Los Angeles Times - 27.08.2019

LATIMES.COM WSCE TUESDAY, AUGUST 27, 2019A

entirely new museum de-
sign: a series of stacked
plates that reveal the strata
of earth that compose the
site. It also removes the be-
loved fiberglass mammoth
that dwells in the lake, along
with her baby and spouse,
and places the mammoth in
the new museum.
“It’s a conceptual ap-
proach,” says Lori Bettison-
Varga, who oversees the Na-
tural History Museums of
Los Angeles County, the en-
tity that manages the tar
pits. “When people see these
[plans], they shouldn’t think
they are not malleable.”
Altogether, the plans rep-
resent a significant — er,
mammoth? — change to a
heavily visited part of Los
Angeles that is in the proc-
ess of being rebuilt.
Next to the tar pits, the
Los Angeles County Muse-
um of Art is already shutting
galleries in anticipation of a
new building, designed by
Swiss architect Peter
Zumthor to bridge Wilshire
with its antler-like form. On
the western side of the block,
the Academy Museum of
Motion Pictures is adding a
spherical, space-age theater
to the remade May Co. de-
partment store building
that will serve as its home.
In June, the Natural His-
tory Museums of Los Ange-
les County announced a new
master planning process for
the tar pits, in part to ad-
dress the site’s aging infra-
structure. The George C.
Page museum, designed by
architects Willis Fagan and
Frank Thornton and opened
in 1977, is not only short on
exhibition space, it leaks.
Some of its displays are out-
dated — such as the anima-
tronic saber-toothed tiger
that is forever devouring a
giant ground sloth, its tinny
roar on permanent loop.
In addition, LACMA’s re-
design provides an opportu-
nity to rethink the circu-
itous, often confusing path-
ways that connect the tar
pits to other other sites
within the land parcel (not
the neighborhood) called
Hancock Park. The revamp
is also a chance to reconceive
how the park, one of central
L.A.’s most important green
spaces, greets the street.
Currently, there are limited
entrances and a lot of fence.
On Monday night, archi-
tects from Weiss/Manfredi,
which worked on Seattle’s
Olympic Sculpture Park;
Diller Scofidio + Renfro, the
Broad museum architects;
and Danish firm Dorte Man-
drup, which has worked on
UNESCO World Heritage
sites, presented their con-
cepts in a public event at the
El Rey Theatre. All of the
teams, says Bettison-Varga,
“talk about the streetscape
and needing more entry
points and how everything is
a little bit hidden, about
way-finding and how to get
visitors from different
points.”
The teams have also
thought about the museum
and park as a cohesive in-
door/outdoor unit.
“They all have elements
of visible collections and
they all respect what we’ve
heard about not wanting
something really tall,” she
adds. “They have all ap-
proached the actual dig sites
and excavation areas as op-
portunities for people to sit
and watch and engage and
learn.” Ultimately, the de-
sign challenge is to weave to-
gether this highly unusual
place: a public park that is
also an active dig site, which
also serves as a place in
which to see paleontological
relics and explore the notion
of geological time.
“The importance of this
location is democratizing
science,” says Bettison-
Varga. “We want people to
see science here as acces-
sible. We want to engage stu-
dents of all ages.”
If all goes well, that can be
done without losing the sur-
real weirdness that makes
this unusual site so L.A.
Which brings us to the
proposals — and the fate of
our tar-trapped mammoth:
Los Angeles icon, inadvert-
ent movie star (see 1988’s
cult flick “Miracle Mile”),
fiberglass paean to the ago-
nies of life and death.

Loop-de-loop
Of the plans submitted,
the concept presented by
the New York-based Weiss/
Manfredi is the one that
most preserves the current
architecture of the park —
while making some very no-
table additions.
The Page Museum stays,
as do its gently sloping
berms — the ones that thou-
sands of Los Angeles chil-
dren have employed as a fa-
vorite tumbling site. To ac-
commodate the need for ad-

ditional exhibition space,

the architects have pro-

posed a new elliptical wing

to the northwest, on what is

now a parking lot. (Parking

would go underground.)

The new wing, composed

of a series of gently ascend-

ing ramps, would house the

Page’s collection, along with

the visible laboratories (a

concept the museum helped

pioneer). The current build-

ing would then serve as a

gathering and event space

that could more readily hold

the large groups of school-

children who come through

on field trips.

The new and old wing

would be connected by an

entry hall that would be

tucked under the berm. But

it would be visible, because

the architects have sliced

open the berm to reveal the

innards of the museum.

“Currently, the Page is a very

introverted building,” says

Michael Manfredi, founding

partner of Weiss/Manfredi.

“By creating that kind of

horizontal cut along the

Page, anyone wandering

along the path can peek into

the museum.”

At night, this space could

be illuminated from within

and showcase projections

and animations. “Even if you

haven’t paid to be in the mu-

seum, you can be been

pulled into this publicly vis-

ible lens,” adds Marion

Weiss, also a founding part-

ner. Their design also re-

thinks some of the more in-

hospitable aspects of the

outdoor areas.

They propose adding 400

trees and increasing the

lawn by 20%. A shade cano-

py, whose pattern is inspired

by leaf patterns and bubbles

on the tar seeps, would greet

visitors at the corner of

Wilshire and Curson, provid-

ing shelter from the sun.

