Los Angeles, California, USA

Originally scheduled to be opened to the public in December 2020, the official opening of the $388-million moviemaking centre was postponed due to Covid-19 precautions.

The completed Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles is now ahead of its official opening, which is slated for September 2021.

Designed by Renzo Piano with Gensler as executive architect, the complex is described as “the world’s premier movie museum”, the museum is located in the heart of Los Angeles, at the intersection of Wilshire Boulevard and Fairfax Avenue.

In its project stage, the new complex was awarded a 2016 American Architecture Award by The Chicago Athenaeum.

The now revitalized campus will present more than 50,000 square feet (4,645 square metres) of gallery space, with two theaters, cutting-edge project spaces, an outdoor piazza, the rooftop terrace, an active education studio, a restaurant, and a store.

In addition to the new building, the architects also redesigned the former 1939 May Company Department Store building by Albert C. Martin Sr., which was recently named the Saban building, on Wilshire Boulevard by adding a concrete and glass sphere to the north side of the building, built in 1946.

The centerpiece of the project is the sphere, which features the 1,000-seat David Geffen Theater and the Dolby Family Terrace with views towards Hollywood.

On the top of the sphere, a giant glass-dome structure covers the building and will host daily screenings, previews, openings, and special presentations with the world’s leading filmmakers.

The spherical dome is composed of 1,500 overlapping low-iron glass shingles, which were cut into 146 different shapes and sizes, produced in Austria.

“The Academy Museum gives us the opportunity to honor the past while creating a building for the future—in fact, for the possibility of many futures,” said Renzo Piano.

“The historic Saban Building is a wonderful example of Streamline Moderne style, which preserves the way people envisioned the future in 1939.”

“The new structure, the Sphere Building, is a form that seems to lift off the ground into the perpetual, imaginary voyage through space and time that is moviegoing.”

“By connecting these two experiences we create something that is itself like a movie. You go from sequence to sequence, from the exhibition galleries to the film theater and the terrace, with everything blending into one experience,” Piano continues.

A more intimate 288-seat theater will be the museum’s “cinematheque,” offering screenings ranging from Saturday morning matinees for children of all ages to global cinema series, as The Academy Museum explained.

“Both theaters will be home to an array of live performances, lectures, panels, and other events that will bring the most notable film artists of today to Los Angeles,” it added.

The building is owned and operated by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) founded in 1927. It the world’s preeminent movie-related organization that organizes the annual Oscars Awards ceremony.

Renzo Piano also applied a major renovation and expansion on the Saban Building on Wilshire Boulevard, which was built in Steamline Moderne style of Art Deco. Its golden façade has taken a facelift by replacing its one-third of 350,000 golden tiles, the tiles were produced by Italian manufacturer.

“This is a museum that only the academy could create: exciting and illuminating; historic and contemporary. we look forward to sharing the global reach of cinema,” said Ron Meyer, Chair of the Academy Museum Board of trustees and vice chairman of NBCuniversal.

Architects: Renzo Piano Workshop
Executive Architects: Gensler
Collaborating Architects: SPF:a
Design Team: M.Carroll, S.Scarabicchi (partners in charge), L.Priano (associate in charge)
Original Architects: Albert C. Martin Sr. (1939)
Client: Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Project Management: Paratus Group
General Contractors: Morley+Taslimi
Photographs: Iwan Baan