DEC - 3 2019 I Save LACMA: 12.3.19 • President Wesson, Honorable Council Members, I'm Barton Phelps, Principal, Barton Phelps & Associates, Architects and Planners, Los Angeles. We design buildings that support cultural and educational activity. I'm a former professor of architecture at UCLA and a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects. Thank you for this chance to speak critically on this important matter. • I'm not pleased to say what 1 must today and I don't envy your responsibility for making sense of the layers of complexity this potentially wonderful project unfolds before us. • I'm reminded that 44 years ago I stood in this exact spot attempting unsuccessfully to convince your predecessors on the City Council (especially the charismatic Gilbert Lindsay whose district this was) that replacing the 1926 Central Library with a so-so office building, although already designed, was not a great idea. • A suit, brought jointly by the AIA and the National Trust, was, after many years, the City's salvation. The library, restored and expanded, became an anchor of downtown renewal. I think of that effort by many people as a test of cultural maturity. Los Angeles rose to the occasion. The rest is history. I'm hoping it will again. • The current L. A. County design proposal for much needed expansion and improvement to LACMA poses a similarly destructive threat to an iconic Los Angeles place but this time the threat is subtler in approach and, in its imagery, more socially and artistically beguiling. • Given pressing limitations in site size, budget, function it seems odd that a design team composed of such brilliant design talents should persist in pursuing a fictional landscape of a site largely cleared of useful existing structures and capped by a simplistic, space-hungry, dated-looking, elevated single story composition. In refusing to fully recognize the truly daunting complexity of this project it unsuccessfully searches formalist simplicity for anchorage. It's simply the wrong response. • As if to demonstrate design team's desperation, the current plan casually tosses a large suburban-looking volume across seven lanes of Wilshire Boulevard almost exactly where the corridor's volume executes a graceful turn onto (or off of) the L.A. grid. But it will need your permission to do so. • Aside from its painful impacts on sidewalks, park, and local neighborhoods the bridging of Wilshire Boulevard would crudely violate the historically- defining spatial continuity that generations of Angelinos have respected and delighted in for nearly a hundred years. • (If I may) I'll quote landscape historian, the late J.B. Jackson: "A landscape without visible signs of political history is a landscape without memory or forethought. We are inclined in America to think that the value of monuments is simply to remind us of origins. They are much more valuable as reminders of long-range, collective purpose, of goals and objectives and principles. As such even the least sightly of monuments gives a landscape beauty and dignity and keeps the collective memory alive." Thank you. JI-feK Z Subject: Fwd: LACMA PROJECT SUPPORT Date: Monday, December 2, 2019 at 2:45:13 PM Pacific Standard Time */7-0S'YS' From: Kim, Chi-Young <[email protected]> To: [email protected] <[email protected]> ----------Forwarded message---------- m - 3 2019 From: <[email protected]> Date: Mon, Dec 2, 2019 at 2:37 PM byljH.jk Subject: LACMA PROJECT SUPPORT To: <[email protected]>. <[email protected]>. <[email protected]>, <[email protected]>. <[email protected]>. <[email protected]>, <[email protected]>, <counciimember.harris- [email protected]>, <[email protected]>. <cotmciimeniber,[email protected]>, <[email protected]>. <[email protected]>. <[email protected]>. <[email protected]>. <[email protected]> CC: <[email protected]>, <[email protected]>, <[email protected]>. <[email protected]>. <[email protected]>, <[email protected]>, <[email protected]>. <[email protected]>. <[email protected]>. <[email protected]>, <krista,kline@lacitv,org>. <[email protected]>. <[email protected]>. <[email protected]>. <[email protected]>. <[email protected]> Dear Honorable Members of the Los Angeles City Council: I write to you as a Past President of the Board of Trustees of LACMA (1994-1998), and on which Board today I proudly continue to serve and support. I am writing at this critical juncture prior to tomorrow’s scheduled hearing seeking your continued enthusiastic endorsement for the spectacular