The David Geffen Foundation has made a donation of $25 Million for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences museum scheduled to open in 2017 next to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
It’s the largest contribution to the academy’s $300 million fund drive for the museum. In recognition, the academy is naming a theater at the facility after Geffen.
Designed by architects Renzo Piano and Zoltan Pali, the Academy Museum will be located next to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in the Wilshire May Company building. Slated to open in early 2017, the Academy Museum will contain nearly 300,000 square feet of galleries, exhibition spaces, theaters, screening rooms, education centers, and special event spaces.
According to the Academy, the design for the museum will fully restore the Wilshire and Fairfax street-front facades of the original 1939 Streamline Moderne building. It also includes a spherical wing at the northern end of the original building that will replace an extension made to the structure in 1946. Designed to represent the marriage of art and technology, the wing will house The David Geffen Theater.