UCLA Broad Art Center opens! "LA is one of the great art capitals of the world"

[LosAngelesBeauty]

[citywatch]

It's amenities like this that make me think LA, were I residing in another part of the country, would be a more interesting place to visit or live in. That's why I remain puzzled when many ppl, inc quite a few SSPers, list a city like San Diego instead of LA as one of the places they'd most like to visit or live in.

OK, SD does have a great zoo, a nicely growing DT, Sea World, & other advantages. But as good as it is, it nonetheless does have a second tier depth to it. Therefore, is the superficial appeal of a town more important, or at least as important, as anything else? I'm starting to think so.

[LosAngelesBeauty]

^ It depends on what you're looking for. Most people aren't museum/high-art fiends, so more "superficial" aesthetics of a city become very important. BUT, I always like to bring up Taipei as a counterintuitive example because that city is one UGLY-ASS place. There is NO architecture. Just cemet blocks of apartments where only the aid of the ubiquitous business signs attached to their facades help minimize the eye-sores that make up Taipei's bulk of buildings. That place really makes LA look like the most beautiful city in the world! YET, people love living and visiting there because it has an energy about it that's authentically urban.

The main issue here is saliency. What physical location do we define LA to be? Will the definition of "LA" remain a hodgepodge of hundreds of cities, or will LA "shrink" in scale to something a little more mentally manageable. A concept easily grasped by visitors and residents alike.

The answer is investing in mass transit infrastructure that really makes one particular location completely easy to travel in. This will obviously become the most popular area if you have somewhere people can TRULY forsake the automobile for an interesting urban environment. It's a paradigm that's working in almost all great cities in the world.

Where we invest in that mass transit infrasture will be important. Downtown LA/Hollywood/Koreatown/Westlake will be the first place to become this "new LA." (Hopefully gentrifying Westlake sooner than later) And then when the subway EVENTUALLY makes its way down Wilshire Blvd, your urban playground becomes that much larger. Then people will know that Wilshire Blvd (really West Central) will be the easiest to get around without a car, and consequently, the definition of LA will change accordingly to reflect that new salient geographical area serviced by efficient mass transit.

It's ironic that our mass transit system is reversed in order of necessity. You have an established Westside without a subway, and a forlorn downtown with a surprisingly effective subway. Now we're going back to resuscitate our downtown and building our subway to the established Westside.

Anyway, LA is unique and its reputation is not only dependent upon its aesthetic image like SD, but a much more complicated formula intended for world-class cities that must include mass transit. SD is not a global city, so therefore, the expectations are not as high as it would be for LA.

If LA is grouped with cities on the caliber of NY, Tokyo, Paris, etc., then it must have the same kind mass transit convenience those cities offer travelers and residents.

[citywatch]

Originally Posted by LosAngelesBeauty

The answer is investing in mass transit infrastructure that really makes one particular location completely easy to travel in.

I totally agree but have to say that's only part of the solution. That's even truer if economics & politics make the creation of a truly good transit system unlikely before most of us are old & gray. I mean how realistic is it for anyone to expect to see the Red Line extended to West LA, much less SaMo, before the year 2020, or whatever?

So unless the city's poor reputation is resting entirely on something like the weakness of its transit system, what do we do in the meantime?

I know one thing: if more ppl in the city were as ticked off at how seedy it is as a lot of outsiders appear to be, there would be less NIMBYism & a lot more ppl saying, damn it, this town needs an extreme makeover ASAP!

[Vidiot]

good ol' richard meier...

no pics of the building? boo

[bobcat]

Normally, I would dismiss boosterish comments like those of Broad's, but when it comes to the visual arts, he's probably right that LA is currently in the top tier of world cities. LA does lag other cities a bit in terms of performing arts, but that gap is sure to narrow in the coming years. Still though, it does take time for the cultural reputation of a city like LA to reflect reality--at least 10 years I'd guess, if not moreso.

BTW, at UCLA's cross town rival, they just announced that George Lucas is donating $175 million for a new film school.

[citywatch]

Originally Posted by bobcat

George Lucas is donating $175 million for a new film school.

Wow!!



As for someone like Broad, I wish more ppl were as committed to the town as he seems to be. Or those ppl who seem to have an understanding that, when it comes to our current status, good isn't good enough, & that a lot of what makes the city bad is unacceptably bad.

