level, the noise,

32:21and like, you don't feel like you're detached enough. It is, yeah, it was a pretty good height. And so they're there. And then it's just like this fusion of, of different things that you typically don't experience. And I think that's what architecture is supposed to do. It's supposed to create an environment where you are experiencing familiar things and new things, but all mixed up together and they're just framed in a different way than, you know, excuse me, what we see all the time. And I think this is doing that the execution of it, you know, again, it seems to be that the

32:55architect was not pleased with, and we could, to me, the whole debate about, you know, the concrete being rough, is that good or bad? Is it because it's quoting like LA freeways and that's great, or no, that's stupid. It's ugly. I don't really care about that part of, of, of the conversation. It's stupid to me. Like I could see where this is an asset. I could also see where it being more of a beige and brighter and cleaner, it would be better. Um, if, if I had my way with the $800 million,

33:29I probably gone, gone, would have gone with a material that's more refined and closer to what Zoom Thor had originally put in because my one, well, not my one, but one of my thoughts as we were walking through whilst I was enjoying everything is that it is so dark on the inside that in the, you know, the interior of the interior that, and it is rough and it's concrete that if at some point, if you're there for a long time, do you just feel tired and dark and like depressed? It's too,

34:04heavy. Um, like, uh, it's compressing you too, it's weighing on you too much. So I'd, I'd like to know like, what is the experience of the, uh, what are the people that work there called? The docents. The docents, you know, interview the 100 that were there with, you know, when they circulate and what is it like being in this building versus like a typical building? Yeah, but they can see outside all day, you know, they get sunlight. No, but their contrast is so, so strong. Yeah, the contrast is a bit hard visually.

34:35And it's, it's like, it's a, let me put it this way too, is that, um, it's a very relentless structure to be inside of. Oh yeah, it's not kind of faint of heart. And I don't know, and maybe to your point, because it's just a gallery, you know, it can afford to be kind of a, uh, uh, a single brushstroke. Yeah. Yeah. And I think, so it's not a, it's not a space you're going to spend the whole day in. Right. You know, like our museum, there's so many wings, so many floors, so many things you can just kind of get lost and spend the whole day here. I think you, you probably come back to see

35:08more, but you wouldn't spend like eight hours there. I mean, another thought I had, which is related is, does it make sense? Would it be good? Would it be bad for, for there to have been some big cutouts in the, in the ceiling?

35:24Wow. And I don't know. And the positives of that are really obvious. You bring more light to the center of the space. You create, if this is a, this is an assumed positive, it creates more, a more dynamic relationship to the sky above. It's more, you know, you have porosity coming from the top and not just like, just this slit, it's not a slit, but this like slit of glass around, you actually have more happening in the project. But I also could see where that would be antithetical to like, to the,

36:01to the thesis of the project, which is that no, it's not about having more funsies and having more dynamic stuff and more light and whatever and punching holes. It's just about the, this, this, this strip, you know, of glass and then the cores, which can make galleries and like, that's it. Don't, don't fuck around with anything else. It's interesting because we were looking for the original renderings of the LACMA, right? Before things got VE, then like things changed and got revised and all that. And one of the renderings looks like a, you know, two story tall space with a bunch of light and vertical planes and angle

36:37planes. It looks like a completely different building. It looks like a complete different building. And you know, you had said at the beginning, we went to look at that building, trying to like, not think about who's the architect. And if you are asking me or telling me this was a Zoom Thor building, I would have been like, oh, that's not what I would have expected from Peter Zoom Thor. So because of the, because of the general layout or because of the details?

37:03Uh, probably what I'm not super familiar with is seeing his details in person, you know, of his work, but like, I would say the general layout and, um, uh, you know, interaction and connection of the pieces, right? I feel like his work is very poetic, kind of like almost spiritual in some of the ways that, you know, the planes work together and all of that. And this feels a little bit like basic bitch in a way, you know, two planes, you know, a visor, and that's kind of it. And I would

37:35have never guessed that would have been a Zoom Thor building.

