The Academy Selects Renzo Piano And Zoltan Pali As Museum Architects

Award-winning architects Renzo Piano and Zoltan Pali will design the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science announced today.

“Renzo’s track record of creating iconic cultural landmarks combined with Zoltan’s success in transforming historically-significant buildings is a perfect marriage for a museum that celebrates the history and the future of the movies,” said Dawn Hudson, Academy CEO.

Piano, who in 1998 was awarded the Pritzker Prize – architecture’s highest honor – is the founder of the Renzo Piano Building Workshop. With offices in Paris, Genoa and New York, RPBW has been acclaimed for its international commissions. Piano’s significant design accomplishments include the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, the Central St. Giles Court in London, the Kansai International Airport Terminal in Osaka, the Menil Collection in Houston, and the headquarters of The New York Times.

Piano also designed the expansion of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), whose campus will include the upcoming Academy museum.

“We as architects make buildings that are portraits that represent our clients,” said Piano. “The Academy museum will take the visitor through the back door of cinema, behind the curtain, and into moviemaking magic.”

Pali, a Los Angeles native, is the design principal and co-founder of Studio Pali Fekete architects (SPF:a). He has been lauded for his design of the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, for which SPF:a received a Los Angeles Business Council Architectural Award and an AIA Los Angeles “Next LA” Award. In addition, Pali is renowned for his Los Angeles-area restorations of the Greek Theatre, the Gibson Amphitheatre, and the Pantages Theatre, the latter earning SPF:a an LABC Award for Historic Preservation. For the firm’s work as the executive architects on the renovation and expansion of the Getty Villa museum, SPF:a received the AIA Los Angeles Presidential Award.

“It is an honor and privilege to work with the Academy in bringing to life a historic, iconic building that I love with the story of motion pictures,” said Pali.

The Museum Committee is composed of Academy governors Craig Barron, Jim Bissell, Gale Anne Hurd, Rob Friedman and Robert Rehme; Academy members Kathleen Kennedy, former president Sid Ganis and Academy President Tom Sherak.

The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures will be established in the historic May Company building, now known as LACMA West. Opened in 1939, the building is a 325,000-square foot art moderne landmark located at the corner of Fairfax Avenue and Wilshire Boulevard.

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