Dear DnA friends,

I hope you’re doing well. It's been an exciting couple of weeks in design and architecture, with the opening of the new LACMA building, and the overhaul of CEQA.

First, LACMA’s new David Geffen Galleries, designed by Peter Zumthor, which many of you probably visited recently, and have formed your own impressions. For what it's worth, here is my own snap judgment: the building is both awesome and awful.  

Awesome in its scale — both in size and ambition. Awesome, the palpable joy in the crowds as they wandered the spaces, especially when kissed with golden hour sunlight. Awesome, the views of the Petersen Automotive Museum, Park La Brea, the Pavilion for Japanese Art, La Brea Tar Pits, and Wilshire Boulevard... unfolding cinematically as you perambulate the building. Awesome, an art museum that has broken free of the white box.

Photo by Frances Anderton

Awful: the relentlessness of the heavy gray concrete. The building feels like a piece of infrastructure, a highly aestheticized version of our utilitarian concrete structures — freeways, parking structures, overpasses.

Frank Gehry made a unique LA architectural language out of the region’s “vernacular” when he artfully repurposed chain-link and plywood. It's not clear Zumthor has achieved that alchemy, perhaps because he’s gone for such a high level of material and curatorial control (including nixing picture rails) — control that is then oddly countered by the design’s seemingly arbitrary form and plan (non-Eurocentric, non-hierarchical, non-axial, easy to get lost in).

Awful: the tantalizing outdoors. The building is touted as quintessentially Angeleno but lacks inside-outside flow. There are views to and from outside, but no open walkways or terraces (one staircase, yes). One is contained in a climate-controlled space as if in a sealed-in office building or wavy-walled goldfish bowl. Maybe this is how a goldfish would feel if it was swimming in an Alvar Aalto vase. 

Don't Mess With Success

But again, it’s hard to argue with success. The building has been met with delight. In many ways, it is awe-inspiring. The concrete expanses will be softened and set off by the art, by colors that are yet to be applied to the enclosed gallery walls, and hopefully by more landscaping. This structure is a huge achievement on the part of Michael Govan, who persisted with his vision, despite many hurdles along the way.

Hurdles, including a three-year environmental review... which brings us to CEQA.

Photo by Frances Anderton

See Ya, CEQA!

The must-read book Abundance, by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, has jolted and divided Democrats with its critique that blue state leaders have allowed process to get in the way of getting things built.

That message was heard loud and clear by Governor Gavin Newsom, who recently struck a knife into the heart of CEQA, the mighty California Environmental Quality Act. CEQA, passed by Governor Ronald Reagan in 1970, had the worthy goal of limiting destructive development, but it was subsequently weaponized by opponents to thwart anything from urban housing and high-speed rail to a food bank, a child-care center, and San Francisco’s bike plan.

Now, at the stroke of Newsom's pen, infill housing and some other building types, such as high-tech factories, are exempted from vague “environmental review.”  

On one hand, these reforms do away with one of the major causes of added costs and length of construction for necessary new buildings. On the other, they do the same for projects on sites that arguably warrant review, say concerned environmental groups, and they conflict with labor. We’re going to discuss the pros and cons of overhauling CEQA at a FORT:LA online discussion on July 23rd. Sign up here so you can get alerts with all the details.

And now, perhaps now Newsom can get our high-speed rail back on track.  

Design Things To Do

What I'm Digging

Playful Peter Cook

Summer is the season for outdoor installations and one of the delightful ones — for those spending time in London — is the Play Pavilion designed by Sir Peter Cook, architect, famed founder of Archigram, and longtime professor. He says his pavilion for children, built out of legos, invites youngsters "to explore and idly delight in a territory between the wayward and speculative towards unashamed amusement.” It sits not far from the more serious Serpentine Pavilion 2025 by Marina Tabassum and is a perfect expression of the playful spirit of the co-inventor of the Plug-in City.

Image courtesy Serpentine, picture by Andy Stagg 

To be Human is to be Plastic

Speaking of fun stuff for kids...

Of the many things to fret about these days, one of them is plastics and how they consume us and our world. Of all these articles that fret about it, this one in The Atlantic is both illuminating and, dare I say, amusing. The writer Annie Lowrey even has a blood test to figure out just how much plastic is in her system, and learns that "plastic is so ubiquitous that researchers, wanting to examine the effect of plastics on the human body, are struggling to find all-natural individuals to use as controls in studies." (Itals are mine.)

Image courtesy National Oceanography Center

Home is Where the Art Is

If you believe art should not require an MFA to be understood or loved, check out the events, exhibitions, and podcasts produced by NOT REAL ART. Now founder (and friend) Scott Power has launched a new concept, Arthouse, a reality TV show in which homeowners meet artists and end up picking a painting or sculpture at a price point and style that suits them while supporting local artists. The show was inspired, says Power, by Chef's Table and House Hunters; it will be hosted by Carmen Acosta and directed by House Hunters alum Laura Patterson. He is currently crowdfunding to meet an August deadline to move Arthouse from concept to screen, saying, "We're passionate about democratizing art, and making art accessible, and humanizing artists, and demystifying the art world, and Arthouse is the personification of our beliefs."

Homeowners and artist meet in trailer for Arthouse