August 2013 | Eyesore

Commentary on architectural blunders in monthly serial.

This proposed new facade for the Petersen Automotive Museum is one of two similar designs that has received preliminary approval from the Los Angeles Planning Department.

From The Los Angeles Times:

“This proposed new facade for the Petersen Automotive Museum is one of two similar designs that has received preliminary approval from the Los Angeles Planning Department. Designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox, it would be built from a series of stainless-steel, curved ribbons meant to evoke Art Deco themes.”

This is the part that gets me: meant to evoke Art Deco themes. Say, what?

If Kohn Pedersen Fox is so crazy about Art Deco, why the fuck don’t they just design a beautiful Art Deco building (neoclassicism, trimmed for speed)?

This monstrosity actually bears no relation to Art Deco. They just say that because speaking bullshit has no consequences anymore. The LA planning officials are prompted to hark back on the now-historical architecture of the city’s flowering, but they are just being hosed psychologically. And even if they get the falsehood of it, they probably don’t want to be branded as un-hip, behind the curve, not sufficiently up-to-date, backward-gazing ninnies.

Notice: this time the renderers didn’t even bother to photoshop in crowds of people moiling on the sidewalk. They just left it looking as despotically empty and incoherent as it really would be, in all its wasteful, vacuous glory. The kicker, of course, is that it is a museum for cars, the instrument of destruction of our cities.