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  LENA BUCK The UCLA Armand Hammer Museum, located on Wilshire Boulevard, is scheduled to be renovated at a cost of $25 million starting in the year 2002.

By Rebekah Lynn

Daily Bruin Contributor

The UCLA Armand Hammer Museum Board of Trustees unanimously approved a $25 million remodeling project, which will significantly change the look of the building – inside and out.

Scheduled to begin in 2002, the renovations are expected to take one year, during which time the museum will be closed, officials said.

Renovations will be undertaken by a team consisting of Michael Maltzan, a Los Angeles architect, Bruce Mau, a Toronto-based graphic designer, and Petra Blaisse, an Amsterdam-based landscape and interior designer.

Chief architect Michael Maltzan recently received the 1999 Young Architect Award from the American Institute of Architecture, and a 2000 Progressive Architecture Award. Maltzan is an active member of Inner City Arts, a Los Angeles non-profit dedicated to bringing the arts to at-risk children. He has also worked with The Getty.

The goals of the remodeling project are to create an identity for the museum within the community, heighten visibility and to strengthen the organizational flow of art within the museum. The vision is a museum that is more visible and easier for patrons to use, and that has stronger ties to the community, officials said.

According to a Feb. 15 L.A. Times article, the plans will increase gallery space by approximately 25-50 percent, move the main entrance to Lindbrook Avenue, add a restaurant, and complete a 288-seat theater.

The theater is expected to be used to strengthen community ties through activities such as poetry readings and concerts, and will house the UCLA Film and Television Archives.

The UCLA Film and Television Archives are presently housed in Melnitz Hall. The UCLA Film and Television Archives not only preserve, restore and catalogue film, but also offer a public exhibition of cutting edge contemporary and international films.

Kelly Graml, public affairs and marketing director of the Film and Television Archives, said the move to the Hammer Museum offers the advantages of being in a cultural center. It will also provide the opportunity to display artifacts that travel with certain programs.

“The programming mandate will be the same. We will be showing great work from around the world and taking chances,” Graml said.

The archives will not be closed at any time during renovations.

“We do not anticipate any interruption in programming,” says Graml.

The theater addition is the realization of an original goal of the museum. Plans were made for the theater to be built in 1990, but were abandoned when expenditures were capped at $90 million, according to the L.A. Times article.

Half of the $25 million will be raised before the project begins, said Terry Morello, director of external affairs at the Hammer. The rest will be financed by a bank loan, to be repaid by additional fund-raising.

The official unveiling of the designs for the renovations is scheduled for late April.

Sketches of the proposed design are posted on the architecture Web site: www.Arcspace.com/architects/maltzan/hammer/index.html.