While the inkblot shape of Peter Zumthor’s proposed LACMA overhaul is evocative of the adjacent La Brea tar pits, scientists combing the pit for fossils view it more as a source of potential harm than homage.
An aerial view of Zumthor’s proposal to overhaul the LACMA campus. Guess which one is the tar pit.
Zumthor’s design oozes just a little too close for comfort, according to John Harris, chief curator of the the Natural History Museum’s Page Museum next door. He suspects that the dramatic cantilevered roof would threaten the ecology of the surrounding pits. “It would block off the light, the rain, and that affects the vegetation,” he told the L.A. Times, referring specifically to the portion that extends over the four pits closest to LACMA’s current Hammer building. Likewise, Natural History Museum director Jane Pisano fears the “subsuming” of the easterly lake pit under LACMA’s hood. Construction, although still years away, provides another cause for alarm. The 1986 construction of LACMA’s Japanese Pavilion dislodged a few fossils, while the 2006 construction of an underground parking garage damaged a prized mammoth skull.
To assuage these fears, LACMA director and Zumthor advocate Michael Govan has advised everyone to chill out: “Even I know it cantilevers too far. But all of that would get worked out over the next five years.”
“They’ll go through a bath of fire before it’s done; it’s the reality of building things today,” assured Frank Gehry, a former contender for LACMA’s redesign who recently stated that he’s no longer bitter. “But if the architecture is as good as we hope and expect it to be, and if it fits perfectly, as it can, into the culture of the museum and its collections, then it’s going to be fantastic.” [Los Angeles Times]
— Janelle Zara
Image via LACMA
