changed

EXCLUSIVE: Rae Knopik, 31, was always determined to find out more about her Italian roots, and now she’s able to dive into her history further than she ever imagined after winning a €1 (86p) home in Troina with the love of her life

A couple managed to snap up a €1 (86p) home in Italy after finding love in the romantic country. Rae Knopik, 31, had always been determined to explore her Italian heritage, and now she’s able to delve into her roots further than she ever dreamed possible. The social media personality, who has amassed over 35,000 followers on Instagram eager to follow her adventures, opened up about how she managed to secure her dream home alongside her fiancé Declan Norrie, 31.

Rae, who is American, explained that her family originally hails from Sicily. Her ancestors ended up settling in the US when her great-great-grandmother and great-great-grandfather emigrated, despite her great-great-grandmother being reluctant to do so at the time.

Rae explained: “She never learnt English and never smiled in her family photographs. I found her so fascinating and I wanted to return to my Sicilian heritage.”

Eventually, Rae relocated to Florence, where she lived for a period of time. It was there that she met Declan, the man she is now set to wed.

“I met the love of my life when I was in Florence. Four weeks after meeting him, I was on a plane to Australia, and I’ve been here ever since,” she added.

However, when Covid struck, the pair began browsing the internet for travel videos while they were unable to venture far from home, and it was during this time that they stumbled across the €1 (86p) property in Troina. While it’s not something many people would seriously contemplate without a lot of thought, they simply thought “why not?” and threw their names into the hat.

After taking part in a series of interviews, they heard nothing for quite some time — but then everything changed in an instant.

Rae added: “They waited for about 12 months. We didn’t tell anyone about it in case the house didn’t pan out but, in May 2022, they said ‘you have won the house, would you like to come see it?'”

The couple flew over in June and snapped it up almost immediately. They later found out that roughly 60,000 people had entered for the property, meaning they had truly struck gold.

When asked about the condition of the property, Rae said: “We knew it was going to be a complete renovation. We didn’t know how long it’d been since someone had lived in the house.

“They clean it up, but you know it’s going to be a complete renovation. We didn’t even think we’d have running water so we were pretty pleased with the house.

“It was over 60 years since someone had lived in it. It is a complete renovation journey.”

The couple must now carry out a full overhaul of the property, entirely at their own expense. There are also certain conditions they are required to adhere to.

Renovation regulations, however, can vary considerably depending on the area when it comes to €1 properties. It’s therefore essential to thoroughly research the rules before putting in an application for any property.

She also pointed out that people can have the wrong idea about purchasing them. They are far from simple bargains, as Rae explained that a considerable amount of effort and money is required to make them habitable.

Nevertheless, Rae has ambitious plans for the property, and the couple are also planning to tie the knot in Italy, with some of the locals even intending to come along. For this young pair, they may well end up returning to the very place that sparked their whirlwind romance.

When asked to describe Troina, Rae said that as you drive towards it, it looks like “a castle in the sky”, adding that “it’s quite romantic”. She now hopes the home will be transformed into a stunning retreat for them to share with loved ones once the renovation is complete.

“I want my family to use it,” she added. “Me and Declan want to settle there at some point for months or even years, but I hope it will be used by my family.”

You can keep up with Rae’s journey on Instagram.

TO the untrained eye, he was just a bloke in a shiny police helmet singing about staying at the YMCA.

But behind the tight trousers and macho character in disco group ­Village People, Victor Willis was a musical hitmaker who co-wrote songs that will provide the soundtrack to every wedding, birthday and office party for years to come.

Yesterday, in a Facebook post, his wife Karen Huff-Willis announced Victor’s death, aged 74.

“It is with profound sadness that I must announce the death of my husband,” she said.

“Victor passed away on Tuesday, June 30, 2026, as a result of a short but aggressive illness.”

Long before he was commanding crowds to put their hands in the air to anthems that defined an era, including YMCA, Go West and In The Navy, Victor was singing gospel music in his Baptist minister father’s church.

