The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures and its Glass Dome

Widely regarded as one of the world’s leading film museums, the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures stands at the intersection of Wilshire Boulevard and Fairfax Avenue on Los Angeles’s historic Miracle Mile. In Renzo Piano: Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, Los Angeles (edited by Lia Piano and published by the Renzo Piano Foundation, 2023), Piano recalls the origins of the museum: “The world of cinema also fascinates me because of the way it works: to make a good film, many different factors have to combine and work together. A good story is not enough, you need a good director, good actors, a good cinematographer. You need a good soundtrack, and good editing can radically change the fate of a film. In this respect, it is similar to the work of constructing buildings, where architects, engineers, technicians, and builders collaborate.”

The project repurposed the 1939 May Company department store and paired it with the new Sphere Building, a spherical structure housing the 1,000‑seat David Geffen Theater and the Dolby Family Terrace, a viewing platform facing toward Hollywood. “In this job, the client immediately understood the need for different voices to agree on the project,” continued Piano, reflecting on the commission he completed with his firm RPBW. “Both disciplines, film and architecture, are a mixture of art and technology. In cinema, as in architecture, technology is not divorced from creativity. There is a constant tension between the technical work and the emotional result.” Eastman contributed to the glass dome.

“The most exciting adventure on the construction site,” the architect continues, “was building the outer shell to contain the sphere’s structure, a prefabricated concrete shell that allowed the geometry to be controlled to perfection.” On the exterior, the sphere is protected by a transparent, hemispherical canopy, beneath which the terrace offers views of the sky and the Hollywood Hills. The rooftop terrace connects to the rest of the museum by glass walkways, leading visitors into the galleries and their exhibits devoted to the narrative power of film. Structurally, the canopy’s design demanded extensive analysis, along with careful material selection and painstaking development of the technical details. German engineering firm knippershelbig contributed to this process, as did Eastman.

Saflex™ Structural, an Eastman brand specializing in interlayers, made it possible to meet the exacting requirements of the roof’s complex geometry. The structure is a single‑layer steel grid shell fitted with two glass panels per module. The team selected Saflex Structural (DG41) PVB for its strength and stiffness, ensuring the structural safety and stability of the canopy. Low‑iron, uncoated glass maximizes transparency for unobstructed views while protecting the terrace from the elements.

The result of coordinated architecture, engineering, and design work, the Sphere Building integrates seamlessly into the city skyline. Yet its form also seems to rise from the ground, as if suspended in the perpetual, imaginary voyage through space and time that is moviegoing.

For more information: www.saflex-vanceva.eastman.com