The Winogrand Museum

2018

Street photographer Garry Winogrand left behind 75,000 undeveloped negatives of Los Angeles when he died. This photography museum  sited in downtown Los Angeles develops and exhibits Winogrand’s lost photographs and architecturally immerses the user into their lost photographic conditions. The proposal’s circulation descent hugs the vertical projection of these developed 35mm negatives through the building’s core. At all scales, from massing to detail, the design strategy is persuaded by the various elements of his idiosyncratic and controversial shooting style. These elements extend to ideas of loss. If these photographs don’t exist, then the building shouldn’t either. The 1:1 proposal emerges from the 1:50 proposal model, resulting in emerging states of existence.

 

Brief image: composite of existing Winogrand photographs

 

 

 

 

1:50 model photograph

 

 

 

 

1:50 model photograph

 

 

These are actually a renders, and it’s important for them to stay this way. The realistic state of the proposal should always be suspended. The photographs are lost in a non-existent state and therefore the tectonics should do the same at all stages in the design process. This breeds a way of making and designing that is more precisely suited to the sensitive conditions of the brief. Further gallery space photos, between states:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1:1 detail emerging from its 1:50 state.

 

 

Details are resolved in this way as to propagate the emergence of the proposal. The building is a synecdoche of these lost photographs, and emerges with them from a reciprocating lower state of existence.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Above: Projection space of negatives (from the lower ground levels up through the building core). Developing and projecting 20 photographs per day would suggest 10 years to develop all the 70,000 photographs. After these 10 years, the projections repeat and the darkroom, cold storage and scanning spaces become part of the public exhibition as their private use is diminished.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cold storage

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Plan and Section (plan 1:50 on A1)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Project exhibited in the UG8 Summer Show at the Bartlett, 2018.