Window Details and Curtains

37:38Well, I'll tell you the other thing too, that, that the detail that I kept remarking on when we were there is the windows. So, you know, the windows have these bronze frames. Um, and first the, the thing I like about them is that there are these frames. I didn't mind that part. And I'm going to highlight that because I think one of the things that architects and especially clients, they default to is as much glass as possible, as little frame as possible, no frame. I'd rather have the biggest piece of glass possible and butt joints. And like, I get it, but I think also window

38:15frames and even mullions and things and mountains can really provide a sense of scale, datum and a reference point to make something more magical. And it's, it's a, it's a fallacy to think that to that pure glass automatically equals more connection to the outside and automatically means like a better viewing experience. It's not the case. It's absolutely not the case. Anyway, there's, um, still quite thin bronze frames, but I like them. They helped provide a sense of like scale

38:46and reference point. The part I didn't like. Okay. So you imagine a window where there's four sides to the frame and then on the left and the right, the verticals are shared, you know, with the adjacent, uh, uh, pane at the bottom, the bottom part of the frame is sitting directly on the concrete, like you would imagine. Okay. So you have a full frame, the top stopped short of the concrete by two and a half, maybe three, maybe three and a half, four inches. I was going to say more like five or six inches. Okay. Yeah. Maybe this is hard to, yeah. And there's like this black, uh, you know, accordion, squishy looking rubber gasket thing that's five

39:25inches tall between the top of the window frame and the bottom of the concrete ceiling. So the purity of the architecture, which is two slabs and glass with frame is fucking not there because you have this giant black band at the top around all of the windows. And I don't know if that's there. I'm going to guess is there to absorb the flex of the structure for seismic reasons, but it is, um, um, it's, it's big. And then the curtains are, uh, on a separate track and a separate system in front

40:02of the glass on the interior. And they're suspended through like these like metal rods, which I didn't have much of a problem with, but it's like when the building has no details, cause it's just concrete. So therefore these, when these two things I mentioned are, they're like 80% of the details of the inside and they're right where the glass is. It's just seems it's disturbing.

40:27It's disturbing. You know what I mean? Um, cause everything is so clean in the sense that it's just concrete and concrete and concrete. Fucking all the lines in HVAC are drilled up into the concrete. So I don't see any grills anywhere. And yet you have this like rubber gasket thing and these curtain tracks. It just doesn't feel right. It doesn't feel right. I know. And I'm always kind of like, well, could the glass have gone into the concrete a bit higher or do like a, you know, like a recess pockets, all that stuff could be hidden, but you see, get the effect. I'm sure it could have been done. Um, the, with what I said though, I can also appreciate and see where having

41:04the curtains be on a separate rail suspended from the ceiling, like detached from everything is also in a perfectly acceptable solution because it's not trying to be embedded with something, right? Well, and also I don't think we, the curtain was everywhere. It was only certain spots.

41:21The tracks were not everywhere. So it was probably a cheaper detail to do that and, you know, Oh, for sure. Cheaper. Frame it and all of that. But also maybe it makes sense, right? Because you have the metal stuff and the metal stuff is attached to the concrete stuff. It's not like trying to be buried or hidden. Because if you have a big cut into the concrete, that also erodes the purity of the concrete slab. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. See, this is why people like, why does it take you so long to like design something like, because we think about this kind of shit throughout the entire building and most buildings have more details. So apparently the best I read just before this recording,

41:55the best time to go, according to this article in the wallpaper is 4 PM when the sun goes down and the light is actually a lot warmer and everything looks kind of like, you know, shimmery and beautiful on the inside rather than like mid morning. So we probably were there mid morning. I do like your comment about the artwork though. It's pretty weird that like they're sitting on these table, you have like a, you know, 300 if whatever BC sculpture, like just sitting on a table that

42:26someone bought from like, probably a copy that they put on display. Cause I'm like, I don't know, it didn't say facsimile, but it looked, you know, it's a table that someone bought from like a, a target, maybe not a target, maybe it's like a DWR outlet or something. Like, it's just like there and skinny legs. It's like, you could kick that thing over. It's, it's really bizarre, but I, I, I kind of, I kind of fuck with it. I kind of like it because it almost makes me feel like it's somebody's private collection. I'm seeing, you know, it's not again, this like a very elitist,

43:00uh, uh, room I'm entering. I did like the concrete as a textured backdrop for two dimensional artwork though. Yeah. I thought that was, um, I think, I think there's, especially when it was more of like the classic paintings, there's a nice, you know, clash between the, the modern raw concrete and like the refinement of those paintings and the gold, you know, frames and all of that.

