Does L.A's Bold New LACMA Museum Work?
5/14/202639 min
Los Angeles has a new museum. Or a new vision for an old one. One of the most important museums in the country, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, has just debuted a long-awaited new building. It’s designed by the revered Swiss architect Peter Zumthor. It cost three quarters of a billion dollars to realize. And long before it opened to the public last month, it has been controversial, for a whole host of reasons. It debuts with LACMA’s charismatic director Michael Govan promising not just a new LACMA, but a new vision for how museums show art and relate to the public. Ben Davis went out to Los Angeles to see the new building last month, and spoke to culture critic Carolina Miranda. Miranda has the gift of being both a sharp observer or L.A. art and a gifted translator of sometimes esoteric museum and architecture debate. She has published an analysis of Zumthor and Govan’s vision means for CityLab, called “For Better or Worse, the New LACMA Is an Instant LA Icon,” and she is here with me today to talk about what LACMA means for the city and for museums now.
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First 90 secondsCarolina Miranda· Guest0:00
[gentle music] You have all of these myriad pathways. The museum is not a grid. They shoot off in every direction. So yes, it's designed to get lost. And so if you go in without any idea about what you expect to see, I think it can be a very rewarding experience, like where, to see where these paths take you.
Ben Davis· Host0:17
[upbeat music] I'm Ben Davis, and this is The Art Angle, a podcast from Artnet News. Los Angeles has a new museum, or a new vision for an old one. One of the most important museums in the country, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, has just debuted a long-awaited new building. It's designed by the revered Swiss architect Peter Zumthor. It cost three-quarters of a billion dollars to realize, and long before it opened to the public last month, it was controversial for a whole host of reasons. It debuts with LACMA's charismatic director, Michael Govan, promising not just a new LACMA, but a new vision for how museums show art and relate to the public. I went out to Los Angeles to see for myself what it was all about last month, and I could think of no better person to talk about it with than Carolina Miranda. Miranda has the gift of being both a sharp observer of LA art and a gifted translator of sometimes esoteric museum and architecture debate to the public. She has just published an analysis of Zumthor and