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