Concrete as an Art Backdrop

43:29The thing is like, when you have artwork, like in this image, the paintings you're describing, and they're against a white wall, they're always against a white wall or like a maroon wall. It's like one of those two for whatever reason. And it's like, again, on the one hand, it makes sense as a default because you don't want anything to, to, to muddy your, uh, your observation of the artwork and white, we default to being like the nothing answer. Right. It's not

44:01a color, you know, it's like, it's just, yeah, exactly. Yeah. But it actually also has this weird effect of like, you don't really, you're not able to place the artwork in reality because you're in a white box. And so for me having the concrete background, it made the artwork real. It was like, I can actually understand this thing in reality, in real space. Yeah. I'm in real space now with real people, real materials, real life. And I'm looking at this artwork and it's very different. And especially

44:36because it is concrete, like, you know, if you were standing up close, you could be outside under the freeway or wherever. And you have this like famous piece of artwork and it, it just provides another way of understanding things that I think is a worthwhile counterpoint to the white art gallery, which is an abstract, not real space. So I also really like that the openings to the galleries, the door with the threshold doorway thing that they're not doors, there's no doors,

45:09but the openings varied in height. So some of our tall, which means you can fit larger artwork, some of our short, which means that you're not going to fit big pieces in here ever. Because I, I, I'm pretty sure none of those walls move. I don't, I didn't see any evidence that those could be, you know, movable. And, um, yeah. Yeah, no, it was pretty cool. I do feel like they, um, they have room to add more stuff though.

45:35What do you mean? Artwork wise. Like it wasn't dense enough, you mean? Yeah, I feel like, well, no, like more like big, big pieces, like big sculpture. And I'm sure they're gonna, uh, you know, add to it. It wasn't clear to me if this is like a permanent collection or things are going to change around a little bit. Um, What'd you think about the ceiling height?

45:58I thought it was fine. It definitely could not be lower.

46:03No, but I think if you were going to go higher, it would have, it would have destroyed the effect of the glass, you know, looking out. I think you kind of need a certain format of view before it becomes about the height and not about the view anymore. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah, I know what you mean. I know what you mean. In some moments, it was fine. In other moments, I felt like it could be just like a smidge higher by a smidge. I mean, like four inches taller. Okay, get out of here. No, no, but it's just because it goes back to my comment about you feeling like kind of

46:36compressing and not compressing as in like interesting, but like it's just it's just it's squishing you. And I wonder if it's a little more high. The open plan was kind of cool. It was also kind of confusing because you didn't really know where you were going. I felt like I missed definitely parts of the museum. So in a way, I want to go back to, you know, explore the parts I did not see, but I'm not sure I would even be able to recognize the part I did not see. Yeah, well, it's also because everything's the same

47:08material. So it's easy to get kind of confused and lost. Apparently, the curtains are made with metal metal. I got in trouble because I touched the curtain and one of the docents came up and was like, please do not touch the curtains. She was a bitchy docent anyway. There's this lady who had a tiny backpack purse and she asked her to put it on one shoulder. I'm like, I think that's more risky to be on one shoulder than on the back. That's like how you swing it around. Why would you care if it's on one shoulder? I'm like, you're not at the Louvre here. You're not, you know, like going between like

47:39Mona Lisa's and whatever. Like you have plenty of space. She doesn't touch anything. Yeah, I don't know. Chill. There's certain docents, they correct you and that's their job. Fine. And that's it. And there's others, they correct you and they proceed to like talk to you about like why it's the case. I don't really fucking care. Just, you know, also I don't know. The curtains are there, man. They're going to be touched. Like they're there. There's not behind a railing. What is this picture? That's, that's,

48:12that's the, uh, you know, the exit vestibule door that's inside. That's like a corner. It's like the door meeting the thing. Not about the stick. Probably a fire. I can't tell my eyes are very good. Yeah. Screw heads. Bolt heads. Yeah. Um, I, that's funny. I don't have any problems with the staircase, but the, uh, the Brie Soleil was, was nice. I liked that. Uh, it's kind of interesting that they, it's a stainless steel. I was going to say, yeah. I don't have a problem with it though.

