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P R O F I L E | A C A D E M Y M U S E U M O F M OT I O N P I C T U R E S
Spread over 250,000 square feet, the first part of the museum is
housed in the 1939 Streamline Moderne May Company Building,
later renamed the Saban Building, which was fully renovated and
expanded. At its southwest corner, the iconic cylinder features
350,000 gold-leaf mosaic tiles, a third of which have been
replaced with new tiles from the original manufacturer, Orsoni
in Venice, Italy. The opposite façade is characterized by a new
glass curtain wall, and the columns of the original building were
discovered during the restoration.
With its terrace offering sweeping views of the Hollywood Hills, the
new glass and concrete spherical addition of 45,000 square feet
is made of a 26-million-pound structure with 1,500 flat, laminated,
shingled glass panels comprising 146 different cut shapes.
Playing with light and shadow, Pritzker Architecture Prize-winning
architect Renzo Piano — who once said he would have been a
filmmaker if not an architect — also wanted to connect the indoor
and outdoor spaces, while juxtaposing the solidity of steel and
concrete with the lightness of glass.
With landscaping designed by artist Robert Irwin, the Walt Disney
Company Piazza acts as a public area during the day and an
event space at night. Complementing the experience, restaurant
and café Fanny's — named after legendary movie, vaudeville,
theater and radio star Fanny Brice — was designed by Los
Angeles-based studio Commune Design.
In addition to temporary exhibitions and ongoing programs, the
Academy Museum, which is the largest museum in North Amer-
ica devoted to exploring film culture, has the largest collection of
its kind in the world with over 13 million photographs; 250,000 film
and video assets; 71,000 screenplays; 67,000 posters; 137,000
pieces of production art; nearly 1,800 special collections of film
legends such as Saul Bass, Patricia Cardoso, Katharine Hepburn
and Alfred Hitchcock, among others; and approximately 8,000
three-dimensional objects such as cameras, projectors, magic
lanterns and pre-cinematic optical toys, visual effects devices,
costumes, backdrops, makeup and hair-styling tools.
Both an architectural masterpiece — which was awarded LEED
Gold Certification by the U.S. Green Building Council last October
— and an ode to moviemaking, this new museum has everything
to awaken the imagination
TOP: ACADEMY OF MOTION PICTURES.
BOTTOM RIGHT: FILM STILL, PORCO ROSSO (1992) HAYAO MIYAZAKI;
BOTTOM LEFT: FILM STILL, PRINCESS MONONOKE (1997), HAYAO MIYAZAKI.
