Petersen Automotive Museum - Los Angeles

The Petersen Automotive Museum is one of the most beautiful automotive museum I have ever been to. When I first arrived to Los Angeles, I drove by this beautiful red building with a wave like structure. Later, I realized that was the Petersen Automotive Museum. They not only have cars, but they also have motorcycles and concept vehicles from some of my favorite movies like TRON Legacy, Batman, CARS, Blade Runner, Transformers, Black Panther and just about any car that has been in a box office hit. The cars are sectioned off by theme and significant contribution to the automotive world. One of my favorite section is the Le Mans, highlighting beautiful vintage race cars.

Cars have been a huge inspiration in my life since my dad is a master technician. A car has so many design elements, each inch of a car was designed by a different designer. When designing a car there is a lead designer that creates the overall look and feel of a vehicle. Then the details like the grill, steering wheel, tail lights and etc are each created by a different designer. When a concept car comes out, I love looking at all the details for inspiration.

Automotive design is part of the realm of Industrial Design and Art Center has a special class room inside the Petersen that showcases students and future car designers. There was so much to see but so little time, unfortunately I did not have enough time to go to the underground Vault for a tour of their 250 car collection. Ironically, due to the covid-19, the Petersen is offering virtual tours of their Vault, so now I have the time to check out the vault. You can too, sign up online at the https://www.petersen.org/. Hopefully the Petersen and other great places of inspiration will be open to the public again soon. In the meanwhile, for more inspiration there’s lots of great design books from cars, aviation, to products design. Check out our book collection for a few of my favorite books.