About the Building

Designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Renzo Piano, the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures occupies a 300,000-square-foot campus on the corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Fairfax Avenue in Los Angeles, California. The museum comprises two buildings. To the south, the historic Wilshire May Company building, a 250,000-square-foot Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument built in 1939, has undergone a major restoration and expansion. Renamed the Saban Building in honor of benefactors Cheryl and Haim Saban, this Streamline Moderne landmark in the heart of the Miracle Mile district has been transformed to contain six floors of ultramodern exhibition and special-event spaces, an intimate, art-house-style movie theater, the Shirley Temple Education Studio, the Debbie Reynolds Conservation Studio, a restaurant and café, and a museum store. Connected to the Saban Building via glass bridges to the north, the soaring new 45,000-square-foot glass-and-concrete Sphere Building houses the large, state-of-the-art David Geffen Theater as well as the Dolby Family Terrace—a circular, open-air promenade that extends beneath a custom-cut glass dome to offer sweeping views of the city, including the Hollywood Hills and iconic Hollywood Sign.