{"id":7198,"date":"2026-04-23T10:00:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T10:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.angesfinanciers.org\/?p=7198"},"modified":"2026-04-24T15:13:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T15:13:17","slug":"zumthors-lacma-building-captures-the-strangeness-of-our-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.angesfinanciers.org\/index.php\/2026\/04\/23\/zumthors-lacma-building-captures-the-strangeness-of-our-times\/","title":{"rendered":"“Zumthor’s LACMA building captures the strangeness of our times”"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"LACMA\"<\/div>\n

As Peter Zumthor<\/a>‘s highly anticipated\u00a0Los Angeles County Museum of Art<\/a> opens, local writer Shane Reiner-Roth<\/a> examines how the structure reflects the current moment.<\/span><\/p>\n

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The CEO and director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art<\/a> (LACMA), Michael Govan seems to believe that the highs and lows of quick decision-making are irrelevant in the pursuit of immortality.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Since joining 20 years ago, Govan has transformed a publicly funded cultural institution of moderate acclaim into a laboratory for global stardom by commissioning distinctive permanent works by contemporary artists. His first commission, Chris Burden’s Urban Light (2008), a grid of restored street lamps near the entrance, positioned LACMA as one of the city’s most popular tourist destinations.<\/p>\n

Others, such as Michael Heizer’s Levitated Mass (2012), which clumsily positions a 340-ton boulder above a desolate walking path in a 2.5-acre sand pit, have drawn ridicule<\/a> \u2013 the more common consequence of impetuousness.<\/p>\n

But no commission, for better and worse, will ever be as consequential as the recently opened David Geffen Galleries, the new home of LACMA’s permanent collection.<\/p>\n

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The layout allows for a fragmentation of self-awareness on the museum’s part<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The project has attracted local criticism and concern since day one. This is the first project built in the United States to be designed by Zumthor, the Swiss architect world-famous for minimalist works of remarkable spatial and material sensitivity. It is also his largest by far, with 347,000 square feet (32,237 metres) spread across 3.5 acres (and yet it only offers 110,000 square feet of gallery space \u2013 10,000 fewer than in the galleries it replaces).<\/p>\n

Composed of more than two million cubic feet of concrete (65,000 cubic metres), and boasting a price tag of $750 million (125 million of which would come from local taxes), the project even dares to span a major boulevard, like a freeway overpass \u2013 a visual statement about the fast-moving and elevated position of the art market in Los Angeles, perhaps.<\/p>\n

But if all that could somehow be put aside, the public may well experience the final product as one that captures the strangeness of our times. It is overwhelming in multiple ways; some are sublime, as art should be, while others are distracting, as life often is today.<\/p>\n

Unlike the neoclassical Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, which neatly arranges rooms within a windowless grid, visitors here navigate a vast open floor plan that treats the time and space of art history as visual playthings.<\/p>\n