Transformation
About Transformation > Phase II

Phase II

The second phase of LACMA’s Transformation builds upon the unification of the museum’s campus begun in Phase I. It includes expanded facilities for special exhibitions in the Lynda and Stewart Resnick Exhibition Pavilion as well as the complete rehabilitation of LACMA West, the 300,000-square-foot former May Company building, originally built in 1939, which will house galleries, public amenities, administrative offices, and expanded space for additional educational and public programming. LACMA will work with artists, including Jorge Pardo, to develop the architectural concepts that will inform many of the designs.

Phase II is anticipated to include:

  • The construction of a free-standing, single-story building for special exhibitions, located directly north of the Broad Contemporary Art Museum (BCAM) and atop the recently built parking garage; featuring an open floor plan, light-filled space, concrete floor, and a sawtooth roof similar to BCAM; designed by Renzo Piano.
  • Artworks and artist-designed outdoor installations sited across the campus including the addition of two major works by James Turrell on LACMA West’s roof—Missed Approach and Boullée’s Boule, the latter of which is one of Turrell’s signature skyscapes, as well as Michael Heizer’s Levitated/Slot Mass, a boulder weighing more than 400 tons that will be suspended on two concrete rails, enabling visitors to walk through the carved-out earth underneath. Jeff Koons’s Train, (currently in the planning stage) is expected to become a major attraction for the city of Los Angeles. A seventy-foot replica of a 1940s locomotive, suspended from a 161-foot-tall crane, will dangle over the north piazza adjacent to the BP Grand Entrance, releasing steam and chugging three times a day. Feasibility studies for the project, made possible by the Annenberg Foundation, are underway, and installation of Train is anticipated to be in 2012.
  • Rehabilitation of the surrounding park as well as the expansion of Robert Irwin’s grid of palm trees to the areas around the Lynda and Stewart Resnick Exhibition Pavilion and other buildings on LACMA’s campus. Reinstallation of the B. Gerald Cantor Sculpture Garden, which includes LACMA’s renowned collection of Rodin sculptures.
  • Improvements to LACMA West including: up to 20,000 square feet of additional gallery space; expansion of the Boone Children’s Gallery, housing workshops and other programs for children and families; a video and new-media lab for children; reconfigured spaces for LACMA’s collection of prints and drawings, photographs, and textiles, providing enhanced accessibility and use by students, scholars, and the public; curatorial and administrative workspace including an office designed by the celebrated Los Angeles architect John Lautner, reassembled piece by piece in LACMA West as the Director’s office; Dan Flavin’s three corridors of light, originally installed in the Pacific Design Center in the 1980s, reinstalled amongst the staff offices; and public amenities including a new restaurant and retail space, designed in collaboration with Jorge Pardo.

Model, LACMA campus overview, Renzo Piano Building Workshop, architects.

Image, top: Site drawing, west elevation, Lynda and Stewart Resnick Exhibition Pavilion, Renzo Piano Building Workshop, architects.