‘World-class architect’ to design museum

The internationally known architect chosen to design a new Orange County Museum of Art in Costa Mesa has quite a résumé.

He’s designed such bold projects as a “green” San Francisco office building with no air conditioning and elevators that stop on every third floor to save energy and the yet-to-be completed Phare Tower in Paris, a massive skyscraper that aims to rival the Eiffel Tower.

Museum officials and benefactors, including noted philanthropist Henry Segerstrom, say they are anxious to see what designs award-winning architect Thom Mayne will come up with for the new museum, which is slated to move from Newport Beach to Costa Mesa. The project is scheduled to break ground by 2013.

“This is Mayne’s first museum, and he’s very excited about the project,” said Segerstrom, managing partner of South Coast Plaza. “I think everyone is very excited to see what he will do with it.”

South Coast Plaza and the Segerstrom family dedicated the six acres of land in 1998 to expand South Coast Repertory Theater, build the Renee and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall and construct a visual arts facility.

The addition of the Orange County Museum of Art to the complex will complete plans for the Segerstrom Center for the Arts.

The new museum will further secure Costa Mesa’s status as the epicenter of the Orange County art scene, Segerstrom said.

“The art museum will grow into a major institution with this prospect,” he said. “This is a very, very important step for Orange County, Southern California and the world of art.”

The museum is moving from its Newport Beach home near Fashion Island to a 1.64-acre spot just East of the new Renee and Henry Segerstrom Hall, which would give the locale a total of three music performance venues, a two-stage playhouse and an art museum all within short walking distance.

Mayne was selected after an international architectural competition. Terrence Dwyer, president of the Orange County Performing Arts Center, is excited about the selection.

“We’re hoping that the new museum will turn the area into an unrivaled center for the arts,” Dwyer said.

Mayne has never designed a building in Orange County, but numerous examples of his work can be seen in Los Angeles, including the space-age, metallic Caltrans Dist. 7 Headquarters with benches that look like steel sculptures and the similarly asymmetrical Science Center School.

“He’s absolutely a word-class architect. I’ve seen some of his designs in books, and it should be a spectacular building,” Dwyer said.

Estimates of how long the building will take to construct, from groundbreaking to completion, are about two to three years and one of the big obstacles will be scheduling the noisier construction tasks so that they don’t interrupt musical performances, Dwyer said.