Read more on Victor Willis

DISCO LEGEND

Village People lead singer & founding member dies at 74 after ‘short illness’

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Brilliant moment Donald Trump dances to YMCA at starstudded World Cup draw

He grew up in San Francisco and his high school band, The Ballads, supported The Temptations.

He sat in on sessions with American jazz trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, before becoming an actor and singer.

A role in the Las Vegas production of musical Hair earned him a place in Broadway productions of Two Gentlemen Of Verona and The Wiz.

In the late Seventies, he caught the attention of flamboyant French producer Jacques Morali, who was creating a musical group based on the macho stereotypes and gay pin-ups of New York’s Greenwich Village.

Their four-track demo, called The Village People, earned the group a record deal, and Jacques asked ­Victor to become the frontman.

While the rest of the line-up were recruited from dance studios and clubs for the roles of the cowboy, the Native American, the biker, the construction worker and the soldier, Victor was thought to be the only straight member.

After albums Macho Man in 1978, and Cruisin’ in ’79 which gave us YMCA, they put out Go West and its title track became a gay anthem, later covered by The Pet Shop Boys.

It also featured In The Navy, which the US Navy co-opted for a recruitment campaign, before realising they were using the ultimate camp parody.

It was around then that Victor met and married his first wife, future Cosby Show star Phylicia Rashad.

They split in 1982.

After battling growing frustrations within the group, Victor walked out in 1979.

But his departure triggered a downward spiral.

He struggled to escape the group’s flamboyant reputation and establish credibility on his own.

His 1979 solo project, Solo Man, remained unreleased for more than 30 years until 2015.

The Eighties and Nineties became a blur of substance abuse, addiction, and brushes with the law.

In 2015, he said: “I got very depressed over the years.

“I got kind of drugged out, because I was disappointed with the way things were and got frustrated, and gave up for a bit.”

He began to turn things around in 2006 after he received court-ordered substance abuse treatment and completed three years of probation.

After getting clean, he turned his energy towards a battleground between him and ruthless record executives who had pocketed the lion’s share of the royalties from the Village People’s catalogue.

This led Victor to meet his second wife Karen, an attorney who helped him fight his copyright case against the companies who controlled Village People’s hits.

They ­married in 2007.

Victor, armed with a gritty determination, launched a historic, multi-year lawsuit under a loophole in the 1976 US Copyright Act, which allows artists to reclaim their work after 35 years.

In a legal victory that sent shockwaves through the music industry, the US courts ruled in his favour in 2013.

Victor clawed back up to 50 per cent of the lucrative copyright percentages for YMCA and his other hits, becoming a hero to older musicians everywhere.

The resolution paved the way for his return to the group in 2017.

Older, wiser, but with that same thunderous voice, he toured the world to packed arenas, watching three generations of families throw their arms in the air to spell out those four famous letters.

By then, YMCA was being regularly played at Donald Trump’s political rallies, a use Victor was unhappy with.

“I don’t endorse Trump, I’ve never endorsed Trump, nor have the Village People,” he told the BBC in 2020.

However, he surprised fans last year by agreeing to take part in the politician’s second inauguration saying: “Our song YMCA is a global anthem that hopefully helps bring the country together after a tumultuous and divided campaign where our preferred candidate lost.”

In his tribute yesterday, Trump claimed: “He was a great and happy guy who loved that I used YMCA at my rallies.”

Regardless, YMCA remains Victors’ biggest hit, reaching No1 in 17 countries.

The star may have hung up his police helmet for the final time, but his legacy is firmly etched into global nightlife.

As long as there is a wedding with a dancefloor, people will be ready to fling their arms up in the air in the shape of a “Y”.

The app said it will be rolling out usernames gradually, in a move meant to improve privacy.

Change is coming for some three billion users of the world’s favourite messaging platform, WhatsApp.

