U.S. tariffs on steel, other escalating building costs, general inflation, and a construction boom in Los Angeles all threaten to further inch up the cost of a major construction project at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). The building’s price tag already has jumped to $650 million from $600 million to provide for contingency costs associated with some of these factors.

“(L.A. is) a place of individuals.. So therefore, there haven’t been enough big, ambitious, public funding initiatives. You need big projects like LACMA’s, like the academy’s — challenging, big projects — to get people to realize they can work together and achieve things as a group … build an infrastructure that’s useful for future philanthropy. Because people who give, give again.”