Los Angeles is currently in a bit of an architectural uproar, perhaps because the Walt Disney Concert Hall, designed by Frank Gehry as a sort of Mini-Me echo of his Guggenheim Bilbao museum, has finally been upstaged—
By a bunch of car junkies.
Here’s the thing about the Petersen Museum, which has now emerged from its Googie fins of the ‘70s with a brand-new wrap-around red-and-stainless flowing structure: Love it or hate it, you’re certainly not going to drive by without noticing. And that’s just the point, says lead architect Gene Kohn. In New York, an old city with conservative architecture, a building interacts with pedestrians—but there is no massive pedestrian stream flowing along Wilshire Boulevard, I assure you. So the Pete—I’m calling it that because Robert Petersen went by Pete; otherwise, I suppose we could call it the Bob—interacts with the passing traffic on the street.
You won’t miss the Petersen Museum driving by.
The flowing shapes are evocative of—what, exactly? Well, think of patterns of light coming through Venetian blinds and falling on curving forms, or the wisps of smoke around a car in a wind tunnel. Since Peterson got his start by creating Hot Rod Magazine, and Motor Trend, and half a dozen others in the 1950s, I like to think that I see, in the play of negative space and red and silver, at least a ghost of hot-rod flames. Hey, this is Southern California, the heart and soul of the automotive culture in America, and the hot rod is the unruly upstart of that creative force, and flames are the iconic, loud banner of Hot Rod Nation; when I look at the Pete, I see flames, I tell you.
And Kohn admits that maybe, just maybe, that hot-rod connection may have contributed to the philosophical underpinnings of the final design.
Flames, I tell ya; I see flames.
Of course, the local architecture critics are already squinting up their beady eyes and pursing their lips. Gaah, ptui, I say, and I rap my glasspacks. Los Angeles is a huge, sprawling metropolis, emphasis on the sprawl; except for Gehry’s concert hall and Bob’s Big Boy Drive-In, what are the city’s architectural landmarks? Well, there’s John Portman’s four-Pringles-can-towers Bonaventure Hotel, derived from his Peachtree hotel in Georgia, derived from the gargantuan disaster that is the Renaissance Center in Detroit; although the Bonaventure is built on a much, much smaller scale than the RenCen, it is still quite possible to get hopelessly turned around within its curvilinear confines. But until the rebirth of the Petersen, there hasn’t been much exciting—to my eyes, anyway—architecture on the LA horizon.
Still, like the Eiffel Tower, which was universally despised when it was erected, the Petersen design stirs strong feelings. Sort of like the ghost flames on my roadster.
But a building’s façade is merely the wrapper: It’s what’s inside that ought to stir the blood. And the Petersen has become a museum with broad appeal. It’s educational, for it chronicles the growth of the automotive culture of Southern California, and its effects on the region’s lifestyle. Intermingled with the growth of the automobile industry was the growth of the Hollywood movie industry, and you can enjoy an entire hall full of four-wheeled artifacts of that history, from the days of Mack Sennett to the cars of Spectre, James Bond’s latest Aston Martin DB10 and the Jaguar C-X75 driven by Mr. Hinx.
Although Ford no longer owns Aston Martin, except for a small percentage, and sold Jaguar to Tata Motors in 2008, perhaps it was Ford’s support of the Petersen that brought the Spectre cars to the hall, but Ford’s presence is happily felt in the nose-to-nose display of a new Ford GT and the Le Mans-winning Fort GT40 III. Oh, and there’s Ken Block’s 650-horsepower tire-burnin’ Ford Fiesta—if that doesn’t stir an old hot-rodder’s heart, it’s time to bury him—in a hall that traces the development of hot rods in general and Southern California lakesters in particular. But just when you think you have lost all trace of cultural pretensions, it’s time to descend the circular stairway to another floor—the Petersen features three floors of display halls, plus a penthouse for the privileged—to find yourself among the most beautiful cars ever built—the swoopy, dreamy Art Deco cars of the 1930s. (My favorite of those cars is one I saw at Santa Fe Concorso, a 1937 Bugatti Type 57 Cabriolet with fitted luggage.)
But that halls opens to one even more dramatic: a celebration of silver
Imagine a room—a very large room—filled with stunning silver sports cars.
From the magnificent Mercedes-Benz 196 R to a Corvette Stingray by way of the singular 1938 Hispano-Suiza H6B Dubonnet “Xenia” Coupe, you may be overwhelmed with a touch of mal de l’argent, but not to worry: Alexander Calder will save you.
Yes, the final room on our abbreviated tour is dedicated to BMW’s Art Cars, and there in its primary glory is the 3.0CSL that started it all in 1975, Hervé Poulain’s Le Mans racer, which he persuaded his friend Calder to paint.
The Calder Art Car is on display at the Petersen until June.
Performance Art indeed!
Most appropriate to the Petersen Museum is the David Hockney Art Car, for Hockney’s influence—as well as his residence—is pure LA. The Hockney 8 Series coupe will anchor the BMW display for the next year or so. (We were most pleased to see BMW NA’s Dave Buchko dressed for the occasion in a Jerry Garcia tie, although Garcia is better known as a Bay Area artist than as an LA vibemeister.)
BMW NA’s Dave Buchko introduces the Hockney 8 Series Art Car.
The David Hockney Art Car will be at the Petersen throughout 2016.
Finally, there is the kinda-sorta Z4 Art Car, the blue E89 used to create Robin Rhode’s “Expression Of Joy” art piece. You might think of it as a painting, because the car was used to create a painting—literally—by driving happily around a white floor while paint was dripped onto the tires; the tires left a colorful geometric trail or reds, blues, greens, and yellows. Then the floor was cut up into abstract panels, and the Z4 was retired—just as it was when it finished its painting chores.
The Z4 Art Car still creates artictic abstract patterns.
Jeez, you’d think they could’ve cleaned the car when they were finished!
Now, most of the BMW Art Cars are solid objects, sculptural things, and sometimes they were things that went racing. But the Rhodes piece is more than just one sculptural element; there’s the event itself, which qualifies as performance art. The short film “Expression Of Joy” is an element or artistic expression, too—and the floor might be viewed as one huge abstract painting, while the individual panels constitute smaller abstractions.
And then there’s the car itself. With the yellow paint doing a Jackson Pollack dance down the side of the car, it’s my favorite art of all.—Satch Carlson
