New LACMA Building

New LACMA Building Unwrapped: Ruby-Hunt on Wilshire

A recent visit to LACMA’s still-unopened David Geffen Galleries revealed an architectural gesture unlike anything else in Los Angeles. Peter Zumthor’s structure stretches across Wilshire Boulevard like a low-slung bridge: no sharp angles, no vertical walls, just a single ribbon of curved, polished concrete. Brutalism stripped of corners and rendered gentle through motion. It’s bold, almost austere—a distant cousin to Louis Kahn—yet somehow it feels as if it would be more at home in the open hush of Joshua Tree than in the roar of Mid-Wilshire.

I kept asking myself: Is this where the ruby lies? Kabir, the 15th-century Indian mystic, wrote of a tiny gem everyone searches for—some looking east, some west—until he discovers it inside his own chest and “wraps it carefully in his heart-cloth.” Maybe the worth of this building isn’t in its bare concrete skin at all but in the private dialogue it provokes. Architecture as inner resonance rather than outer spectacle.

👉 For more on how presence and perception shape our experience of space and form, see my reflection on finding flow in art through Agnes Martin.

That resonance arrived sooner than I expected. One hundred musicians, stationed like bright constellations throughout the galleries, launched into Kamasi Washington’s Harmony of Difference. Six movements—brass, drums, reed, and human breath—braided themselves through the unfinished halls. The marble floors vibrated; strangers shared grins. Through the wrap-around glazing I spotted a river of four-hundred cyclists gliding beneath the span in neon helmets. Density and sprawl, bebop and bicycle spokes—this is Los Angeles, I thought, and the concrete ribbon felt less detached, more like a bandstand catching the city mid-riff.

👉 You can experience the music and the ambiance of the event in this video.

I wondered how my old friends will fare here once they migrate over.

• Will David Hockney’s electric Mulholland Drive still zig-zag like desert lightning against gray walls?
• Will Modigliani’s Young Woman of the People keep her quiet defiance, or will the concrete sharpen her solitude?
• Does Ed Ruscha’s Standard Station need the hush of a white cube, or will it pop louder against these curves?
• Even Giacometti’s spindly sentinels—half air, half bronze—seem to lean forward, eager to test new light.

👉 I reflect more fully on Hockney’s playful vision of Los Angeles in this piece on David Hockney’s vibrant 82 Portraits and 1 Still-life at LACMA.

For now the question hangs, unresolved, like Washington’s final sustained chord. I’ll report back when the galleries open in 2026; until then the ruby stays wrapped, warm against the chest.

Of course, the site is still evolving. Landscaping may soften the rawness, a sculptural intervention might punctuate the concrete, and the crowds will animate every curve. LACMA has always bridged cultures and histories; the new building’s sweeping span could become the next chapter in that story—or a puzzle piece that forces us to ask what an inclusive museum should look and feel like in a city as diverse and complex as ours.

Either way, it already demands attention. Whether it earns affection—that will take time, and us, and whatever treasures we carry inside.

July 2025