48:43No, I don't. Um, if anything, it, it, it makes sense in terms of, you know, being logical with where you put materials. Like the bronze is the bronze, the steel is the steel, the concrete is the concrete. You don't mix them. You don't just combine them. But I thought that was a nice detail, expensive detail. I thought this was cool. And the gallery, I like the gallery. It's nice. I would be interesting to go at night or like, you know, later in the season when the,

49:16because there is lights on the facade and those ceilings to see what that looks like when it's dark. Yeah. Let's talk about the bathrooms. Some serious doors for the bathrooms. Those doors were expensive doors. I mean, I guess you were doing an $800 million building. You might as well have nice bathroom doors, but compared to typical bathroom doors. Yeah. Those were heavy, heavy doors recessing concrete. That's expensive. But then they had the cheapest paper towel in there. It's like see-through. I mean, I, uh, I mean, look at this bathroom door. It's like,

49:50look at that. I wasn't sure we would come out of there. That's like, that's the cost of like an entire kitchen is that one, this whole door and the surround of the door. Fuck.

Lunch at the Air One Cafe

50:00Fuck. Yeah, that's ridiculous. Um, let's talk about, uh, lunch. So air one, which for those who don't know is actually mostly like a supermarket, but it's a fancy LA supermarket. It's the one where, you know, there's like whole foods. That was like the expensive. And then there's air one, and there's one above air one. I think air one is, is the type of place you go into and all the food. It's like a gallery. All the food is like perfectly aligned and stocked.

50:32Beautiful. It's also the place where. Well, the founder of air one is Japanese, right? So that's where all that comes from. Well, that is super racist, but fine. It's culturally accurate. You go to Japan and like big stores are in Japan. It's like, everything's so pristine. Nobody actually buys anything. They just come and look at it. Uh, cause it would be rude to buy those things to disrupt the, uh, ecosystem of the, um, so yeah, that's air one. It's also the place where X years ago, maybe they still do. You could buy a water and a glass jug for $20 if you wanted to.

51:06That's used to. Yeah. And it's not like a hundred gallons of water. It's like, you know, a liter of water for $20 or you buy a special air one smoothie that the celebrities drink and there's like 15 bucks a piece. It's this kind of place, but they have an air one cafe, um, at the bottom of LACMA and that's where we had lunch. And, um, so first of all, that thing is way too fucking small. What are we doing? A massive building and they have an air one cafe that's the size of a fucking closet. It was hot and uncomfortable and just too, too small. I don't know what they

51:41were thinking when they were programming that thing. It looked like an afterthought to me. It looked like they thought they would put like a tiny, I don't know, local cafe and then like air one was like, I want a bite of this. A tiny bite. Like it's really small. Yeah, it was, uh, I mean, thank goodness they had outdoor sittings because I don't even know inside if you could see it anywhere. Uh, no, no, no, there was. Oh, there was like three tables? You know, there's, there's a, there's, I don't know if I have a picture of it. Uh, yes, yes, there were three tables. Yeah, you line up on the right and on the left, I think there was just a

52:12little seating area, but that was like pretty small. Yeah. The actual part that has like the, the, the register and you pick your food in order and stuff is, I mean, it's gotta be, it's gotta be from the counter. It's gotta be, no, not even the counter to the, to the back wall, you know, behind the counter to the, to whatever, the walls have gotta be 10 feet maybe. No, probably more than that. Front to back? Not, not, not much more than that. Not much more than that. And then left to right, it's like maybe 25. Yeah. Like it's tight, tight, tight. It makes no

