Motion Picture Academy Unveils Designs for Renzo Piano-Designed Museum

         

It’s surprising to think that Los Angeles - the home of the U.S film industry – doesn’t have a museum solely dedicated to its homegrown artform. However, all that is about to change should the Academy of Motion Pictures have their way.

Last Thursday, plans were unveiled for the long-touted Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, a new museum designed by Renzo Piano and native Los Angeleno architect Zoltan Pali, which will be located in the streamline-moderne Wiltshire May Company building at Wilshire Boulevard and Fairfax Avenue, on the campus of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). Although the designs are at an early stage, the released drawings propose to convert the historic building into a museum, while marrying it with a 140-foot-diameter glass dome.

 

 

But what about that dome? The new globe, dirigible, or soap-bubble, as Piano is wont to describe it, will be attached to the northern side of the building and will house a premiere-sized theatre underneath a glass-covered rooftop venue. Offering vistas stretching from the Hollywood sign to the Pacific Ocean, the terrace is slated to be L.A’s new go-to spot for ritzy receptions and industry events. While back on ground level, a wide public piazza will stretch underneath the dome and through the ground floor of the building, connecting the museum to the LACMA campus and the city.