Govan, LACMA's director and chief executive since 2006, and Zumthor, the Swiss architect who has designed two remarkable art museums in Europe but never built in the United States, met up at Venice's Architecture Biennale on Thursday to present an oversize model of the new wing they hope will be completed by 2023.
"It's the right moment to show it to the professional community because the paradigm is there," Zumthor told me as the all-black model, showing a slice of the wing that will rise just east of the Chris Burden installation "Urban Light," towered over him.