What rises above us
Young Chang
The floor in the temporary Museum of Architecture in Costa Mesa is
bead-blasted concrete. You can still see the cracks and tiny piles of
blasted grains.
Standing before photos of designs by worldwide Pritzker Architecture
Prize-winning architects, the museum’s floor makes you feel like you’re
right there.
In front of Gottfried Boehm’s City Hall in Bensberg, Germany.
At Ieoh Ming Pei’s glass pyramid-shape museum adjacent to the Grand
Louvre in Paris.
At the foot of Philip Johnson’s Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove.
Founding architectural museum Director Robert Imber said he and his
board intentionally left the floor this way for the arrival of the
Pritzker Prize exhibition. The show, called “The Art of Architecture,”
came to Costa Mesa from Utah on Aug. 14.
“Visitors have been greatly impressed,” Imber said. “Almost reverent.”
The visitors are often stunned for three reasons:
First, it’s all here in one place. Works by every Pritzker
Architecture Prize laureate since 1979 in one medium-size gallery that’s
open daily for a minimal admission fee.
The Pritzker is awarded annually to a living architect by the Hyatt
Foundation. Imber describes it as the architectural equivalent of a Nobel
Prize.
Second, Imber and the museum’s board members pulled it off. He got the
call about two months ago. Landau Travelling Exhibitions, manager of the
10-year Pritzker international tour, told Imber: “If you can mount it,
you can have it.” Third, the collection will be gone before we know it.
After Sept. 10, organizers will pack up the huge foldable images in large
crates and take it to Europe and then Asia.
Meanwhile, the 3-year-old local museum -- having landed the coveted
show yet still searching for a permanent home -- was loaned the temporary
exhibit space at no cost by the South Coast Plaza. The walls displaying
the architectural photos were painted a “Pritzker” blue. The floors were
left au naturel.
Sally-Anne Smith, an architect from San Clemente, recently strolled
slowly and quietly through the exhibit.
“This is fabulous. They don’t have enough architecture [shows] in
Orange County,” Smith said, adding she believes the organizers “are doing
a wonderful job trying to inform everyone.”
Everyone needs shelter, she said. It’s like clothing: You can either
wear a burlap sack or you can wear something nice. It doesn’t hurt to
live and work in a beautiful building.
In Imber’s opinion, architecture surrounds us whether we know or like
it. Everyone is either coming from, physically in or going to
architecture.
“Good architecture allows you to live,” Smith said. “Unfortunately we
don’t notice good architecture -- just bad architecture, because you
notice when there isn’t enough light.”
The most recent Pritzker laureates include Rem Koolhaas of The
Netherlands, Sir Norman Foster of England, Renzo Piano of Italy and
Sverre Fehn of Norway.
Lance Brown, president of the American Institute of Architects Orange
County, has visited the exhibit. But he has also seen many of the works
in three-dimension, in real life.
“It was still satisfying,” Brown said of the exhibit. “It was a
conglomeration of my favorite architects, and it’s fun to see it all in
the same place.”
FYI
* WHAT: “The Art of Architecture,” honoring Pritzker Prize laureates
* WHEN: Noon to 5 p.m. daily, with extended hours on selected days,
through Sept. 10
* WHERE: Museum of Architecture, 3400 Bristol St., Costa Mesa
* COST: $3, free to everyone on Mondays and daily to museum members
and students with valid IDs
* CALL: (949) 366-9660
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