LACMA’s Plans For Its New Home Seems To Be Deeply Unpopular. Can Anything Be Done?

COVID-19, unfortunately, has given the nation pause, but for LACMA it may be a blessing, a reason to apply the brakes: the pandemic has opened up time, offering the museum board, the LA County supervisors, and the public the chance to reconsider what everyone already knows is a mistake. According to a recent survey (conducted by a group with which I am involved), only a shocking five percent of 2,750 people polled want the Zumthor design. LACMA’s stubbornly entrenched board of directors steadfastly refuses to acknowledge that this is the most unpopular public project ever to have been proposed for a major cultural institution in Los Angeles. – Los Angeles Review of Books