Architecture Meets Design in New Museum

By Michael Aushenker, Staff Writer

2010-06-14
'Has anyone here been to the L.A. Mission?' Los Angeles City Council President Eric Garcetti asked the 400 people attending an opening-night reception for the new Architecture and Design Museum on April 27. A smattering of people raised their hands.

'Well, there is no mission in Los Angeles!' Garcetti said, teasing a crowd that represented a who's who from L.A.'s architecture, art and design world. But he could have been talking about the 5,000-sq.-ft. museum, which is the first official architecture museum in Los Angeles. The location is 6032 Wilshire, next to the Petersen Automotive Museum.

Pacific Palisades resident Stephen Kanner, whose firm is the Santa Monica-based Kanner Architects, began spearheading the campaign for the A+D Museum in 1992. Looking tall and dapper in a charcoal gray suit, he was joined at the opening by his wife, Cynthia, and their daughters, Caroline, 15, and Charlotte, 9.

Currently at the museum, visitors can view the 'Celebrate 2010' exhibit, an expansive show featuring models created by the city's most prominent architecture and design firms; competition exhibitions such as 'Wherever the Need,' a showcase of designs by young up-and-coming designers combining social needs with good design to find solutions for the future of sanitation and clean water; and attend programs featuring appearances by various experts in the architecture and design field.

'It's one of only two such museums in the U.S,' said Eric Stultz, a principal at Gensler Architecture & Design in Santa Monica, where Palisadian Rob Jernigan is a principal and managing director. 'The other is in New York. So I'm very proud of it.

'To get this done in this down economy is extraordinary,' added Stultz, standing with his wife Tracy Sonka, of Sonka Stultz Design.

Gensler and famed architect Richard Meier, who was in attendance, designed the A+D Museum's interior while Kanner contributed to the overall final aesthetic.

'What I like is that it's a renovated building,' said Mina Chow of the USC School of Architecture faculty, who received a lot of attention at the opening reception for her funky John Fluevog shoes. The A+D building, built circa 1948, was originally a shoe store and, prior to the Museum's opening, a mattress and furniture store.

Fred Fisher, as in Frederick Fisher and Partners Architects, attended with wife Jennie Prebor, an interior designer.

'It's a very healthy sign for this community, which has historically been a great producer of architecture, that we have an institution dedicated to capturing it and being a focal point opposite LACMA,' Fisher said. 'It's a good location.'

Fisher, who lives in Brentwood, told the Palisadian-Post that he derives artistic inspiration from the Palisades area: 'We did a house on Napoli and we are doing one in Sullivan Canyon. One of my greatest inspirations is the Eames House [on lower Chautauqua, just above PCH]. It's one of the greatest projects--a wonderful response to the ocean.'

After founding the A+D Museum, Kanner was grateful for''and yet frustrated by'' the donated space his museum had to utilize. He and his staff can now finally show off their permanent facility.

'Now we have a home for ourselves,' Kanner told the packed reception crowd.

'It's a fantastic space,' Wim DeWit, head of special collections and curator of architecture at the Getty Research Institute, later told the Post. 'They did a great job. L.A. needs something like this.'

'It's a wonderful addition to the L.A. culture scene,' said Louis Stern of Louis Stern Fine Arts in West Hollywood. 'The great thing about Stephen Kanner is that he gives back to this community.'

'They have positioned themselves as a perfect destination as the world of art, architecture and design converge,' added Jane Glassman, executive director of Fine Art Dealers Association.

At the fundraiser, some 20 models of buildings and logos designed by 20 prominent members of L.A.'s architecture and design community were attracting numerous bidders at the silent auction area. Attorney Keiko Sakamoto of Laguna Beach attended as a guest of her friend, Francis Krahe (Francis Krahe and Associates). She successfully outbid two pages' worth of people vying for a design by Eric Owen Moss Architects that featured a graphite montage of flamboyant Gehry-esque buildings with a line of painted miniature plastic soldiers and citizens.

'I like the shape and the color and the overall design,' Sakamoto said of her big score for the evening.

Eric Moss is a longtime resident of Pacific Palisades and he sits on the A+D's advisory board.

'This is what it's really like to be at the center of the architecture and design universe right now,' Garcetti said.

Visit www.aplusd.org

Michael@palipost.com