The social media app owned by Meta will allow users to be identified by usernames instead of phone numbers, it said on Monday. WhatsApp is used in more than 180 countries and 60 languages, the platform says.

Users will soon be able to reserve unique handles, with a wider rollout planned for later this year.

The move is designed to improve privacy on the platform amid longstanding scrutiny over its data protection practices.

So what is changing, and how can you grab a handle no one else has?

What change has WhatsApp announced?

Users will soon be able to swap the phone numbers displayed on WhatsApp with usernames, the company said. Under the new system, which will commence later this year, users will be able to choose to be “findable” and contacted by their handles only.

The app said it has already begun allowing some users to reserve unique usernames before a bigger rollout later this year.

Why is WhatsApp making this change?

The messaging platform said the change is designed to improve privacy features, for which it and its parent company Meta have come under scrutiny in the past.

“We have designed this as a core privacy feature,” Alice Newton-Rex, WhatsApp’s vice president of product, told reporters.

According to the company, there will be no public directory of usernames and no autocomplete suggestions, meaning users will need to know someone’s exact username to reach them for the first time.

“When someone new walks into your life – a classmate, a neighbour, someone you meet at an event – sharing a phone number can feel like a big step,” a WhatsApp company blog post stated.

“That’s because a phone number is personal and it’s tied to so many parts of your life. Sometimes you just want to chat without handing over your digits.”

The company told one user on X that it has added multiple new features to help users defend themselves from scammers.

Optional username keys – or short numbered codes – can be added, which would mean people can only contact a user if they have both their username and its key, for example.

WhatsApp also said it will limit the number of new people any one account can contact as a guard against spam accounts, and that its systems can now detect and block “abuse patterns”.

How will the new usernames work?

Companies, organisations and creators with existing accounts on Meta’s other social media platforms – Instagram and Facebook – will have the opportunity to claim their usernames as handles on WhatsApp as well.

Usernames will have to be three to 35 characters. To prevent impersonation, WhatsApp will hold back usernames for high-profile people or groups, such as celebrities, public figures and government entities.

To reserve a specific username, WhatsApp said a user must download the latest version of WhatsApp, go to the Settings tab, the Account tab, and then the Username tab.

The reservation must be done with a smartphone – it cannot be done on WhatsApp Web or Desktop.

When will this change come into effect?

WhatsApp said it will roll out usernames gradually over the coming months and will notify users on WhatsApp when the new feature is available in their country. It has not given specific timelines.

To be prepared, the company told users to “make sure you have the latest version of WhatsApp downloaded and keep an eye on your app”.

What are WhatsApp’s current privacy features?

WhatsApp’s current privacy settings are limited to blocking individual users and silencing unknown callers.

Nowhere on earth parties like they do at Universal Studios. Writer Ali Graves went to discover the biggest fiesta in Florida, and fell in love with theme park celebrations

If you’re anything like me, theme parks typically conjure up images of drizzle, uninspiring grub and middling attractions that leave you feeling a bit green around the gills… until now.

Enter Universal Studios Florida, which blew away all my preconceptions with their Mardi Gras celebration. Wave goodbye to lacklustre hot dogs and say hello to succulent grilled steaks (yes, actual steaks!), delicious Chinese dishes and sophisticated cocktails… and that’s only scratching the surface.

Universal Studios Florida excels at delivering brilliantly themed seasonal celebrations — from festive cheer at Christmas to their spectacular Halloween Horror Nights — there’s consistently something to get excited about. I experienced their Mardi Gras event first-hand, which takes place each year between February and April (exact dates vary annually, but there’s ample opportunity to organise your visit for next the next one), reports OK!.

This is when the entire venue transforms into a dazzling display of gold, purple and green, with 13 food and beverage stations scattered throughout to help you embrace the carnival spirit in proper style. Additionally, there are numerous other entertainment offerings to suit all tastes, regardless of age. Better still, the majority of these bonus attractions are covered by your standard park admission ticket. And just wait until you discover what else…

Mardi Gras at Universal Studios is Florida’s ‘biggest party’ The dazzling, lively and captivating Mardi Gras parade takes place every evening (weather permitting), showcasing the most stunning New Orleans-style floats, enthusiastic dancers and performers, and the finest bead tosses – thrown by you, the park visitors.

