The Los Angeles Times reported on Thursday that Los Angeles County Museum of Art Director Michael Govan and architect Peter Zumthor are currently presenting an updated model of their proposed new LACMA building at the 2016 Architecture Biennale, which opens today in Venice, Italy. Â The show is, according to the Times, “among the most anticipated gatherings in the profession, drawing architects, curators and critics from around the world.”
The proposed building’s design has changed several times since it was originally proposed in 2013. Â But it looks like the concept has reached a more solid state now, as Times architecture writer Christopher Hawthorne reports in the story:
“It’s the right moment to show it to the professional community because the paradigm is there,” Zumthor told me as the all-black model, showing a slice of the wing that will rise just east of the Chris Burden installation “Urban Light,” towered over him.
From here on, he added, “It is only going to be small alterations.”
The Biennale exhibit includes an oversized model of the building, accompanied by drawings and site plans, as well as music and “a textile artwork by Christina Kim made up of sheets of fabric in a range of colors (blues, oranges and yellows) hanging on hooks in two curving rows, as if making up the world’s most glamorous dry cleaning shop.”  The colored material stands in for the artwork that will line the new building’s dark gray passageways.
Govan says in the Times story that the goal is to open the building by 2023, the same year the new Purple Line subway extension will open, with a stop at the museum’s Wilshire and Fairfax location.
