Peter Zumthor is a genius of minimalism, but at LACMA, he’s been hired to design a mausoleum for a living museum. The "everything to know" guides about the David Geffen Galleries are essentially PR brochures masquerading as architectural criticism. They focus on the sleek lines, the "floating" bridge, and the billionaire's names etched into the glass. They ignore the reality that the Los Angeles County Museum of Art is committing a slow, expensive suicide by shrinking its footprint while the city's population and art collection grow.
The press calls it a "transformation." In reality, it’s a consolidation of power and a reduction of public access. We are spending nearly a billion dollars to get less museum.
The Shrinkage Scandal Nobody Wants to Talk About
The most glaring lie in the current discourse is that this new building provides a "state-of-the-art" home for the permanent collection. It doesn't. The new Geffen Galleries offer roughly 110,000 square feet of gallery space. The buildings it replaced—the Ahmanson, Art of the Americas, and Hammer buildings—offered significantly more.
We are witnessing a $750 million project that results in a net loss of exhibition space.
In any other industry, paying more to get less is called a failure. In the high-stakes world of "starchitects" and museum trustees, it’s called a vision. The logic is that the new space is "fluid" and "open." That is curator-speak for "we don't have enough walls." By removing the traditional hierarchy of galleries, Zumthor is forcing a horizontal experience that strips art of its historical context.
Imagine a library that decides to burn half its books so it can have more comfortable chairs. That is the current strategy at Wilshire Boulevard.
The Myth of the Non-Hierarchical Museum
The PR machine touts the "democratic" nature of the new design. There is no front door. No back door. No chronological path. The idea is that you can wander into any era of art history at any time.
This sounds lovely in a pitch deck. In practice, it is an intellectual disaster. Art doesn't exist in a vacuum. The Italian Renaissance didn't happen because people felt like painting differently; it was a response to what came before. By flattening the museum into a single, sprawling floor, LACMA is telling visitors that history doesn't matter. It’s treating a world-class encyclopedic collection like a giant Instagram backdrop.
If everything is equally important, nothing is important.
I have watched boards blow through endowments on "modernization" projects that end up alienating the very public they claim to serve. They trade depth for "vibe." They trade scholarship for "experience." The David Geffen Galleries are the ultimate expression of this trend. It is a museum for the age of the eight-second attention span.
The Wilshire Bridge is a Billion-Dollar Gimmick
The most photographed element of the project is the bridge spanning Wilshire Boulevard. It’s being hailed as an urbanist triumph, connecting the two sides of the campus.
Let’s look at the physics of that decision. By spanning the street, the building incurs massive structural costs that have nothing to do with art and everything to do with engineering vanity. The "legs" supporting the gallery have to be massive. The glass walls have to be thick enough to withstand the vibrations of thousands of cars passing underneath daily.
That money could have been spent on:
- Acquiring new works by underrepresented Los Angeles artists.
- Expanding the conservation labs.
- Creating a massive, free endowment for local school tours.
Instead, the money is buried in the concrete of a bridge that serves as a literal monument to Michael Govan’s ego. He wanted a landmark. He got a very expensive hallway.
The Carbon Footprint of "Green" Architecture
There is a pervasive myth that new builds are inherently better for the environment because they use modern HVAC systems. This ignores the "embodied carbon" of the existing buildings that were leveled.
Demolishing the old LACMA campus and pouring hundreds of thousands of tons of new concrete is an ecological catastrophe. You cannot call a building sustainable when its birth required the destruction of perfectly functional structures. The greenest building is the one that is already standing.
If LACMA actually cared about the future of the planet—a theme they love to explore in their exhibitions—they would have renovated. They would have adapted. But renovation isn't sexy. Renovation doesn't get your name on a glossy magazine cover.
The Permanent Collection is Now a Temp Worker
Because the square footage has shrunk, the "permanent" collection can no longer be permanent. The museum has admitted that they will have to rotate works in and out of storage more frequently.
For a researcher or a true art lover, this is a nightmare. You can no longer rely on a specific masterpiece being available for study. The museum becomes a giant pop-up shop. It’s the "fast fashion" version of art curation.
Trustees will tell you this keeps the museum "fresh." The truth is it’s a logistical necessity because they built a house too small for their family.
The Wealth Gap on Display
The naming rights for these galleries tell you everything you need to know about the modern museum. David Geffen, a man with a net worth of roughly $8 billion, gets his name on the side of a building funded in part by Los Angeles taxpayers.
The county contributed $125 million in public funds to this project. Why are we subsidizing the legacy of billionaires?
When you walk through the Geffen Galleries, you aren't just looking at art. You are looking at a giant receipt. You are looking at the privatization of culture. The museum has transitioned from a public trust to a social club for the 0.01%, where the art is merely the decor for the next gala.
Stop Asking if the Building is Beautiful
The question isn't whether Zumthor’s concrete is "sublime" or if the light hits the floor at a certain angle in the afternoon. That’s the wrong question. It’s the distraction.
The real questions are:
- Why did we lose gallery space in a $750 million expansion?
- Why is a public museum prioritizing architectural "flow" over historical education?
- How much of the budget went toward the structural engineering of a bridge that adds zero value to the art itself?
We’ve been sold a narrative of progress, but if you look at the floor plans, we’re actually retreating. We are building a smaller, more expensive, less functional version of what we already had.
If you want to see the future of the American museum, look at the Geffen Galleries. It’s a place where the architecture is the main event, the donors are the stars, and the art is just a guest invited to the party as an afterthought.
Go ahead. Walk across the bridge. Admire the view of the traffic below. Just don't trick yourself into thinking this was done for the sake of the art. This was done for the sake of the photo op.
The most expensive bridge in Los Angeles doesn't lead to a new era of enlightenment. It leads to a smaller room.