The floats boast remarkable authenticity, having been designed, styled and decorated by Kern Studios, the very same firm responsible for crafting many of the grandest and most iconic floats seen in the New Orleans Mardi Gras parades.

For those wanting to elevate their parade experience, why not ride aboard a float through the park? That’s right – you can actually hop on and throw beads for fellow guests to catch below. It’s a guaranteed way to feel like a celebrity while soaking up the electric atmosphere from high above.

How to get the best views at the Mardi Gras parade

I found myself aboard the Bayou float with Mardi Gras jazz music pumping and swamp-like fog billowing from the sides as I hurled purple and green beads to eager fans below – it’s an absolute must-do if you get the chance.

There are two ways to secure your spot – once you’re inside the park, it demands quick thinking and a bit of luck via the Studios app. Check around 2pm and 5pm, searching for Mardi Gras parade. Virtual queue slots appear randomly and disappear within the hour. If you’ve not managed to bag a place by 5pm, head over to the Animal Actors on Location theatre – occasionally they release unclaimed slots.

The guaranteed route, however, is through the park’s new-for-2026 Float Ride and Dine Experience. It’s a paid option costing $94.99, but it secures your place and includes a three-course meal at a participating Universal restaurant – Lombard’s Seafood Grille, Café La Bamba or selected Citywalk venues.

Bear in mind that experiencing the parade from street level can be equally thrilling. Be amongst those catching armfuls of beads as you groove to the music and soak up the spectacular sights and sounds from the ground. For prime viewing, position yourself outside The Mummy or The Bourne Stuntacular to witness the floats in all their magnificence. Alternatively, if you’ve got youngsters under 10 in tow, settle in front of the Brown Derby Hat Shop – a clear viewing area specifically designated for children which opens an hour before the parade kicks off.

The best food to find when you’re at Universal Studios

Long gone are the days when theme park fare was boring and uninspiring. This event showcases authentic Southern and Cajun flavours, with dining choices to suit every member of the family.

Scattered throughout the park you’ll discover food stalls themed around various countries. The shrimp fried rice and milk boba tea at China, alongside jerk chicken and Rasta Pasta at Jamaica were personal highlights, though you’ll also encounter premium steak cuts in Brazil and wild salmon in Chile. Each food item comes with a price tag, so grab yourself a special dining card for $65, which gives you $75 worth of food and drinks. The added perk is that any leftover credit can be rolled over and spent elsewhere around the park.

Free gigs are included in the tickets

Your entry includes access to live concerts right inside the park. The 2026 line-up was absolutely brilliant, featuring the likes of Kaskade, Joey Fatone and AJ McLean (of noughties groups N Sync and Backstreet Boys) and The All-American Rejects. I spent one evening watching Bebe Rexha and another catching world-acclaimed DJ, Zedd. The atmosphere was absolutely buzzing at both performances, and they play for roughly an hour, so make sure you get yourself a drink beforehand and head over to the Music Plaza Stage.

How to book your trip to Universal Studios Florida

All Parks ticket prices start from £430pp based on June arrivals, for 14 days unlimited park-to-park admission (Universal Studios Florida, Islands of Adventure, Epic Universe and Volcano Bay). Book at floridatix.com or call 0330 100 3130. Fly with Norse Atlantic Airways, from £196 one-way. For Premium Business class flights from £925 return.

The Pentagon says it is working to amend its proposed Fiscal Year 2027 budget to request new funding for E-7 Wedgetail airborne early warning and control aircraft to replace the U.S. Air Force’s aging E-3 Sentry jets. The original version did not ask for any money for E-7, which had raised the prospect of a new fight with Congress over the future of the program. Legislators intervened earlier this year to reverse a previous attempt to axe the Wedgetail. Secretary Pete Hegseth, previously a chief advocate for the cancellation, says his Department’s “mindset” has now fundamentally changed.

