LACMA, Renzo Piano and BP: how big companies change architecture
 

In 2004, LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art) asked Renzo Piano to transform the museum.The building should be opened in early 2008 and it will be cost $156 M (95% comes from private organizations).
Piano designed a museum of contemporary art, a big garden.... and a pavilion that is also the main entrance.
BUT this kind of "gazebo", called "BP Grand Entrance" after the oil-company made a $25-million gift to the museum, is quite different from the former solution. For someone this new entryway, an open-air entry hall with rooftop solar panels, is the consequence of the gift from petroleum company BP. For LA Times it was changed to accommodate "the warm, wonderful California weather", for Michael Govan, the LACMA director, to let people in LA enjoy the sunny weather and being outdoors; for someone else, all the structure is a wind catcher...
em... i've an idea about it...

For more (but unofficial) info:
http://iaakuza.blogspot.com/
Webcam:
http://www.lacma.org/info