Via Inside the Outside Lands, local architect Glenn Robert Lym recently created a half-hour look at the California Academy of Sciences and the de Young Museum, which have not only achieved great heights of starchitecture, but also happen to sit right across from each other in Golden Gate Park. Lym talks about the very opposite approaches that Herzog and de Meuron and Renzo Piano took in designing their respective buildings. One, assymetrical, unpredictable, and "enigmatic," another classical, "luminescent," and totally predictable (though not to say boring). Lym notes that had either building been constructed outside of the park, it would have taken up "an entire block," and thus they both owe the park for giving them a "setting that minimizes their bulk." The video's a bit long and academic, but worth a watch if you're a PBS kind of person. Also see: Best New Buildings of the Decade.
· The De Young Musuem and The California Academy of Sciences [Lym Arch]
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