Like a lot of the 34 cities that make up Orange County, California, Costa Mesa was designed on the scale of the car. In 1967, the Segerstrom household reworked a portion of a lima bean discipline close to the San Diego Freeway into South Coast Plaza. Right now, it’s the largest mall in California and the fourth largest within the nation. With over 2.8 million sq. toes of inside area, 250 boutiques, and a fleet of non-public buyers, the sprawling construction set the scale for the whole lot that surrounds its oceanic parking zone.
Throughout the road but seemingly miles away, Segerstrom Middle for the Arts can simply be missed by the 22 million guests the mall receives yearly. To make up for this perceptual distance, the Segerstroms developed the 14-acre cultural campus as an assortment of larger-than-life efficiency venues bearing the household identify, save for a big grassy space on its jap facet that had lengthy been the one really unprogrammed area within the space.
When Morphosis entered the design competitors for the Orange County Museum of Artwork (OCMA), a $93 million venue for contemporary and modern artwork that has lately been accomplished on that website, the agency sought to enhance upon its potential as an open-air expanse. “We gave about 75 p.c of that free area again to the group whereas in some way together with a 53,000-square-foot museum,” Thom Mayne, the agency’s founder and the design director for OCMA, defined whereas sitting on the ten,000-square-foot higher plaza gazing north towards Connector, the towerlike metal sculpture by artist Richard Serra that has lengthy been a landmark for Segerstrom Middle. Like the inside of the museum, which shall be free to the general public for the subsequent ten years, the higher plaza is accessible from the sidewalk by way of a staircase that permits it to function the whole lot from an out of doors gallery area to seating for main occasions because of a grand public stair going through the decrease plaza.
Framed by mature native palo brea and stay oak bushes on one facet and a discipline of white terra-cotta tiles on the opposite, the plaza is an unexpectedly intimate respite from the over-scaled buildings that encompass it. “That is extra like a piazza than anything,” Mayne argued, in that it “replicates the dynamic between the normal Italian public sq. and the energetic avenue life that defines its border to ask alternatives for probability and shock.” Maybe with this imaginative and prescient of relaxation in thoughts, the metallic sequin sculpture by New York–primarily based artist Sanford Biggers, Of many waters… (2022), that looms on the middle of the higher plaza takes on the picture of a reclining determine on one facet and presents loads of seating for guests to recline on the opposite.
From practically all angles, OCMA is way extra modest than pictures depict. The facade angles away from the bottom plaza like a canyon formed by hundreds of thousands of years of flowing water. An remoted public stair on the bottom plaza supplies extra seating alongside the identical axis as that of the higher plaza, with loads of shaded bench seating on the opposite facet. The road-facing elevation is a floor-to-ceiling band of glass that includes commissioned murals by modern artists Sarah Cain and Alicia McCarthy, whereas the remaining two sides are merely understated. The identical ridged terra-cotta tiles guests expertise up shut within the higher plaza swim throughout to the entrance elevation and could be seen folding into the primary atrium. “Other than its sturdiness and ease of fabrication,” mentioned Brandon Welling, Morphosis’s partner-in-charge, “terra-cotta was the perfect cladding materials to show the craftsmanship that went into its manufacturing and mirror the artistry on show inside the museum.”
The advanced geometry of the foyer atrium is damaged up by two catwalks that collectively make the museum seem way more labyrinthine than a fast stroll by the museum demonstrates. The biggest exhibition areas are on the bottom flooring, for which OCMA director Heidi Zuckerman performed a significant position in executing even its smallest particulars. “It was essential for all displays, shops, and different constructing requirements to be faraway from sight in order that the artwork may very well be appreciated with out distraction,” Zuckerman defined whereas gesturing on the artworks like figures in a composition.
{A partially} hidden staircase leads guests to a slender mezzanine gallery with a ribbon window providing glimpses into the decrease galleries at a curiously low peak. “Given how few different artwork museums exist inside Orange County,” Zuckerman added, “lots of the inner particulars had been carried out for native schoolchildren on discipline journeys to find their very own relationships to modern artwork.” With the identical want to form younger minds, the training middle on the highest flooring is a small, cloistered room with an artfully uncovered ceiling which may encourage curiosity about structure itself.
“The best way it contrasts but enhances the whole lot else in Segerstrom Middle,” Mayne mentioned whereas wanting throughout the higher plaza as caterers ready for an upcoming occasion, “makes OCMA really feel just like the final piece of a puzzle.”
Shane Reiner-Roth is a lecturer on the College of Southern California.