Archinect - News

Foster + Partners selected to design San Diego Museum of Art expansion

2023-03-08T17:32:00-05:00

Foster + Partners has been announced as the Design Architect of a new renovation of the 97-year-old San Diego Museum of Art following a comprehensive search.

Located in Balboa Park, the museum will add a new education center and welcome pavilion through the delivery of the project, which focuses on its west wing. Renovations will make it more sustainable and better suited to serve San Diego’s increasingly diverse population while enhancing the museum’s facilities and visitor experience overall. LPA Design Studio, which has an office in San Diego, has signed on as the Architect of Record.

“I have always admired San Diego’s rich cultural diversity and deep sense of community. We are delighted to be working with The San Diego Museum of Art to strengthen its roots in the area, reinvigorating a much-loved landmark with the ultimate aim of making art more accessible to the community.”

Deference for the historical importance of Balboa Park was reportedly a main factor in the firm’s unanimo...

LA's Mike the Poet looks back on San Diego's "Spanish Magic" architecture

2014-01-02T12:50:00-05:00

Associated with both wedding cakes and McMansions, the Spanish Colonial Revival movement that took hold of California's early 20th century architecture left behind many civic structures that have since become classically Californian. Mixing elements from the colonial Spanish missions, the American Craftsmen style and the Arts and Crafts movement, architects like Bertram Goodhue set out to establish the metropolises of California as romantic bastions of "Spanish Magic". The style crystallized in San Diego's Balboa Park during the Panama California Exposition of 1915, celebrating the Panama Canal's opening and honoring San Diego's role as the first port north of the canal's westward opening.

3rd generation Los Angeles native Mike Sonksen -- perhaps far better known as "Mike the Poet", an impassioned flâneur and urban hiker famous for his city tours punctuated by poetic outbursts -- has been a mouthpiece for Los Angeles architecture and urbanism through his work as a tour guide, jo...