Letter to the Editor The art and the deal – SEPT. 30, 2021
The New Yorker: The Iconoclast Remaking Los Angeles Most Important Museum – Oct 12, 2020
Spectrum News: LACMA Responds To Community Pushback As Demo Continues – May 12, 2020
KCRW: LACMA’s Demolition Continues Through COVID-19 – April 15, 2020
Los Angeles Times: LACMA Has Begun Demolition, But Where Are The Gallery Plans? – April 15, 2020
Curbed LA: LACMA Is Being Torn Down Right Now_ – April 8, 2020
ArtNet News: Despite Everything, LACMA Demolition Continues_ – 30 MARCH 2020
Apollo Magazine: Has LACMA Lost Its Way?_ – 30 MARCH 2020
Non-Profit Quarterly: LACMA Loses Its Largest Donor – February 28, 2020
Southern Californians have strong feelings about LACMA’s teardown plan
Commentary: After giving $130 million in art to LACMA, the Ahmanson Foundation says: No more
Can LACMA afford its massive re-design? A look at the numbers
Commentary: LACMA caught the teardown bug. But the architectural cure isn’t a bulldozer
Commentary: Fundraising for LACMA’s new building has stalled as costs balloon
Save LACMA group could challenge museum proposal at the ballot box
LACMA Lovers League Petition: Los Angeles County Supervisors: Reconsider Your Approval of LACMA’s Final EIR (click here to sign)
Read the emails that community members sent to the Los Angeles County Supervisors about LACMA, obtained through a public records request. 83% oppose the proposed new building.
September 4, 2019, Archinect – With Peter Zumthor’s LACMA in the Home Stretch, Is Los Angeles Entering its Post-Rational Phase? After museum director Michael Govan seeks to convince him of the project’s necessity, John Southern says “I believe that we have entered L.A.’s post-rational period, where cultural institutions are governed by bean counters, lawyers, and social media marketeers…”
August 30, 2019, Le Monde – Coverage of the planned transformation of the LACMA campus, concluding with preservation-minded petitioner Richard Schave’s observation, “Ce n’est pas serieux.” (“This isn’t serious”). French original, English translation.
August 23, 2019, L.A. Times – Column: LACMA, largely closed, has become an expensive ghost town
July 9, 2019, L.A. Times – A devastating take down of the planned, mindless destruction of 50 years of curation and collecting at LACMA, in the form of an open letter to Peter Zumthor, who is over in the old country, fingers in his ears, singing “La la la, I can’t hear you!” (But the last lines are wrong: the Pereira must go to clear room for this dog.)
July 3, 2019, Curbed L.A. – LACMA architect Peter Zumthor comments on revised design “So far, I see no difficulties”
June 25, 2019, Los Angeles Times – LACMA opposition group vows to keep fighting the museum’s Zumthor plan.
May 28, 2019, Fix The City Files Lawsuit Challenging the LACMA EIR on the Ogden Garage.
May 16, 2019, Larchmont Buzz – coverage of publication of emails sent to the Los Angeles County Supervisors and the LACMA Lovers League petition
May 15, 2019, artnetNews – A New Petition Calls on Los Angeles’s Board of Supervisors to Reconsider LACMA’s Controversial Redesign
May 13, 2019, The Architect’s Newspaper – LACMA Lovers League starts petition to pause Zumthor’s new building
May 13, 2019: Los Angeles Times critic Christopher Knight finds Peter Zumthor’s gallery interiors old fashioned, and completely unsuitable for hanging art in earthquake country.
May 12, 2019: Esotouric published hundreds of emails received by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors prior to their approval of LACMA’s FEIR, and petitioned them to reconsider their decision to demolish the historic 1965 William Pereira campus.
April 9, 2019: Ignoring widespread critical and public calls to reject an EIR that raises more questions than it answers, the Los Angeles County Supervisors, joined by celebrity pals, voted unanimously to demolish Pereira’s historic 1965 LACMA campus. The project now requires City Council to give the museum the air space above Wilshire Boulevard. (L.A. Times, New York Times, Curbed L.A.)
April 9, 2019: Los Angeles County Supervisors to vote on LACMA project. Public feedback can be made by email or in person.
April 5, 2019: L.A. Review of Books – LACMA: Suicide by Architecture. “The County Board of Supervisors is now scheduled to vote on April 9 to approve funds based on a deceptive document without having seen a fully documented project or accurate square footage numbers.”
April 2, 2019: L.A. Times – LACMA, the Incredible Shrinking Museum: A critic’s lament.
March 29, 2019: L.A. Times – In a new redesign LACMA experiences shrinkage — and shapeshifts yet again.
March 25, 2019: Curbed L.A. – LACMA by Zumthor, 2019 edition: “under the newly released plans, the building would be 347,500 sq feet–40,000 sq feet smaller than the last version and more than 45,000 sq feet smaller than the four existing [Pereira] LACMA buildings that will be razed.”
July 13, 2018 – Curbed LA: LACMA is #1, MWD is #2 and Times Mirror Square is #5 on Curbed’s list of LA’s most endangered buildings. “Led by groups like the Los Angeles Conservancy, the Art Deco Society of Los Angeles, and Esotouric, LA has a strong community dedicated to historic preservation.”
July 3, 2018: Los Angeles Times feature on fundraising trouble for the proposed LACMA campus demolition and redesign.
Edifice Complex Mars L.A. County Museum (Sam Hall Kaplan, 10/14/2017)
Can Preservationists Save L.A.’s Late Modernist Landmarks From the Wrecking Ball? (L.A. Weekly, 1/5/2017)
Which William Pereira Buildings Are Worth Preserving? (Architect, the journal of the AIA, 10/4/2016)
Periera in Peril: Time is running out for William Pereira’s modernist legacy (The Architect’s Newspaper, 9/26/2016)
Got questions for the LACMA makeover? Bring them to a “scoping meeting” Wednesday (KCRW’s DnA, 8/23/16)