Academy Picks Renzo Piano and Zoltan Pali to Design Film Museum
By Michael CieplyLOS ANGELES — The new movie museum planned by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has its architects. Renzo Piano, whose work includes the recent expansion of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and Zoltan Pali, who has helped restore the Greek Theater and other buildings here, will join in building the film museum. The institution will be located in the old May Company department store next to LACMA. Under an earlier plan, the French architect Christian de Portzamparc was to have designed the museum, on Academy-owned land in the Hollywood district. But that plan collapsed as the economy softened in 2008 and was eventually replaced by current one, which calls for renovation of the 325,000-square-foot store space now known as LACMA West. Mr. Piano, who won the Pritzker Prize for architecture in 1998, also designed the building in which The New York Times is headquartered.