[LosAngelesBeauty]

Originally Posted by bobcat

Normally, I would dismiss boosterish comments like those of Broad's, but when it comes to the visual arts, he's probably right that LA is currently in the top tier of world cities. LA does lag other cities a bit in terms of performing arts, but that gap is sure to narrow in the coming years. Still though, it does take time for the cultural reputation of a city like LA to reflect reality--at least 10 years I'd guess, if not moreso.

I completely agree since going to Chicago and NYC, I realized that LA wasn't so far behind that it would preclude it from joining the ranks of the high-cultured meccas of the world. In fact, I didn't find Chicago to be that much more impressive than LA (if at all). NYC's Met was INCREDIBLE however. I have yet to visit Paris though.

Originally Posted by bobcat

BTW, at UCLA's cross town rival, they just announced that George Lucas is donating $175 million for a new film school.

That's fantastic news as well! USC and UCLA climbing higher only makes LA a more respected city in academia.

[svs]

Originally Posted by bobcat

. LA does lag other cities a bit in terms of performing arts, but that gap is sure to narrow in the coming years. Still though, it does take time for the cultural reputation of a city like LA to reflect reality--at least 10 years I'd guess, if not moreso.

.

What do you mean, LA lags in performing arts? IF you look at the listings in aany thursday edition of the LA times, you will usually see over 100 and usually over 120 plays being performed in the city on any one week. actually the number of productions in the LA area out numbers the number of productions anywhere in the USA, including New York, although the productions in NYC are more elaborate as a rule and may play for years as opposed to LA productions which usually play for weeks or months. None the less most LA productions feature professional actors with their union cards.

There are three opera companies and new symphony hallls/performing arts centers have been built in downtown and Orange county recently. I am told there are more than 30 symphonic groups in the area including the prestigeous LA Phil, but also including the Hollywood bowl symphony, Pasadena symphony, glendale symph, Santa Monica Symphonia, LA chamber Orch, Orch Pacifica, etc. etc. USC, UCLA, and Cal tech have performing schedules. There are multiple performing arts centers all over the area including LOng Beach, Glendale, Pasadena, the Hollywood Bowl, etc. We are a little weak in homegrown classical ballet, but all the visiting companies come regularly, and as for non classical music, there are hundreds of clubs for live performance including most big names, In the US only New York can be said to have a more vital performing arts scene than LA.

The reason many don't ralize this is that our venues tend to be scattered across the metropolis, rather then located in a few areas. If you don't believe be, check out the Thursday calender section in the LA Times, or check out the LA weekly.

And that doesn't even count the tapings of TV shows open to the public,

[bobcat]

^I'm fully aware of what LA has to offer, but I'm comparing LA to cities like NYC and London, which I consider to be its peers. Just take opera as an example. The Metropolitan Opera has a budget of over $200 million and presents upwards of 30 different operas a season. LA Opera, while respectable, has a budget this year in the range of $50-55 million and presenting 8 operas. That's actually comparable to Chicago and San Francisco, but as far as I'm concerned LA Opera should be aiming much higher.

Contrast that with the visual arts, where LA does rival NYC. There are actually a lot of artists who believe LA is #1 for contemporary art.

[svs]

Originally Posted by bobcat

^I'm fully aware of what LA has to offer, but I'm comparing LA to cities like NYC and London, which I consider to be its peers. Just take opera as an example. The Metropolitan Opera has a budget of over $200 million and presents upwards of 30 different operas a season. LA Opera, while respectable, has a budget this year in the range of $50-55 million and presenting 8 operas. That's actually comparable to Chicago and San Francisco, but as far as I'm concerned LA Opera should be aiming much higher.

Contrast that with the visual arts, where LA does rival NYC. There are actually a lot of artists who believe LA is #1 for contemporary art.

LA is comparible to London and NY in the number of productions performed yearly in the city. When you add in the audience seats for the TV shows, it probably beats them in total numbers. I admit the productions play longer and are more elaborate in London and NY, but they are supported by tourists from all over the world. Most tourists have no idea of what is available in LA.
As for Opera, while admitting no one in the US can hold a candle to the met, I would point out that this week there are four operas playing locally, Don Carlo, Manon, the Peony Pavillion, and Porgy and Bess, (multiple companies including touring productions), and The Kirov "Ring" all of it is coming to Orange County next week. I would rather hear the LA PHil under Essa-Peka in the Disney Hall than the NY Phil at LIncoln center under anyone. Just a personal opinion.

As for popular music, comedy, and performing arts LA is the equal of London and NY. Check the listings. The only place LA really is behind is dance. No real classical ballet company, and we tend to depend on visiting troups. Still there is a lot more performing art in LA than most people realize. If the tourists would catch on, we could have a theater scene better than New York or even London.

