The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, the new Oscars museum designed by Renzo Piano Building Workshop, opened in Los Angeles
The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, the Oscars museum, opened on September 30, 2021 as the world’s premier institution dedicated to the art and science of cinema.
Sphere Building, the glass dome designed by Renzo Piano to expand the spaces of the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, the new museum of cinema that will open by the end of 2019 in the May Company building, a former shopping mall in Los Angeles
A new project by Renzo Piano Building Workshop in Los Angeles
The project, strongly supported by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (honorary organization founded in 1927 in California to support the development of the national and international film industry, and especially known around the world for the Oscars), was conceived by Renzo Piano Workshop Building architectural firm. The Oscars museum is located in the May Company Building, now Saban Building, a ’30s shopping mall unused for years due to a major earthquake that seriously damaged the structure in 1987.
Renzo Piano Building Workshop has also expanded the spaces of the new museum by creating the Sphere Building, a glass dome that houses a 1,000-seat theater dedicated to film showings, which can also be used for special events, awards and other ceremonies.
With the Sphere Building, the 6-story museum dedicated to cinema and Oscars reaches over 90,000 square meters of surface area. Renzo Piano Building Workshop has also equipped the structure with a smaller 288-seat theatre and the rooftop terrace offering views of Hollywood and its hills
The interior design of the new museum was inspired by its mission: to bring visitors into an avant-garde film center allowing them to experience the backstage of moviemaking through the lens of those who created the motion picture industry, in immersive, experimental, educational and entertaining spaces.
The Oscars museum showcases pieces that have never been displayed before, including photographs, scripts and movie production objects
The museum owns many collections, including 12 million photographs, 190,000 film and video assets, 80,000 screenplays, 61,000 posters, 104,000 pieces of production art and 1,600 special collections of film legends such as Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, Alfred Hitchcock and John Huston.
The museum also showcases examples of pre-cinema devices, cameras, early and modern projectors, sound, editing and lighting equipment as well as several costumes, including the headdress designed by Adrian and worn by Greta Garbo in Mata Hari (1931), the ruby slippers and the Munchkin soldier’s jacket from The Wizard of Oz (1939).
There are also masks and wigs used by leading make-up artists, liquid makeup and molds used for films such as The Godfather (1972) or The Exorcist (1973).
The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures pays tribute to movie icons with a permanent exhibition
For the inauguration, the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures open the long-term exhibition Where Dreams Are Made: A Journey Inside the Movies, displaying props from cult films such as The Wizard of Oz, Singin’ in the Rain and Casablanca, and objects such as the typewriter used to write Psycho’s screenplay. This exhibition also highlights iconic celebrities such as Fred Astaire, Humphrey Bogart, Sidney Poitier, Greta Garbo and Marilyn Monroe. It ends with a reconstruction of the Stargate Corridor of the film 2001: A Space Odyssey.
For the inauguration, the museum also features three temporary exhibitions: Transcending Boundaries, an interactive installation created by teamLab, Regeneration, focused on the work of independent African-American filmmakers, and Hayao Miyazaki, dedicated to the master of Japanese animation. [Text Carlotta Russo]
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Poltrona Frau designs the seats of the Academy Museum Motion of Pictures
Poltrona Frau, through its Custom Interiors division, created the 1000 seats of the museum’s main theater, the David Geffen Theater. The project took over two years of work and was developed thanks to the continuous support of a Poltrona Frau Custom Interiors team to the designers of the Renzo Piano Building Workshop. This successful collaboration made it possible to develop a unique project.
Nicola Coropulis, CEO of Poltrona Frau, commented, “It is a great satisfaction to see the project of the 1000 seats for the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures theater completed. We worked on this project for some time and, like others, it confirms our ability to develop custom solutions, able to perfectly integrate into architectural and interior design projects. This is one of the many examples of our fruitful collaboration with Renzo Piano Building Workshop, which, in this case, has given life to a significant project for the community in relation to the fascinating subject of cinema.”
