Good morning, it’s Thursday, April 16. Today will be a cloudy one, with temps in the mid-70s.
In today’s newsletter, the jacarandas are out early, fatal car crashes are up, and there’s a Golden Globe available for your purchase if you want one. But first, a dispatch from the new LACMA, and a rundown on why it’s made so many people so mad for so long.
LACMA’s new Geffen Galleries welcomed their critics.
The new LACMA has arrived! The great big slab of curvy concrete — which sprawls low-slung across Wilshire Boulevard like the world’s most expensive pedestrian overpass — opened Wednesday for a press preview. Members can check it out starting Sunday; the general public can stream in May 4.
At Wednesday morning’s event, museum staff and L.A.’s art press — many of whom have been wary about the project — mingled over snacks from Erewhon, which will run a pop-up cafe on site. One writer, met with the remark that it was an exciting morning, responded “Is it?” Museum director Michael Govan knocked back a green juice before stepping to the podium with twinkly aplomb, thanking donors and his team, and releasing the assembled crowd into the new David Geffen Galleries, which will complement a few pre-existing LACMA buildings.
Christopher Knight, the longtime art critic of the L.A. Times, who is now retired and won a Pulitzer for his criticism of the museum, said he hadn’t yet seen the art installed as he headed for the entrance. “I’m nervous,” he said. “I am hoping to be relieved.”
Crowds checking out the newly installed art. (Pablo Goldstein/L.A. Material.)
Inside, it was easy to forget — as visitors fingered the shimmering curtains (made, somehow, out of metal?), shot photos of the art, the building, and the views, and chatted up the curators who dotted the galleries like helpful salesmen at a sweater counter — just how controversial this project has been, and why.
A brief recap: The Los Angeles County Museum of Art split off from what is now the county Natural History Museum in 1961. The idea was to build a worthy temple of art for an increasingly cosmopolitan city. William Pereira designed the campus, which opened in 1965. His LACMA buildings were broadly disliked for being both leaky and architecturally dinky.
After a few decades, museum directors began marshalling plans for a replacement. A public competition resulted in this 2001 design from Rem Koolhaas; then the economy crashed and the plan was scrapped.
Enter Govan, who joined LACMA in 2006, having worked on the Guggenheim Bilbao and the launch of Dia Beacon. He wooed Swiss architect Peter Zumthor to conceive of a better LACMA, convinced the county to put in $125 million, and raised more than $500 million in private funds to get the job done. Now, nearly 20 years later, Los Angeles has a new museum. What could be wrong with that?
The years-long litany of objections ran as follows:
Architect Peter Zumthor was hired without a public process.
Also he’d never built anything big, or in America, or many art museums, and was known for small, gemlike projects where he could design every door handle and control every detail; critics worried his approach wouldn’t work on a giant public project here.
As the design evolved, it shrunk. Critics including Knight and Joseph Giovannini pointed out that the new galleries would have less square footage than the buildings they were replacing.
This raised the question of what kind of museum LACMA should be. An encyclopedic one, showcasing as much of L.A.’s collection as possible, like New York’s Met? There might no longer be room! Govan argued that the new building would allow for a modern, less Eurocentric approach, with rotating exhibitions and unexpected pairings.
The walls are concrete, and potentially hard to mount art on. Tough for any museum, especially tough for one that proposes to fluidly mix and remix its collection.
The galleries are bright. A bunch of art will be displayed on the walls of the building’s glass-rimmed perimeter corridor, possibly creating distracting glare and shadows.
It cost so much! More than was estimated. $724 million, not counting the landscaping. The museum took on debt to get the project done.
Even Peter Zumthor expressed chagrin about how much of his design had to be scrapped to meet schedule and budget, telling the New York Times in 2023: “There are no Zumthor details any more.” (He was cheerier on Wednesday.)
Now, the building is here, and it will no doubt draw crowds. For its architectural novelty, for the chance to see the art again in new surroundings, as a destination for those excited about riding the new D line extension (a stop nearby will open just a few days after the museum), and perhaps for the controversy itself.
So how is it? The New York Times weighed in this week with an unequivocal rave. The Architect’s Newspaper rounded up responses both perceptive and confounding. The building is full of moments that will affirm the hopes of visitors, and also their fears. There is glare from the sun that makes it hard to see some of the art. There are also juxtapositions that make you feel and think. A giant bust of Athena, once owned by William Randolph Hearst, stares down Wilshire Boulevard as cars rush beneath.
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READING MATERIAL
ART IMITATES LIFE: Comedian and actor Billy Crystal has a new one-man show about losing his family’s longtime home in the Palisades fire that he plans to bring to Broadway in the fall. Crystal and his wife had lived in the home since 1979.
AS EASY AS RIDING A BIKE: The proliferation of e-bikes on nature and hiking trails is creating conflict across Southern California, with some cities, including Los Angeles, considering a ban. The L.A. Times has a deep dive on the conflict, including the way some in the traditionally-free-spirited mountain biking community have transformed into “gate-keeping trail Karens.”
RED LIGHT GO: It’s not your imagination — it is easier to get away with traffic violations in Los Angeles. L.A. Reported has the stats: citations for moving violations have plummeted citywide from more than 213,000 in 2019 to just 79,000 in 2025. Fatal crashes, on the other hand, are up.
EARLY PURPLE: Some Jacaranda trees are blooming early this year, and Brian Holt in WEHO online has the scoop, noting that cool weather, followed by warm weather, triggers the trees to explode into purple flowers. The city of West Hollywood has the region’s highest density of the trademark Southern California tree. “Go outside, look up …and enjoy it,” he advises.
BUY US THIS JACKET: Belongings from the estate of consummate movie producer and music manager Jerry Weintraub are up for auction, including a 2013 Golden Globe, an “Ocean’s Eleven”-themed slot machine and a reversible satin bomber jacket with “Dylan” stitched on one side and “Diamond” stitched on the other (Weintraub worked with both Bob Dylan and Neil Diamond; this jacket presumably allowed him to perform double duty without going home to change).
RAW MATERIAL
For today’s peek inside our subscriber-only Discord server, a dispatch (and some parking criticism) from our #vanity-plates channel.
AND FINALLY… A poem to pair with your morning coffee: “Ozymandias” by Percy Bysshe Shelley.
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