Complex shapes created on a screen
At a crucial point in the process of making modern computer-aided architecture, the complex shapes created on the screen must be brought into the real world. The smooth, sweeping plains of digital matter that defies gravity are turned into solid chunks of steel and concrete, which are usually covered with a thin decorative shell to make it look like a solid, sculpted mass. It's a process that requires a lot of precision and careful thought about how the pieces of the three-dimensional jigsaw will fit together and what kinds of bolting, welding, and fixing are needed to make the perfect vision look like it's already there. It doesn't always work out. What looked like a possible way to connect multiple curved panels on screen turns out to be impossible to do with human hands, power tools, and the laws of physics, especially when deadlines are tight. The steel, glass, and terracotta panels don't always bend and curve the way the architect wanted them to.
A $94 million ode
The new Orange County Museum of Art (OCMA) in California is a $94 million (£77 million) ode to the difference between a digital rendering and the real thing. Nowhere else is the difference between the two more obvious. From a distance, its white sides curve and buckle in a way that is typical of the Los Angeles firm Morphosis, which designed the building. The building's front rises up around a corner and folds in on itself to make a roof terrace. It has the same off-kilter feel as the twisted steel plates of a rusty Richard Serra sculpture that is outside. But as you get closer to the building, you can see that the broken, splintered look is more than just the sculptural moves. Sheets of bent steel are screwed crookedly to the edge of the building's wavy facade. Hastily cut tiles have been slapped on, and other parts of the building are held together with tape. Part of a soffit is held up by a temporary clamp, and glass balustrades lean at dangerous angles, with their oversized steel fixing plates bolted with Frankenstein-like joy. Inside, the shop of horrors continues. Sheets of painted foam-board stand in place of steel coping, cracked glass floors line dangerously high walkways, and the suspended ceilings look like they were made out of whatever was left over. The US building industry isn't known for paying close attention to details, but this is different.
The architect received the Pritzker Prize
Thom Mayne, the 78-year-old winner of the Pritzker Prize and founder of Morphosis, has always been interested in how architecture is always changing. In a recent interview, he said, "I don't want to finish projects." "A lot of our stuff is always moving; it doesn't want an edge or a limit; it's always changing." In Orange County, he seems to have gone a little too far with his love of leaving projects unfinished. The partner in charge of the project, Brandon Welling, says that the museum had to open in October before it was ready, which wasn't ideal. Usually, there's a time for getting used to a new place and making a "punch list" of things to do, but we're still going through that process now. At the end of every project, there is a process called "snagging," in which small problems are fixed. However, it's rare to have such a long list.
Clark Construction, the company that built the building, says that delays in the supply chain hurt the project. "There are no problems," they insist. "There is just a delay in getting some supplies to finish custom parts of the design." The project was finished on time and turned over to the client." They say that the broken and bent pieces, as well as the clamps and tape, are "temporary placeholders" because not all custom materials could be replaced before the museum opened. Workers are working hard to replace many pieces of cladding, coping, and glazing at a rate of about two pieces a day, at night and on Mondays when the museum is closed, with the goal of being done by the end of the year. To say the least, it's a hopeful deadline. Even so, the museum is happy.
The director of the OCMA does not seem embarrassed
Heidi Zuckerman, who is the director of OCMA, says with a smile, "It doesn't bother me." "I believe in wabi-sabi, which means I think there's beauty in things that aren't perfect. Sometimes the only way to appreciate a finished thing is to see it in progress." She started working on the museum in January 2021, when it was already half done. She took over a project with a long and troubled past. "Over 14 years, there had been 17 designs," she says. Morphosis won the competition in 2007. At the time, the museum was supposed to be more than twice as big as it is now, and its roof was supposed to sprout a luxury condo tower. The 2008 financial crisis made it clear that museums shouldn't invest in risky real estate deals, so the project was drastically scaled back. The original plan called for a wide staircase to lead from the ground floor up to a public roof terrace, but talks about tickets and security made that idea impossible. Instead, a short piece of the stair now stands in front of the museum like an abandoned piece of another project. It blocks the view of the cafe and shop on the ground floor and generally confuses people who come to see it.
The aggressively angled glass balustrade seems to be there to keep people from staying too long. Up above, out of reach, another wide staircase leads to the roof terrace on the second floor. It is cut off from the steps on the ground floor, like two siblings who will never see each other again. To be mean, the museum is now free and doesn't require tickets, so the stairs could have gone all the way from the plaza to the roof terrace. It's easy to understand why they might be upset. It's great that this place is free (for the first 10 years, thanks to a donation from Lugano Diamonds), but in the end, the museum didn't get much for its money. Even though there are problems with the cladding, stairs, and entrance, the building is still not good enough. Like many other projects from Morphosis, it has a very complicated and expensive shell that shouts its rollercoaster acrobatics and wraps a series of interior spaces that don't have much to do with the shell's performance. It took almost a whole generation to make, and it feels like the last gasp of an era that was interested in novel form for its own sake. Maybe it makes sense that this thin, paper-like building is held together with tape.
Selena Mattei