[Bernd]

Interesting and depressing that George Lucas will throw down $175m for a new film school that USC doesn't even need, while San Diego is begging for a donor to to give $20m for a new downtown library (which the city's been trying to build for over 20 years).

Another case of the haves vs. the have nots, I guess.

[LosAngelesBeauty]

^ Yeah, I felt that way when we lost Klimt's Adele to Lauder in NYC.

[Bernd]

^ As did I!!!

[citywatch]

George Lucas to Give USC Film School $175 Million

The filmmaker's gift, for a new cinema program home, is the largest ever to the university.

By Stuart Silverstein, Times Staff Writer
September 20, 2006

"Star Wars" creator George Lucas is giving USC a blockbuster donation of $175 million — the university's biggest single gift ever — that largely will be used to build a new home for its prestigious film school, campus officials confirmed Tuesday. The gift from his Lucasfilm Foundation builds on Hollywood's historic support for the cinema school, where Lucas earned a bachelor's degree.

Much of the donation is to pay for a 137,000-square-foot complex. According to preliminary information provided to Los Angeles city officials, it would be designed to evoke the architecture of the era when the film school was founded in 1929. That new centerpiece building will expand its current cramped quarters and provide modern facilities that could boost the school's stepped-up emphasis on merging Hollywood storytelling skills with emerging multimedia technologies.

USC's previous top gift, $120 million, came in 1993 from the late ambassador and publisher Walter Annenberg. The record for U.S. higher education overall was a gift totaling $600 million to Caltech in 2001, with half of the money from Intel Corp. co-founder Gordon Moore and his wife, Betty, and the rest coming from their foundation.

USC officials, who planned to announce the $175-million donation and building project at a groundbreaking ceremony Oct. 4, released a 10-paragraph news release Tuesday afternoon in response to inquiries from The Times.

In the release, Lucas said, "I discovered my passion for film and making movies when I was a student at USC in the 1960s, and my experiences there shaped the rest of my career. I'm also an ardent advocate for education at all levels, and encouraging young people to pursue their ambitions by learning. I'm very fortunate to be in a position to combine my two passions and to be able to help USC continue molding the futures of the moviemakers of tomorrow."

Lucas, 62, began his college classes at Modesto Junior College but completed his studies at USC in 1966.

City officials said the new building would go up on the north side of the campus. It would be partly on a parking lot south of 34th Street near McClintock Avenue, but the project also would involve tearing down one or more campus buildings. University spokesmen would not say how much of the $175 million already has been received, over how many years it will be given and what else the money would be used for besides the new complex and other film school renovations.

One subtle sign of change for the film school came in spring. USC officials, in one behind-the-scenes move, altered the university's bylaws in April partly to change the school's name from the USC School of Cinema-Television to the School of Cinematic Arts. The switch dovetails with the institution's growing focus on new digital technologies.

The university tipped its hand further in recent days by sending groundbreaking ceremony invitations — albeit ones that kept the donor's name secret — to civic leaders, university officials and professors. The invitation credits USC with "a long and proud history of inspiring and teaching the artists, scholars, and entrepreneurs who shape film, television and interactive media in the 20th century.

"This fall, we invite you to join us in carrying that tradition through the 21st century as we celebrate and break ground on our 137,000-square-foot state-of-the-art complex, made possible through the largest gift ever" to the university.

The Lucas donation is another in a series of fundraising coups for the university administration under President Steven B. Sample. USC in 2003 wrapped up a 9 1/2 -year fundraising campaign that collected $2.85 billion in gifts and pledges — the biggest ever for a U.S. university, until UCLA announced in February that it collected $3.05 billion in its 10 1/2 -year campaign.

Donations and pledges have continued to flow into USC in the last three years, totaling $4.2 billion since Sample arrived at USC in 1991. Those gifts, in turn, have helped pay for initiatives that have substantially boosted USC's reputation in academic circles.

Since 1991, the university has moved up in the closely watched U.S. News & World Report magazine rankings for major universities. It has gone from 48th to tied for 27th with Tufts University and the University of North Carolina in the 2007 rankings released last month. UCLA, once well ahead of USC, was ranked just one notch higher in the latest poll, at 26th.

Lucas, chairman of San Francisco-based Lucasfilm Ltd. and also known for his Indiana Jones movies and the semiautobiographical "American Graffiti," has ample wealth to pay for his philanthropy. On last year's Forbes magazine list of the 400 wealthiest Americans, Lucas was tied for 61st, with an estimated net worth of $3.5 billion.