52:46sense. I don't, I don't know. I don't know what, I don't know. Meanwhile, you have massive amounts of outdoor space and concrete cubes and you have this tiny fucking thing and people trying to get lunch. It just like, what? I don't understand it. What'd you think of the food? Oh, the food was really good. I mean, the food was. Sushi? Sushi was pretty good. Yeah, it was okay. I mean, it was, I was hungry and it was fresh, so. Okay. Fair. No, it was like, the sushi was okay. The sandwich was good. I mean, I wouldn't go there for sushi, but you know, I was looking for food and it was better than like. Here's, this has nothing to do with architecture. Here's the thing I don't

53:19understand about sushi. So you go to a sushi restaurant, like a decent one, not an upscale one, not like the super cheap, but like a decent one. It's gonna be, it's gonna be okay, right? It's gonna, it's gonna be sushi. How many grocery stores that are even fancy ones like Airman, they sell sushi and you bite into it. You're like, this is mediocre at best. How can you, well, is it that complicated? It's fucking, we got California rolls, which is like the widest thing to get, but it's like fucking rice seaweed and some imitation crab and avocado. Like, how do you fuck that up?

53:49How do you not be as good as a sushi restaurant for the California roll? It comes from the rice, the seasoning, the little bits of this. I know the magic is in the rice, but it, I, but come on. Well, I don't know. It's Airman. Yeah, I don't know. For whatever, $15 for five bites of sushi, whatever it was, I expect better. But the sandwich was good. And the, what did we get? Some kind of matcha sesame? Black sesame matcha latte. That was pretty good. Yeah, that was pretty good. We got like a, like a pastry thing. That was pretty good too.

54:21But, so the problem with having good food... That's the best part of going to museums is the souvenir shop and the cafe. That was the first thing you listed, biased toward sweets and treats. And French after all.

54:34And then, and then, as we were inside the museum, we see this wacky looking building that looks unused, which is, I think, some sort of Japanese center for art or something like that. Pretty strange. Super strange, strange. And yeah, it doesn't look, it didn't look open, but I was like, this is such a wacky thing. Like, again, who would, who would order a building like that? Like, you know, it's like, you go order food, you go to the counter, like, okay,

55:06so I would like a funky building that looks somewhat Asian, but has some sweeps and sweeps and like some things sticking out on the roof and make it green so it blends in. And it's a splash of ice cream on top, you know, like... It's one of the strangest things I've seen. I'm like... I don't even know. I'm trying to think of like an analogy. Like sometimes the simplest thing with clients is so hard to get through. And then I'm like, and then there's people who commission that. And I'm like, what? My thing is like, if you're a client and you're on board that, could you commission an architect to

55:37do a fucking better job? Like, I don't have a problem with the, with wackiness. I don't have a problem with more avant-garde things. I don't have a problem with postmodernism. I'm open to a lot of stuff. But this is just ugly and stupid. It's pretty weird. There are a few things that if they had carried through in a different way, it'd be cool. But this is just bullshit. Like, this is bullshit. It's just bullshit. And it's the type of thing that pisses me off too, because like, if some student were presenting this, they'd have all his words and argument around it. It'd be some

56:07stupid critic being like, well, this is actually really interesting architecture because blah, blah, blah. I'm like, no, it's fucking ugly. Shut up. What are you doing? You know? Critics.

56:20But I think it is on the subject of critics, it's too easy to get lost in words. Like you can't rationalize anything if you try hard enough. Yeah. And, and it's like, you gotta draw a line somewhere. Like, you know, uh, that's where I was saying, you know, the whole debate about concrete, the being concrete versus like, it bores me. Like, yeah, you could debate that forever. So what? Yeah. You know? Um, but that thing, stupid. Um. Okay. So, I think that's kind of, there's, I think it's kind of, I really like the fountain and the, the, the, the calder. Mm-hmm.

