Rendering of Spherical Theater
A rendering shows the spherical, 1,000-seat premiere theater named after $25 million donor David Geffen that will feature a rooftop terrace with views from Hollywood to the Pacific Ocean.
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Image Credit: Photo Credit: ©RENZO PIANO BUILDING WORKSHOP/©STUDIO PALI FEKETE ARCHITECTS/©A.M.P.A.S. -
Rendering Graphic
Image Credit: Photo Credit: ©RENZO PIANO BUILDING WORKSHOP/©STUDIO PALI FEKETE ARCHITECTS/©A.M.P.A.S. 2-D Graphic of the new 1,000-seat premiere theater.
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Graphic of Future Academy Museum
Image Credit: Photo Credit: ©RENZO PIANO BUILDING WORKSHOP/©STUDIO PALI FEKETE ARCHITECTS/©A.M.P.A.S. The future Academy Museum will reside in the Streamline Moderne former May Co. department store on the Los Angeles County Museum of Art's Mid-City campus.
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Graphic of Museum Rear
Image Credit: Photo Credit: ©RENZO PIANO BUILDING WORKSHOP/©STUDIO PALI FEKETE ARCHITECTS/©A.M.P.A.S. The idea of a large-scale Los Angeles film museum is older than the Academy itself, with plans first floated in 1925. The most serious previous attempt took root in the mid-1950s as a partnership between L.A. County and industry heavyweights such as Walt Disney, Jack Warner and Mary Pickford. Before foundering amid city politics and lawsuits over eminent domain, that effort got as far as an October 1963 ground-breaking gala on a site adjacent to the Hollywood Bowl.
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Building Model
Image Credit: Photo Credit: COURTESY OF ©A.M.P.A.S. The new theater will attach to the historic May Co. building structure.
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Building Model
Image Credit: Photo Credit: COURTESY OF ©A.M.P.A.S. View of the model May Co. building.
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Jeffrey Katzenberg and Steven Spielberg
Image Credit: Photo Credit: TODD WAWRYCHUK/COURTESY OF ©A.M.P.A.S Donors Jeffrey Katzenberg and Steven Spielberg are flanked by Academy CEO Dawn Hudson (left) and president Cheryl Boone Isaacs as they review the current plans.
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LACMA West
Image Credit: Photo Credit: Courtesy of LACMA "If you're a natural history museum, you have a definite kind of educational mandate. If you're a museum about entertainment, that border is a little more slippery," says Jan-Christopher Horak, who runs UCLA's Film & Television Archive. "Obviously people come to have a good time, but you want to teach them something."
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LACMA West
Image Credit: Photo Credit: Courtesy of LACMA "A good museum knows how to balance the pressures, and that's where LACMA can be helpful," he says. "We've been doing this for a long time. We walk those lines all the time in the art world; Jeff Koons is a big business, too. You're aware of special interests and make sure they recuse themselves. It makes it easier when you're not doing this in isolation."
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Judy Garland
Image Credit: Photo Credit: COURTESY OF ©A.M.P.A.S. One of the iconic movie artifacts on display at the museum will be the ruby slippers worn by Dorothy (Judy Garland) in The Wizard of Oz.
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LACMA Resnick Exhibition Pavilion
Image Credit: Photo Credit: Courtesy of LACMA Bill Kramer, the Academy Museum's managing director, believes the Academy's biggest challenge will be presenting the story of film in a way that requires visitors to actually set foot in the museum: "Especially with an art form that you consume frequently and can consume at home, how do you create an environment that's more thrilling than what you can do at home or in the theater?"
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Wilshire View of LACMA
Image Credit: Photo Credit: Courtesy of LACMA Carl Goodman, director of New York's Museum of the Moving Image — which is currently partnering with the Academy on a Chuck Jones exhibition — notes, "If they do what I expect they'll be able to do, several years after they open, people won't be able to ever believe there wasn't an Academy Museum — that people came to Hollywood to commune with Hollywood by looking at a sign and cavorting on a boulevard with costumed characters."