It wasn’t easy.
Every firm invited to submit qualifications for the design of the Academy’s museum boasted an impressive portfolio, proven abilities to manage complex projects and intelligent approaches to architectural problems. The architect selection subcommittee, chaired by AMPAS governor Jeannine Oppewall, and made up of Charles Bernstein, Arthur Cohen, Arthur Hamilton, Curtis Hanson, Kathy Kennedy, Frank Pierson and Steven Spielberg, with Sid Ganis, Bruce Davis and I sitting in, found itself focusing on three important criteria.
Aesthetics
Did we think the aesthetic approach was appropriate for the Academy, the museum, Hollywood, and the greater Los Angeles area? Did we want to be looking at, working in, and living beside this firm’s work for the next hundred years?
Sensitivity to Program
Frankly stated, “Would this architect listen to us?” Not all architects put the same effort into understanding a client’s needs. Some focus more on making an architectural statement. An architectural statement might generate a lot of interest, but if the building doesn’t work for its users, that interest can be short-lived.
Budgetary Responsibility
Coming in on budget is not solely the responsibility of the architect (the client and the general contractor have a hand in that too), but it’s a responsibility that some architects take more seriously than others – and one that some firms are simply better at than others.
Assessing a lengthy list of international architects on this criteria took time. Two years, to be exact. We began with more than 150 candidates on a lavishly illustrated roster put together by our staff, by architect Fran Offenhauser, who oversaw remodeling of the buildings that are now our Fairbanks and Pickford centers, and by our formidably conscientious chair Jeannine Oppewall, who became so devoted to the project that we began to worry she might be deflecting production design jobs to stay with the museum project.
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| Academy members and executives meet with Portzamparc to share their vision for the museum campus. |
Week after week, we steadily thinned the field. To 75 possibilities. Then to 50. Then to 32 favorites whom we queried about their interest in our project. Most were. Their responses to our inquiry helped us winnow the list to eleven firms. We asked them more questions.
Our project administrator Heather Cochran began the grueling process of interviewing clients of all the firms. Some spoke glowingly of collaborative approaches and sensitivity to budgets. Some described less wonderful experiences. The field dropped to five.
Somewhat to our surprise, four of the five were based in Europe. Our president and a small squad of cohorts were sent on two whirlwind missions to see some of the built work of our contenders, and to meet them on their home courts. Early in the process the concern shifted from “will we find anyone we like?” to “how are we going to choose from among these five extraordinary candidates?”
It was, as they say, a good problem to have. The subcommittee had done its presorting beautifully. We now invited all five contenders to Los Angeles to see the museum site and to be interviewed by the full committee. That was a two-and-a-half day process that left us all thoroughly energized and impressed all over again – through hearing those brilliant, creative people talk about it – with the great significance of the project that the Academy has taken on.
We then had to make the last, hard choice. At some point the committee realized that it had unconsciously created an Oscar-like ballot. We had five artists, each of whom had created extraordinary work, and somehow we only had one prize to award.
After more thinking, more looking, more soul searching, the subcommittee members marked and tallied their ballots, and found that they had agreed to recommend the firm Atelier Christian de Portzamparc to the Board. On November 6, 2007, the Board of Governors accepted the recommendation.
On to the design phase.
By Bob Rehme
Chair, Academy Museum Committee