56:55Sculpture. Yeah. They just need to buy more sculptures to put around the museum. I know. Yeah. No, but that was cool. That was cool. Next on our list, I think, is the, uh, Lucas

Debating Nature-Mimicking Architecture

57:07museum opening in September. I'm curious to see that one too. Yeah. That'll be fun. Yeah. That'll be fun to see. Um, it's a, it's, it's, it's interesting too, because both of them have a similar kind of swoopiness still in the plan, but they're completely different takes on like what it's supposed to be. And actually there was a zoom through had said that the geometry of the plan was not something that he decided it to be. He was like, he wanted the building to perform in a certain way and to achieve certain things. And he's like, that was the best geometry for,

57:38for it, which is honest as opposed to architects who have a formal agenda. And that's all they're going to do regardless of anything else. And then they, they rationalize it through some bullshit. It's like, Oh, it's like nature or some whatever nonsense. Yeah. Um, hint, hint, hint, hint. Um, yeah, it's a preview of my review of the, uh, Lucas museum. Well, let's go without any preconception and our hearts and minds open David. But, but I mean, I'm going to read my, repeat myself in a few months when we, when we go there, but that this argument that architecture in the form of it is validated because it mimics the forms

58:12of nature is such fucking horse shit. Like, can we stop with that? It doesn't, it doesn't count. I have no problem with it. If it's executed in the jungle and you're trying to blend in, like it's camouflage. Yeah. Fine. But if you're in like the middle of like New York or like LA, it's like, what nature are you talking about? There is no biophilic anything here. But the argument is that, well, as humans, we are programmed to as a species, as an animal to, to feel, feel a certain way, uh, as a result of certain shapes and forms. And that these kinds of

58:47soft curve, whatever things are more like nature. And then, you know, it's like saying, uh, well, you feel a certain way when you're in nature, right? You feel good. Well, there's certain things that make you feel that way. And we're taking out those things, which are the geometries and putting the buildings there for the buildings are validated and you feel better or whatever, because of that. I just think it's boring and stupid. I don't know. I mean, I don't know if the, you know, like the, the little veining of a leaf is what's going to make you feel good in a building that does that at a scale that's like blown up, like 300 times bigger.

59:18I also fundamentally disagree. The other thing I don't like is that it's like, okay, so all of the buildings you ever do are going to be that way, right? Well, okay. That seems kind of dumb. The other thing too, I, I, I disagree with a take like that because depending on how you defined people and nature and man-made stuff and nature and whatever else, like we exist as a species part of nature, but also we're very different from everything else in nature. Like that's part of what it means to be human is this conflict and to just like,

59:51to not embrace the conflict, which is to say, you know, to, to be open, I think to other forms, geometries, colors, materials, and whatever else, and to acknowledge that that's the nature of all, of, of what we're doing is to wrestle with this conflict. I think is, is it's, it's, it's not true. It's a lie. So I'm very much against that, that form of argument. And I think it's weak. I think it's the type of argument you see in a second year student, which none of the critics would really buy except for the one stupid person. So. Yeah. I mean, I think there's a lot of things you can learn

1:00:22from looking at nature and, you know, in different ways. It doesn't mean that everything has to be looked at the same way and that you cannot extract one thing and make it, you know, again, your own and, and move it forward. So anyway. All right. Wrap it up. Give us an outro. Thank you everybody for

Wrap Up and Listener Callout

1:00:40watching and listening to this episode. If you like what we do, please leave us a review. Apple podcast, Spotify, YouTube. We're also on social media, second studio pod website, second studio pod.com and the hotline 213-222-6950. If there is a building in LA, you want us to go take a look cat and do a design review, let us know. Be happy to spend our weekend. Actually, that's a good one. Yeah. Suggestions to see stuff. Well, it has to be local. We can't really like fly around to see stuff unless somebody's paying for our expenses. Even then we don't have time. If you can invent

1:01:13teleportation and then invite us. I've been asking for it for years and listeners who've, you know, listened to us know about it. So whoever is working on teleportation, if we could get an ETA on it, that would be awesome. Two and a half hour driving time, max from where we are. Oh, that's pretty good. That's, that's gracious, right? Because then we don't have any more battery in our cars. All right. Talk soon. Thanks. Bye. Bye.