"Ordinances required a building of low height, with a pedestrian walkway crossing its axis....The building is built around a terraced courtyard. The galleries are below ground level, most having overhead lighting. Under the courtyard, the galleries lead into each other from left to right. Above the courtyard, the only building which stands out is the section devoted to administration, with a roof in the shape of a semicircular dome....The whole geometric composition of the building is based on the golden section as the Western method of planning shapes and subdivided the spaces, and on the oriental theory of ying and yang, positive—negative. The rooms in the extremes of the building have expressive skylights in volumetrically pure shapes: various pyramids and a series of linear skylights....The exterior is a natural reddish coloured stone, contrasting with the transparent skylights and the lustre of the semi-cylindrical roof of the offices..."

—Josep M. Montaner. New Museums. p99.

The Creator's Words

"For the first twenty years of my career as a professional architect, I believed that architecture could only be accomplished by irony.

It could allude to treason.
It made it possible to create architecture as criticism.
It could admire the vulgar against the noble, the secular against the sacred, without shame.

It was an unfulfilled wish, a mourning for what was lost—
Hiroshima, holocaust
To bridge over the gap—
A style of wit, a sense of humor and paradox were adopted.

After twenty years of practical experience, I am now going to find a method to create architecture without irony.

—Arata Isozaki, "Architecture With or Without Irony," 1985. from Arata Isozaki. Arata Isozaki: Architecture 1960-1990. p9.

Details

24,500 square feet of exhibition space

Client: The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
Design team: Shin Watanabe, Hajime Yatsuka, Makoto Kikuchi, Ronald Rose, Allyne Winderman
Consultants: Gruen Associates, Los Angeles (associate architect); John A. Martin & Associates (structural); Syska & Hennessy (mechanical); Jules Fisher & Paul Marantz Inc. (lighting); Bolt, Beranek & Newman (acoustical); Chermayeff & Geismar Contractor: HCB Contractors