He was unavailable for comment late Tuesday but, in a separate morning ceremony, he gained another measure of renown: Lucas was named the grand marshal of the 2007 Rose Parade in Pasadena.

Lucas has long been involved with the film school, serving on its board of councilors, and two buildings on campus bear the Lucas family name. The film school, established 67 years ago as a collaboration between USC and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, long has been cited as one of the nation's best. In its most recent ranking of graduate film programs, U.S. News in 1997 rated USC tied with New York University for first place, with UCLA a close third. USC boasts that every year since 1973 at least one of its former students has been nominated for an Academy Award.

The new funds could give the film school another lift. "There is no question that a gift in excess of $100 million is a transformational gift for an institution. It gives the university, and in this case the film school, wonderful opportunities to add a margin of excellence to the institution, to really distinguish it," said John Lippincott, president of the Council for Advancement and Support of Education, which represents fundraising officials at 3,200 schools.

[fflint]

UCLA Celebrates Its New Art Center
Eli and Edythe Broad donated almost half of the $52-million cost for the teaching, work and exhibition spaces.

By Scott Timberg, Times Staff Writer
September 14, 2006

A new building that UCLA's acting chancellor dubbed a "magnificent edifice" was unveiled at the Westwood campus Wednesday morning during a ceremony that drew about 200 well-wishers, with speaking roles by philanthropist Eli Broad, state First Lady Maria Shriver and Getty Center architect Richard Meier.

The university is billing the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Center, which opens to the public today, as "Los Angeles' newest cultural destination." The structure, though, is actually a $52-million adaptive reuse of the old, unlovely Dickson Art Center, and will be of use mostly to university faculty and students in the visual arts programs of the School of Arts and Architecture.

Broad, whose foundation donated $23.2 million of the cost, said "the gift combines three of our passions: education, the arts and Los Angeles." The building includes exhibition galleries for the departments of art and design/media arts and is, Broad said, another step in the city's emergence as the world's fourth cultural capital alongside Paris, New York and London.

"Some people say, 'Why support the arts with all the other human needs?' " he said. "I don't think we remember the lawyers or the accountants. But we sure remember the architects and the artists."

The Broad Center is set near a rearranged 5-acre sculpture garden that includes works by Henry Moore, Auguste Rodin and Alexander Calder. Adjacent, in the Broad Center's courtyard, is a new 14-foot-high, 42.5-ton "torqued ellipse" work by Richard Serra, perhaps the best-regarded living sculptor.

Serra, who seemed to glower in his black suit during the morning's speeches, came alive behind the lectern and spoke of the honor of placing a work on the UCLA campus. He said he hoped the piece would "empower" students to create their own boldly original work.

In contrast to William Pereira's Dickson Art Center, which was gloomy and marked by a long central corridor, the new building is light and open, and offers large studios in which students can work.

As the event broke up after a ribbon cutting, Meier & Partners architect Michael Palladino discussed how he was originally faced, seven years ago, with an old building that felt visually and structurally heavy. His solution was to bring several of the main walkways outside and to line the windows of the upper floors with wood louvers.

Despite problems with the original building's layout and facade, Palladino said, "the basic proportions and orientation were ideal," allowing him to save the original concrete frame. Palladino is the head of the L.A. office of Meier & Partners, the firm that designed the Getty Center.

Shriver called the building a "feast for the eye" and poked fun at Broad for his obsession with Los Angeles at the expense of the rest of the state.

For UCLA brass, this marks the first time the arts departments "have facilities that match the quality of our programs," in the words of arts and architecture dean Christopher Waterman.

UCLA's art program has indeed become among of the nation's most prestigious, in part because of a faculty that includes artists John Baldessari, Lari Pittman and Catherine Opie. The Broad's galleries currently are hosting a show by the department faculty and another by the design/media arts faculty.

Were he an art student contemplating universities across the land, acting Chancellor Norman Abrams concluded, "this is the place I would want to attend."

--
On a personal note, I had a lecture class in the old Dickson Arts Center back in 2000, and it was indeed a deplorably brutal and yet unforgivably bland building. I'm glad Meier and Broad have given it an upgrade.

[dimondpark]

Well, this UCLA alum couldnt be happier.

[fflint]

Same here!

[ucland]

Here here!

[Vidiot]

its about time the USC cinema school got an overhaul.. those outdated 1970's facilities really show their age... the best cinema-television school in the world definately deserves this gift