Toyo Ito's Berkeley Museum Design

“A shortage of funds has prompted UC Berkeley to abandon its plan to construct a new Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive downtown. The building, a distinctive and innovative design by Tokyo architect Toyo Ito estimated to cost $143 million, was to replace the museum’s present, seismically endangered quarters on Bancroft Way…”

UC Berkeley must scale back on downtown museum [SFGate]

4 thoughts on “Modern Ito Design Falls Prey To Modern Berkeley Economics”
  1. The current museum is a great work of architecture, beautifully done. The seismic retrofit in place, while not ideal, keeps the original concept legible.

  2. I have followed this project for years, and you could see this outcome from a mile away.
    The liklihood that an institutional (i.e. state institution) structure by a designed by an architect like Ito (or renzo piano or norman foster) could be financed and built- in the best of times -is remote at best.
    This might be a beautiful and would for sure be a phenomenally costly structure to built, and you really have to question the common sense and smarts of UC Berkeley in pursuing this for so long.
    How much money was spent on this exercise? $5MIL??
    There was a “shortage of funds” the day this project was conceived.

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