Weiss/Manfredi Selected for La Brea Tar Pits Master Plan
WEISS/MANFREDI conceptual approach features a bridge across the Lake Pit at La Brea Tar Pits.
Rendering courtesy WEISS/MANFREDI
WEISS/MANFREDI “La Brea Loops and Lenses” conceptual approach links all existing elements of the park.
Rendering courtesy WEISS/MANFREDI
The Lake Pit at La Brea Tar Pits features fiberglass mammals. The museum at La Brea Tar Pits (established in 1977 as the George C. Page Museum) is pictured in the background.
Photo courtesy La Brea Tar Pits
Fiberglass mammals on display in the Lake Pit at La Brea Tar Pits with Wilshire Boulevard in the background.
Photo courtesy La Brea Tar Pits
A mammoth on display inside the museum at La Brea Tar Pits (established in 1977 as the George C. Page Museum).
Photo courtesy La Brea Tar Pits
Architects & Firms
The Natural History Museums of Los Angeles County (NHMLAC) has selected Weiss/Manfredi to master plan the 13-acre La Brea Tar Pits campus. The New York–based firm's "Loops and Lenses" concept will connect the existing George C. Page Museum (re-envisioned as an event/gathering space) with Hancock Park via a triple loop walkway that, at just over half a mile long, defines and links three legible zones: a research-oriented area with excavation pits; a central green, fronting the museum buildings; and Tar Pit Lake. A separate new elliptical structure will house and display the museum collections.
“There is truly no place in the world as magical as La Brea Tar Pits,” firm founders Marion Weiss and Michael Manfredi said in a statement. "We and our team are deeply honored and grateful for this once-in-a lifetime opportunity to reveal the multiple identities of the Tar Pits, the Museum, and Hancock Park." The architects will lead a multidisciplinary team that includes Michael Bierut of Pentagram, designer Karin Fong of Imaginary Forces, horticulturalist Robert Perry, paleobotanist Dr. Carol Gee, artist and naturalist Mark Dion, and other Los Angeles-based consultants.
Weiss/Manfredi unveiled their concept for the project in August, along with finalists Diller Scofidio + Renfro and Dorte Mandrup.
The museum tells RECORD that the next year will be spent "visioning and developing the design concept," and that the project is expected to complete in some 5-7 years.
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