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Dear DnA Readers,
I hope you’re doing well, especially after last week's political earthquake. There is much to discuss in connection with that. But for now, how about a walk in the park...
This Sunday, the Natural History Museum welcomes Angelenos with a Celebration & Block Party for a new addition — the "modern and inviting front porch” at the West end of the building, serving visitors entering from the South, and making a more direct link to the entrance to the emerging Lucas Museum.
The architect Frederick Fisher designed an understated new wing, complete with a multi-purpose 400-seat theater, a shop, a cafe, and a Welcome Center with views out into the park, which has been landscaped by Studio Mia Lehrer (below).
 Exterior of NHM Commons, photo courtesy of the Natural History Museums of Los Angeles County © Undine Pröh.
The long lobby features three linear elements: Gnatalie, a 70-foot sauropod dinosaur skeleton, a wavy wall with a rib-like structure designed to echo the skeletal objects on display; and, perhaps the star attraction, Barbara Carrasco’s landmark 1981 mural L.A. History: A Mexican Perspective, a depiction of Los Angeles landmarks and personalities, commissioned by the now defunct Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA), and then censored over objections at the artist including imagery of the 1871 Chinese massacre, the wartime internment of Japanese Americans, and the Zoot Suit Riots. Now it is on permanent display, in its entirety. (A portion of the mural, from a photo by Sean Meredith is shown top of page).
 Rendering of the Judith Perlstein Welcome Center looking West. Image courtesy Frederick Fisher & Partners.
The "NHM Commons" may also go a small way toward improving the general experience of Expo Park, once described by Sam Lubell as a "remarkable compilation of attractions" that are ill-served by the parkland they sit on because it "remains broken, chopped, blocked and diced — a slew of largely car-oriented puzzle pieces interspersed with more than half a dozen outsized parking lots, several faceless access roads and some ugly fences and patches of dirt." Lubell followed up with the recent news of a masterplan for the entire site that will even bury some of those parking lots.
The new building also brings you right up close to the Lucas Museum — whose completion is delayed but expected next year. It's interesting to be in the NHM lobby with its skeletal remains of Gnatalie and stare out onto the looming biped of a building, designed by MAD Architects, that appears to be part alien object touching down, and part huge pavilion floating over a park.
 The Lucas Museum, photographed for Of The Moment by Jasmine Park
Elevating the form is not unlike another emerging museum, LACMA's David Geffen Galleries, designed by Peter Zumthor.
Peter Zumthor’s LACMA and Other Impossible Ideas
Speaking of the new LACMA building, you may be witnessing its emergence astride Wilshire Boulevard. Perhaps you wonder, is this concrete behemoth going to be a stunning art environment, with soulful and meticulously crafted space, materials, and play of light, traversing a desert garden and LA's most prominent street? Or will it be a giant blunder that feels like a freeway overpass?
The jury has been out on this project for the years it has been in process and along the way, many of the features that would have made it quintessentially Zumthor (like chapel-like natural light in the galleries) got cut out. Not to mention there has been a controversy over its size and its curatorial direction, dispensing with the encyclopedic museum model in favor of shows organized around themes.
 The David Geffen Galleries at LACMA arise, October 2024. Photo by Frances Anderton.
This Thursday, proponents and skeptics of the project will gather at an event hosted by LA Forum to discuss "LACMA’s transformation, its responsibility to its stakeholders, and the implications for public projects and civic architecture in Los Angeles." The conversation will be moderated by Jasmine Benyamin, with architects Frank Escher, John Southern, Linda Taalman, and Mohamed Sharif. A few remaining seats will be released Wednesday. The conversation will also be livestreamed on Instagram at @laforum_aud.
Click here for details.
 Model of the proposed David Geffen Galleries. Image courtesy Atelier Peter Zumthor
Cultural Capital
For more on the state of the LACMA and Lucas Museum buildings, check out Of The Moment. This one-off publication, available in PDF here, produced by Thom Mayne's Stray Dog Cafe and featuring conversations between architects about new directions in LA design, contains some striking new photos of both buildings, taken by Jasmine Park.
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