In one of the back rooms of the Stanley Kubrick exhibition at LACMA is a small drawing that seems to prefigure Peter Zumthor’s proposed design for the museum of the 21st century. The drawing, by Chris Baker, is one of a group of concept drawings for the science fiction film, A.I. Artificial Intelligence, a project Kubrick initiated, but then handed over to Steven Spielberg.

Kubrick had acquired the film rights for a short story by Brian Aldis called Supertoys Last All Summer Long in 1980, but couldn’t find a good way to depict the fantasy future world, and so put the project aside. By the mid-nineties computer assisted graphics had improved to the point he felt it possible to proceed, and in 1995 several screenplays were written, and hundreds of production sketches were drawn, including this one. Four years later he decided that it wasn’t for him, and he offered it to Spielberg, who completed the movie after Kubrick’s sudden death.

The drawing depicts a ‘lilly’ shaped building dubbed the ‘Cyrogenic Institute.’