Take a Peek Inside Peter Zumthor’s New Building for LACMA

Soft openings may be de rigueur for restaurants, but their equivalent in art museums—previewing a new building before art is hung on the walls—is atypical. While the tactic reduces the wow factor that accompanies a grand opening, an early peek to more than a few critics does something more important: it elevates the building itself to a work of art. Such a thing happened 25 years ago with the Jewish Museum Berlin, whose Daniel Libeskind-designed addition was opened to the public—empty—ahead of its September 2001 grand opening. Anticipation was one factor: Libeskind won the competition in 1989 with a daring Deconstructivist design, and the public wanted to get inside soon after construction ended in 1999. Similarly, it has been sixteen years since Swiss architect Peter Zumthor was hired to expand LACMA, and twelve years since his initial design was unveiled, so Angelenos and others have been eager to see inside the Wilshire Boulevard-spanning concrete construction.

The building, officially named the David Geffen Galleries, opened its doors to the public for three days last week, accompanied by performances that scattered 120 musicians across the 110,000 square feet (10,220 m²) of galleries (the total building area is 347,500 sf [32,285 m²].) The event kicked off a summer in which LACMA donors and members will have the opportunity to go inside the building before the process of art installation begins, and when the wider public can explore “multiple features,” including outdoor sculptures in the shadows of the cantilevered building, openings of dining and retail spaces in the pavilions that support the building, and other special events. 

LACMA boasts of 3.5 acres (1.4 ha.) of “park-like public space” on both sides of Wilshire Boulevard, with the 75,000-sf (7,000-m²) W.M. Keck Plaza on the north side of Wilshire becoming the setting for Feathered Changes, a specially commissioned artwork by Mariana Castillo Deball. Another new artwork includes Threading the Boundless: Omnidirectional Terrain, by Los Angeles artist Sarah Rosalena, which will be housed in one of the new restaurants. Many of the outdoor sculptures will be drawn from the LACMA collection, such as Tony Smith's Smoke (pictured above) and Alexander Calder’s Three Quintains (Hello Girls), which was commissioned by the museum when it moved to Wilshire Boulevard in 1965.

The photos by Iwan Baan, shown here courtesy of LACMA, give an impression of the the building's interior spaces, which are defined by just two materials: concrete and glass. Elevated almost 30 feet (9m) above plaza level and supported by seven pavilions, the exhibition level is basically one grand, flowing horizontal space for displaying art. LACMA sees it as a means of “eliminating traditional cultural hierarchies” and allowing for the placement of “all works of art on the same plane,” both metaphorically and literally. Without any gallery spaces set aside for any single department, and echoing MoMA's latest expansion and the curatorial approach of other museums today, Zumthor's floor plan allows the institution to “shift emphases over time on different areas of the collection to respond to scholarship, collection growth, and public interest.” Furthermore, befitting the amoeba-like footprint of the building, there is no single route for the public to follow—both now and when the galleries are filled with art come April 2026.