Just In Time For Awards Season, A Look Inside The New Academy Museum Of Motion Pictures

Photo Credit: Joshua White Pictures

AS THE 94TH ACADEMY AWARDS ON MARCH 27th approach, a visit to the recently opened Academy Museum of Motion Pictures should be as big a priority as getting red-carpet ready for Hollywood’s biggest evening, and here’s why: This museum is, in fact, a love letter to Hollywood itself, and one with a $462 million price tag to boot. Photo Credit: Joshua White Pictures

Designed by Pritzker Prize—winning architect Renzo Piano, this LEED Gold-certified building is now the largest museum in the United States specifically devoted to the arts and sciences of moviemaking, one that makes sure to tell all the stories of Tinseltown’s history — the good, the bad, and the ugly. Piano, in collaboration with Gensler as executive architect, has actually created the 300,000-square-foot building by combining two contrasting structures: the renovated and expanded May Company building — a 1939 landmark now called the Saban Building in honor of benefactors Cheryl and Haim Saban — and a soaring glass and concrete sphere housing the Fairfax Avenue entrance and the Sidney Poitier Grand Lobby, exhibition galleries, the 288-seat Ted Mann Theater, The Shirley Temple Education Studio, the Debbie Reynolds Conservation Studio, and a store carrying exclusive film and Oscars memorabilia.

Photo Credit: Joshua White Pictures

This wing also houses Fanny’s, a restaurant and café named after legendary vaudeville, movie, theater, and radio star Fanny Brice. As developed by restaurateurs Bill Chait and Carl Schuster with a design by the L.A.-based firm Commune Design, the 10,000-square-foot space is a two-story affair conceptualized by the late Osvaldo Maiozzi and features an open kitchen, elegant bar and captain-based service style in a nod to Hollywood’s glory days. Raphael Francois is the eatery’s executive chef, while the great Julian Cox serves as its mixologist. Wolfgang Puck Catering, which oversees the Academy Awards’ Governor’s Ball, also provides catering services at the museum.
Photo Credit: Joshua White Pictures

Meanwhile, the 45,000-square-foot sphere building houses the 1,000-seat David Geffen Theater and Dolby Family Terrace, a circular, open-air promenade beneath a custom-cut glass dome with cinematic views of the Hollywood Hills and Hollywood Sign, as well as the Walt Disney Company Piazza.

Photo Credit: Joshua White Pictures

Speaking of Disney, well, the Academy is akin to that — this is like Disneyland for film aficionados. There are member events, panel discussions, screenings, and ongoing exhibitions, like Backdrop: An Invisible Art, a tribute to the impact that movies make on our lives; the three-story, self-explanatory Stories of Cinema; a retrospective on legendary filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki; and The Oscars Experience, where visitors can experience their own Oscar night simulation (little-golden-man acceptance speech and all). Plus, there are true Hollywood treasures to be found here, including Dorothy’s ruby slippers from 1939’s The Wizard of Oz, a matte painting of Charles Foster Kane’s Xanadu mansion from 1941’s Citizen Kane, the typewriter Joseph Stefano used to write the screenplay for Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 thriller, Psycho, and the iconic shark from 1975’s Jaws.Photo Credit: Joshua White Pictures

Now, there’s only one real question: What iconic moments created this year will stand the test of time?Photo Credit: Joshua White Pictures 

The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures is located at 6067 Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90036