Rep. Tom Cole, an Oklahoma Republican, asked Hegseth for an update on the E-7 during a hearing before members of the House Appropriations Committee earlier today. In his question, Cole, who is Chairman of the committee, also highlighted the loss of one of the Air Force’s existing E-3s, also known as Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft, in an Iranian attack on Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia in March. That has put new emphasis on the Wedgetail program. The latest conflict with Iran has also just added to the already significant strains on the dwindling fleet of aging E-3s, as TWZ has previously explored in detail.

“Let me ask you a specific question, and you may want to get back to me on this, I don’t know, but we’ve had some discussion over – you know, we lost one E-3. On the ground, thank goodness. Looks like no crew loss,” Rep. Cole said, leading into his question. “This committee has been interested in investing in the E-7. The Pentagon signed the contract for five additional planes. [It is] not in the Air Force budget [for Fiscal Year 2027]. Is there going to be a fix to that? Where are we at on thinking about the E-7?”

As of April, the Air Force had awarded contracts to Boeing for a total of seven developmental E-7s. Versions of the Wedgetail are already in service in Australia, South Korea, and Turkey. The United Kingdom is also set to field a fleet of these aircraft. However, a U.S.-specific configuration is now in the works.

“I am well aware of that dynamic. I know our department had taken the position that it was … other satellite ISR [intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities] that was probably going to be capable of a lot of that in the future,” Hegseth said in response to Rep. Cole’s question. “But I think that mindset was indicative of a mindset that we’ve shed, which is the divest-to-invest mindset, which was an austerity mindset, that we’re going to get continuing resolution after continuing resolution. So, we [sic] got to get rid of these platforms in order to invest in these platforms. And there are gaps that need to still be filled. And there are systems that still need to be funded that are used on the battlefield right now, say, MQ-9s, A-10s, you name it.”

“And the E-7 is one of those,” Hegseth continued. “So, we’ve actually sent a budget amendment to OMB [Office of Management and Budget at the White House] to add that. I think it has a future. It has a place on the battlefield. And we’ll get more information for you on that, as well.”

The continuing resolutions referenced here are short-term federal government spending packages that Congress routinely approves when it cannot pass a full annual budget.

Secretary Hegseth also touched on the Air Force’s long-term plan, which remains unchanged publicly, to eventually push most, if not all, air moving-target indicator (AMTI) tasks into orbit. His comments today implicitly acknowledge that cancelling the E-7 program would have risked a serious capability gap in the near term, with the hopes of a better solution coming in the future. This is something TWZ had been sounding the alarm on since last year. Despite major investments and prototyping activities already underway, those space-based capabilities are still years away, at best, from becoming a reality. The Air Force’s original plan to replace a portion of its E-3 fleet with E-7s underscored the expectation that airborne early warning aircraft would also continue to play a vital role for years to come.

As a replacement for the E-3, the E-7 is a much more modern and capable aircraft. The Wedgetail is arguably the best airborne look-down sensor platform anywhere in the world at present, which is especially valuable for spotting long-range kamikaze drones, as well as cruise missiles. The Boeing 737-based design is also adaptable to other mission needs, including battle management and serving as a networking node using its own expansive communications and data-sharing suite. TWZ highlighted all of this in March, when Australia announced it was sending one of its E-7s to the Middle East to help Gulf Arab States defend against Iranian attacks.

Northrop Grumman MESA Radar – Boeing E-7 AEWC

Hegseth’s comments today on the change in mindset at the Pentagon do not touch on the argument that he and others made last year, that the E-7 was too vulnerable to be viable in future conflicts. This was despite an accompanying plan for the acquisition of more of the E-2D Advanced Hawkeyes that the U.S. Navy currently flies to fill airborne early warning capability gaps in the absence of an Air Force Wedgetail fleet. TWZ and others had quickly pointed out that the same survivability questions applied equally to the E-2D, which is also not as capable an aircraft as the E-7, which you can read more about here.