new building which is being proposed to grace the campus of LACMA. Renowned throughout the world for our permanent collection of fine art, our outstanding exhibitions, our public programs and special events, and our acclaimed diversity of educational programming for not only the residents of Los Angeles, but for all visitors from around the world, we know that our new facilities will only enhance what we presently offer to all our audiences, and become yet another proud recognized achievement for the City of Los Angeles. The design of the new building by Peter Zumthor specifically reflects a long­ standing commitment by the trustees and staff of LACMA to present our collections and programs in such a manner that will continue to attract local and global visitors, as well as promote significant additions of art to our collections from major collectors. Having this extraordinary building uniquely located in the middle of Los Angeles will assure that we achieve those goals and objectives. The architectural aspects of the building, including spanning Wilshire Boulevard, will become famous world-wide and attract millions of visitors during the next decades. It will be yet another a shining star for Los Angeles, and I urge you all to continue to support and approve the air space vacation request at tomorrow’s hearing that will enable LACMA to ensure its position as a leading cultural resource throughout the world, and bring continued focus to the foresight of Los Angeles city leadership. J: !.A3MA PROJECT SUPPORT 12/2/19, 3:47 PM y warm wishes to you all. WILLIAM A. MINGST* Cyprus Partners Los Angeles, CA (0) 310-979-3240 (M) 310-994-1856 (EM) [email protected] *MELISSA BOMES* SVP, DEVELOPMENT WWW.LACMA.ORG <http://www.lacma.org/> T 323.932.5898 [ C 310.463.2448 E [email protected] hUps://buildinglacma.org',2036/cpsess3713940374/horde/imp/view.,..ilbax=SUSCT'Sg&lofcan=QJPm3A3TXm9vxwY7aGZrax&uniq=1575330435133 Pac Subject: Fwd: LACMA Date: Monday, December 2, 2019 at 2:46:27 PM Pacific Standard Time From: Kim, Chi-Young <[email protected]> To: [email protected] <[email protected]> ----------Forwarded message--------- From: Barbara Bergman <[email protected]> Date: Mon, Dec 2, 2019 at 2:17 PM Subject; LACMA To: <[email protected]>. <courtci([email protected]>. <[email protected]>. <[email protected]>, <[email protected]>, <[email protected]>, < •[email protected]>. <counciimember.harris- o'[email protected]>, <[email protected]>. <[email protected]>, <[email protected]>, <[email protected]>, <[email protected]>, <[email protected]>. <councilnnemfaer. [email protected]> CC: <debfav.i<[email protected]>. <[email protected]>. ;org>, :[email protected]>. <[email protected]>, <[email protected]>, <feiitia.orozco(5) latity.org>. <[email protected]>. <[email protected]>, <[email protected]>, <[email protected]>, <[email protected]>. <[email protected]>, <[email protected]>. <[email protected]>. <[email protected]> Dear Councilmembers, i am writing to ask for your approval of LACMA’s request for its proposed new building. As a donor of LACMA for the past 8 years, I have been passionately committed to LACMA’s mission to serve the public through the collection, conservation, exhibition, and interpretation of significant works of art and education. Through my involvement with the museum, I have also been deeply involved in the long search for a solution to address the museum’s rapidly deteriorating facilities. I am proud of our track record of completing construction projects on budget and on time, and 1 have no doubt that we will do the same with this new building as well. The plan for the new building has given us an opportunity to reimagine LACMA's campus, not just as an art museum, but also as an invaluable cultural center and gathering place for all Angelenos. Los Angeles deserves a museum that reflects the diversity of our collections and the city itself, and 1 believe the proposed new building will do just that. In the meantime, art from LACMA’s collections wi!) still be on view both on our Wilshire campus and in communities throughout L.A. Enhancing access to our collections by exhibiting art in locations far from Museum Row is an integral part of our vision for LACMA’s future, in order to better serve all Los Angeles communities. Please support LACMA's air space vacation request. Thank you, Barbara Bergman Lauren Siegel support LACMA 12/2/19, 3:44 PM Date: 12/02/2019 [05:51:57 PM ESTJ : From: Support LACMA <[email protected]> To: [email protected],