Saturday, September 4, 2010

A Beautiful Mess

California weather is interesting. The more inland you go, the hotter it gets. So, since I dressed for Venice weather this morning, I was dying when I got to Los Angeles. It's amazing how it can be 10-20 degrees hotter in such a short distance.

Today, I was adventurous and took the bus. In my opinion, it was actually better than Boston but not as good as Chicago. Apparently the Metro Rapid Bus can influence traffic lights, which allows it to travel longer distances in a shorter time. While that may be true, it still took about 60 - 90 minutes for me to get into LA by bus; I'm sure it would've taken the same amount of time by car though.

I decided to head to the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) this afternoon. While I was looking up directions, I noticed that the Walt Disney Concert Hall by Frank Gehry was nearby, so I made a pit stop and checked it out. I'm not a huge fan of Gehry's works (I don't think many architects are) but I was interested because this building in particular has been featured in many movies. It's interesting to look at, but I can't say anything about how it functions. I also have a problem with it being made of all metal. As I mentioned before, it gets pretty hot in LA, so the entire facade of the building heats up. I wonder how much air conditioning is needed to maintain a comfortable temperature inside.

Museum of Contemporary Art
After snooping around the concert hall, I walked towards MOCA. I've been to a few contemporary art museums (MoMA, ICA, Art Institute of Chicago), and this one was on par with them, content-wise. Architecturally speaking, the museum is underground, and the skylights are all blocked, so there is absolutely no natural light in the galleries. It is also tiny compared to MoMA and Art Institute of Chicago. I walked through the entire museum in a little less than 2 hours. I think if they redesigned the museum, it could attract a lot more attention and get more visitors. But then again, they have two other branches located downtown, so maybe they don't need to. Just my two cents.
Posted by Angela at 10:42 PM

2 comments:

  1. annieSeptember 5, 2010 at 8:53 PM

    good observations!

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  2. UnknownOctober 1, 2010 at 7:33 AM

    Did you walk down the street from the Disney Hall to see Moneo's Los Angeles Cathedral?? If not go back before you come back to Boston. Also around the corner is Morphosis CalTrans Building. You should also go see the Bradbury building (great interior courtyard -old building for LA 1893) Many movies have filmed here - Blade Runner) which is in the area. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradbury_Building

    Across the Highway at the Cathedral is a new LA high school I think by Coop Himmelblau to check out.
    You have to go to the I think it is called the David Geffen Temporary Museum of Art. Frank Gehry built this as a temp building while the Isosaki building was under construction. It was so successful that they kept it. Part of the reason it was so successful is that it did not "look" like a museum. The museum found that they attracted another group of people to see the work because of the space.

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