When previously arguing for its cancellation, Hegseth and others had also cited cost overruns and delays that had befallen the Air Force’s Wedgetail program since it first kicked off back in 2022.

As noted, Congress had interceded to save the E-7 from purgatory, at least in Fiscal Year 2026, appropriating more than $1 billion in new funding for the program. Of the seven Wedgetails the Air Force has on order now, five were put on contract just this past March. The service had previously ordered two other jets to support rapid prototyping efforts. Even so, the Air Force had continued to sound somewhat noncommittal about the future of the E-7 program.

“We, of course, as we always do, follow congressional direction, and we will do the [E-7] rapid prototypes. We will fund those rapid prototypes,” Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink told TWZ and other outlets at a roundtable on the sidelines of the Air & Space Forces Association’s (AFA) annual Warfare Symposium in February. “They told us to deliver a plan for additional aircraft. Now we will do that.”

“By the way, ‘deliver a plan’ does not mean we’re going to put it in the budget,” Meink also said at that time. “We will deliver a plan of what it takes to do it, and then we’ll have a discussion with them [Congress].”

This is what turned out to be the case, at least initially, with the E-7 again being absent from the Air Force’s proposed 2027 Fiscal Year budget when it was rolled out in full last month.

“The Department [of the Air Force] is committing to work with you to figure out how to adjust the [20]27 budget submission to fund the E-7, and then work the [20]28 [budget] going forward,” Meink said at a separate hearing more recently, according to Air & Space Forces Magazine.

Despite the Pentagon saying its position on the E-7 has now completely changed, when the Air Force might begin flying the jets operationally remains to be seen. The service’s original goal was to have Wedgetails flying real-world missions in 2027, but the schedule had already slipped to 2032 by the beginning of last year. Though it is back underway now, the program was effectively frozen for much of 2025, which could easily have set the timeline back even further. Steps could also now be taken to try to accelerate the acquisition and fielding of the aircraft.

In the meantime, the E-3 fleet, which has already shrunk dramatically in recent years, continues to struggle to meet operational requirements. Demand for AWACSs has now surged further due to the latest conflict with Iran. As noted, the Iranians also destroyed one of these prized aircraft in March. The Air Force has said that it is looking into replacing various aircraft lost in the fighting with Iran so far, but it is unclear if this will include regenerating a previously retired Sentry from storage. That would be a long and costly process, but there is no other realistic source available for a replacement E-3, the very last of which were delivered in the early 1990s.

As it stands now, the Pentagon and the Air Force look to have fully dropped their opposition to moving ahead with fielding the already sorely needed fleet of new E-7s.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

After the game, Murphy had hinted at frustration about comparisons to other Ulster teams who had come up short in previous semi-finals.

He went as far to say that “this team hasn’t been in a semi-final before”.

And, in truth, he was right.

Of the starting team that were pipped by the Stormers in a dramatic United Rugby Championship semi-finals in 2022, only five were in action on Saturday.

Along with Timoney, Iain Henderson, Tom O’Toole, Stuart McCloskey and Ethan McIlroy were the sole survivors from the starting team that day.

Even on the bench that day in Cape Town, only Nathan Doak and Eric O’Sullivan featured against Exeter.

“It’s such a different team since then,” Timoney said.

“There’s been a lot of change now to the group, so it’s about this current journey.

“Sometimes it’s good for individuals, and for me and the likes, to have those lessons built up over a number of years.

“But the beauty sometimes of newer lads who don’t have those experiences, they don’t have those scars and it doesn’t even factor into their minds.”

During a recent Zoom interview from his studio in Switzerland, Peter Zumthor offered a candid look at the making of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s new David Geffen Galleries.

