Hollywood's Academy Museum of Motion Pictures to open in December
– Renzo Piano
The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, which has been designed by Renzo Piano, is set to open in Hollywood on 14 December 2020 it has been announced.
The museum will be located in the former 1939 May Company department store, now called the Saban Building, with a spherical building added.
Renzo Piano said: "The historic Saban Building is a wonderful example of Streamline Moderne style, which preserves the way people envisioned the future in 1939. The new structure, the Sphere Building, is a form that seems to lift off the ground into the perpetual, imaginary voyage through space and time that is moviegoing.
"By connecting these two experiences we create something that is itself like a movie. You go from sequence to sequence, from the exhibition galleries to the film theatre and the terrace, with everything blending into one experience."
The 300,000sq ft (91,440sq m), six-floor facility will be the first large-scale museum in the US to be entirely dedicated to the art, science, craft, business and history of film.
It will house 50,000sq ft (15,240sq m) of galleries, theatres – including a 1,000-seat venue named after David Geffen – project spaces, an outdoor plaza, rooftop terrace, education studio, event spaces, a restaurant and a store.
Visitors will also be able to take in views of the Hollywood Hills and iconic Hollywood sign.
The museum will be used to showcase parts of the Academy's collection, which reportedly includes over 12 million photographs, 190,000 moving image items, 80,000 screenplays, 61,000 posters and 104,000 pieces of production art.
According to a report in The New York Times, the project will have cost at least US$388m (€355m, £300m), which could rise to around US$450m (€412m, £348m) with the museum working on a new bond offering of US$100m (€91.5m, £77.4m).
Academy Museum of Motion Pictures Hollywood Los Angeles Renzo Piano