Petersen Automotive Museum
The Petersen Automotive Museum is an automobile museum located on Wilshire Boulevard along Museum Row in the Miracle Mile neighborhood of Los Angeles. One of the world's largest collections, the Petersen Automotive Museum is a nonprofit organization specializing in automobile history and related educational programs.
Established
June 11, 1994
6060 Wilshire Boulevard
Los Angeles, California
United States
Automotive museum
Terry L. Karges[1]
Leslie Kendall
Museum prior to its 2015 renovation
Founded on June 11, 1994, by magazine publisher Robert E. Petersen and his wife Margie, the $40-million Petersen Automotive Museum is owned and operated by the Petersen Automotive Museum Foundation. The museum was originally located within the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, and later moved to a historic department store designed by Welton Becket. Opened in 1962, the building first served as a short-lived U.S. branch of Seibu Department Stores, before operating as an Ohrbach's department store from 1965 to 1986. Six years after Ohrbach's closed, Robert Petersen selected the largely windowless site as an ideal space for a museum—allowing artifacts to be displayed without harmful exposure to direct sunlight.
On March 9, 1997, rapper the Notorious B.I.G. was murdered just outside the building in a drive-by shooting, after having attended a party at the museum.
In 2014 and 2015, the museum underwent an extensive $125 million renovation.[2][3] The building's façade was redesigned by the architectural firm Kohn Pedersen Fox, and features a stainless-steel ribbon assembly made of 100 tons of 14-gauge type 304 steel in 308 sections, 25 supports and 140,000 custom stainless-steel screws.[4] Designers at The Scenic Route worked with museum planner, Matt Kirchman of ObjectIDEA Planning and Design to configure interior spaces to accommodate new themes and changing exhibits.[5] The remodeled museum opened to the public on December 7, 2015.[6]