The Pritzker Prize-winning architect addressed long-standing criticisms of the building and answered questions about his craft. He noted that the structure is a rejection of the overly “slick” architecture he believes defines the present moment, and shed light on the building’s early development, describing a contained process in which the concept was shaped before being presented to the public.

Finally, he discussed the broader ambition of the endeavor: dissolving traditional circulation and prioritizing emotional experience over institutional order.

The following interview excerpts have been edited and condensed for length and clarity.

You are well–known as both an architect and a craftsman. I think the biggest place for that focus was the concrete. I’m curious about how you formed it. It’s not the typical museum concrete.

I work like an artist in building. This means I custom-make buildings. I can use a few standard details or products, like in the basement. But where the building has an identity, becomes visible, it’s almost all handmade. I have an image of what I want to do, what the building should do, how it should look. So I need people who can help me make custom-made products.

The people who did the formwork — the concrete pouring — [worked in] groups of 100 or more. They were fantastic. They loved their work. At the beginning, formwork leaked on a door, and it looked terrible. They said, “Peter, we’re sorry. We made a mistake. We can fix this. You will not see this afterwards.” But if you make a mistake, you cannot mend it, because what you’re doing here is a concrete sculpture. Sculptures are never mended.

It’s not a perfectly smooth concrete. I’m assuming that’s on purpose?

I love this kind of rawness. This was what I gladly learned. Michael [Govan] in a very friendly, careful way let me know that he would like more “American details” and fewer “European details.” OK, my European details, they stand. That’s what I did 20, 30 years ago. My background as a furniture maker shows, and I can do this. But the challenge in this museum is to get the right “American” roughness. And I think I pretty much succeeded.

What I learned in California [came] back to Europe, and many times we now say in the office, “Let’s do this more L.A.-style.” Because we have too many slick magazines in the world. We have this corporate architecture which doesn’t want to see any touch of a hand. No mistakes. What we need is not refinement. We need wholehearted directness. This is what I take back from America. There’s a certain freshness. It’s not overly refined. I’m proud of that. The roughness has to do with our times. Because our time is slick and glossy, right? The time to make refined, slick architecture is over.

Horizontal light enters from floor-to-ceiling windows around the perimeter of LACMA’s new David Geffen Galleries, which use concrete as a kind of living building material.

(Iwan Baan)

In a 2023 interview with [architecture critic] Christopher Hawthorne, you said there were no “Zumthor details” left in the building. Do you think there are any Zumthor details now?

Of course there are Zumthor details. And I love them. They are not Swiss details. I think Christopher got this wrong. I was actually proudly speaking of how I learned a new way of looking at details. It doesn’t have to be refined all the time.

[Editor’s note: Zumthor told Hawthorne verbatim, “There are no Zumthor details any more,” in the 2023 interview with the New York Times.]

There’s always a tension with every building when it comes to value engineering. Were there any other places where you would want [David Geffen Galleries] to be different?

Basically, I say no. I’m very proud of this building. This is what I wanted to do, and this is what Michael helped me to do. This is exactly it. It’s one of my children and I love it.

Do you see this approach as an evolution in your work? Or is it more specifically for L.A.?

L.A. has changed me. And it’s in a good way. I would [not] have changed and reacted to our slick times the same way without L.A.

There were complaints that the project, and the process, were not as public as some people thought they should be. What is your reaction to that criticism?

I think I can say this: Michael said, “We cannot make a competition or anything like it, because competitions in the U.S. always end up with a winner who doesn’t build because he found out his own way of staging this whole procedure. The first, the most important thing, is that we start on a small budget, just the two of us.” That’s what we did. So when we started to talk about this museum, it was him and me, basically, and he gave me a little bit of money. And he said, “There will come a time when we will have to show something to the public. Let’s see whether people say yes.” They could have said no, but I think what they saw at that point was already too convincing.

Architect Peter Zumthor speaks at the press preview for the David Geffen Galleries at Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

(LACMA/ Museum Associates / Gary Leonard)

Because the museum’s not organized in a traditional way, it might be harder than normal to navigate for some people. It might be a little confusing. What do you say to that concern?