In addition, the various

meandering pathways that

seem to lead nowhere have

been streamlined into a se-

ries of three loops: one of

which circumnavigates the

scientific area to the north-

west where excavations are

still ongoing, another that

surrounds a lawn at the cen-

ter of the park, and another

that bridges the Lake Pit,

which would allow visitors to

walk over and around that

body of water.

In this plan, the mam-

moth clinging to life at the

lake’s edge is a featured

point of interest.

“Our sense is that you

can read all the text in the

world,” says Weiss, “but not

understand this place in the

way that you understand it

when you are looking at

those mammoths.”

Museum upgrade

The proposal submitted

by Dorte Mandrup repre-

sents a more significant re-

working of the Page Muse-

um structure.

“We keep the museum,

not as it is — but upgraded,”

says the firm’s founder and

namesake, Dorte Mandrup.

The berm remains, so

children can still tumble.

But the museum structure

would be gutted, essentially

doing away with the court-

yard garden.

“The courtyard you have

now is very pleasant,” she ex-

plains, “but it doesn’t have a

relationship to the tar pits.”

To the existing shell of

the Page, Mandrup adds an

additional story, sur-

rounded in glass, with a

rooftop garden. As part of

the plan, the museum’s en-

trance is raised — thereby

making it more prominent.

(Currently, it is buried on the

south side of the berm.)

Through the expanded mu-

seum space, the architect

then creates a series of geo-

metric pathways that navi-

gate both up and down

through exhibit galleries,

visible storage and visible

laboratories that cut across

every floor.

“The museum needs

more area for the activities

that they want to do,” she

says. “By reusing the build-

ing, you save a lot of waste

and embedded energy.”

The glassy structure on

top would add transparency

and nod to the building’s

current design by featuring a

photovoltaic print of the Ma-

nuel Paz frieze of ice age

landscapes that currently

decorates the exterior of the

Page’s roofline.

Mandrup, who is working

in collaboration with land-

scape architects Martha

Schwartz Partners, does

away with the surface park-

ing lot on the northeastern

corner of Hancock Park,

draping it with a roof garden.

“By covering the parking

lot, you increase the park

20%,” she says.

Within the park, she too

has worked to clarify the cir-

culation, not only adding en-

try points to the park, but

using wooden boardwalks to

mark the main circulatory

areas, while narrower, grav-

el-lined paths serve as off-

shoots for exploration.

Moreover, these permeable

surfaces can capture rain-

water. And the mammoth

family?

It stays. “It does engage

people,” says Mandrup.

“The kitschy things, those

are the things we always

somehow love.”

An urban ecosystem

It is the final plan, pre-

sented by New York-based

Diller Scofidio + Renfro,

that would require the most

significant overhaul of the

museum structure — not to

mention some very familiar

elephantine objects.

The plan calls for razing

the existing museum struc-

ture and replacing it with a

series of four stacked, over-

lapping plates surrounding

a glassy box that peeks over

the mound. This would

house an interlocking series

of exhibition, laboratory and

visible collection spaces.

On the exterior, the

plates would be landscaped,

with enough grade for tum-

bling. (Very important, that

tumbling business.) The ar-

rangement of forms would

also allow visitors to enter

the museum from any one of

the cardinal points, making

the museum more acces-

sible.

In addition, the plate sys-

tem would make visible the

striated layers of earth that

compose the site.

“I think it’s important to

acknowledge that this piece

of ground is super special,”

says Elizabeth Diller, one of

DS+R’s founding partners.

“There is a history there be-

fore there was a city.”

To add green space, park-

ing would be removed en-

tirely from the park and

placed around the perimeter

or in off-site structures. (A

move that will no doubt

draw various neighborhood

coalitions to the planning

meetings.)

The idea is to provide a

greater connection between

museum and landscape.

“It’s a hybrid architecture-

landscape that is more of a

continuum,” she explains.

“The museum is as much in-

door as outdoor.”

Diller thinks of the tar

pits park not so much as a

series of discrete functions

but as overlapping ecolog-

ical zones — “ecotones,” she

calls them — and each would

fade into the next.

The landscaping on the

north would be arid and

grow more dense and moist

(more Pleistocene-like) as it

approached the creek in the

middle of the park. The area

around the Lake Pit could be

visually connected with the

asphalt on Wilshire by em-

ploying darker tones around

its shores.

In this plan, however, the

fiberglass mammoth in the

Lake Pit — first hauled to

the site in the ’60s by sculp-

tor Howard Ball on a hitch

attached to his Volkswagen

— would have to go.

“What we are proposing

is to take it out of the lake

and put it in a gallery that

features the history of the

tar pits and pop culture,”

says Diller. “To save it .... but

just change the feel and tone

of the lake and the surround-

ing landscape.”

Will Angelenos appreci-

ate the feel of a Lake Pit

without its mammoths?

Says Diller: “I might get

in trouble on that one.”

Competing tar pits redesigns bubbling up

[Tar pits,from A1]

THE LAKE PIT mammoth gets pride of place in a Weiss/Manfredi rendering of a new La Brea Tar Pits.

Weiss / Manfredi

A RENDERINGby Dorte Mandrup features an extra story on top of the Page Museum and boardwalk paths.

Dorte Mandrup / Martha Swartz Partners

9/30/19 9/30/19 9/30/