This will take some time, to see the benefits of this new type of museum. I think if you start to like this building in one corner or in another, or you get lost, you start to understand what it is all about. When something new comes, you have to learn, right? But I hope you can see this building never looks down on you. This building is, in a way, deeply human. And it lets you have your opinion.

There are people who have said, very loudly, this space shouldn’t have lost square footage. What is your response to that?

Small museums are beautiful, big museums tend to be really difficult. And the bigger the museum gets, the more difficult it is to make it easily accessible. So I’m very glad that this is not bigger. But it feels bigger.

What is this with bigness? What kind of a hang-up is this? You don’t have to be big. It has the right scale. We were often asked, “Can you experience this building and this collection in one day?” And we said, “Maybe. But maybe it will be better to come back.” Start from the other end. You have your own personal path. And then you research a little bit further. I think these are the beautiful ideas of how to experience the building. And I think it’s endless.

The interior of LACMA’s new David Geffen Galleries encourages guests to wander and make their own connections rather than follow a linear path.

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

Can you go back to the beginning and talk about the core concept for the museum?

There are three major things that I always have to answer, whatever I do. What does the building do with the place? Does it help the place? Does it interpret the place? And then, what is the content of the building? What does the building have to do? Why are we building this?

To start out, there was a museum here which was modeled a bit after Lincoln Center. Later, it got clogged up with new buildings and you didn’t recognize the initial idea anymore. These things we took away. Whenever a building is there, whether it’s beautiful or ugly, it will always have grown into the soul of somebody. There will always be people saying, “No, no, I want to keep it.” This is part of my life. I understand this kind of thing always comes up.

The place was rather difficult because I couldn’t see any big urbanistic concept in L.A. L.A. [is] not urban in the European sense with, for instance, the market square.

There was a master plan, which was made by Renzo Piano. And this presented a long axis, and I tried to follow it. It just did not feel right. So I started to react in a more organic way, inspired by the tar pits. This whole area, which to me, is the ancient part of the site, became the starting point.

There was more: like the idea that side light is the most human light. Yeah, no skylights. And another thing was the museum had to be open to its surroundings. So contemporary L.A. should be present at all times. It should come in, whenever you can look out.

Another important thing … was to create or enlarge the public space that Michael [Govan] had started to create between his buildings. Friday evenings, Saturday, you saw so many families there. There is a desire here, a wish, for public space. This is not exactly the strength of L.A. So I think it was amazing that we were allowed to lift up the building and have the whole ground free for people.

Also, let’s do the museum on one level only. Classical museums have a main level, then they have a second level and a third level, a south wing and north wing and so on. And then, as an artist, you can have your work on the main level in the most beautiful spot. But as an artist, you can also land top left, third level near to the attic. So let’s make a building type which treats everybody equal.

LACMA’s David Geffen Galleries are hoisted above the ground on discrete piers, allowing for ample public space below.

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

And then we started to think about how we wanted something open for wandering, experiencing and dreaming. This is always difficult to explain — let’s have the knowledge of art, of the history of art, coming second. It’s not because I think this is a secondary thing. It’s just because our experience should come first.

As a boy, I saw the opposite. There’s a tour and there’s a guide, and the guide starts to tell you what you should think. And I never liked this. We thought we should lay out things on a big plane where you can stroll and wander and develop your interest in art. Follow your own path.

You’re overturning a lot of unspoken rules in the art world. And I guess that’s the point in a lot of ways?

This is our point. You see other rules. For instance, if you do a new museum, the conservators say art can be exposed to less daylight. I told them as a joke, “If it goes on like this, soon the art will be in the basement, locked away.”

We have a building wide and long enough that within the building, you can find strong daylight for, let’s say, china or pottery, which love daylight. Then you can go deep into the building where it gets darker, and you can put pieces you don’t want to expose too much to the light. All without having to flip a switch.