The Petersen Automotive Museum only reopened yesterday, but connoisseurs of Wilshire Boulevard architecture have been jawing about the eye-popping facade for months. Ever since a carapace of red steel ribbons started to appear, bending around the corner of Fairfax and arcing over the roof of the former Seibu department store, the structure designed by Kohn Pederson Fox has drawn pointed criticism.

Garbage. Obnoxious. Hideous. The Edsel of architecture. Facadism.

The problem is that in dabbling in Postmodern pastiche, the designers behind Petersen assemblage have accidentally produced a reasonable facsimile of computational design. However, this is not exercise in parametrics; according to KPF, the suggestive curves and airflow pattern began as analogue sketches that were then transferred to Rhino. Expert fabricators Zahner and contractor Matt Construction – both known for their realisations of complex architecture – ensured that the museum facade would be at the calibre of Morphosis' Emerson College or Diller Scofidio + Renfro's Broad museum. We are left with a design that approximates a more sophisticated logic, but is not equipped with – was never meant to be equipped with – the chops to deliver.

The inherent disappointment of this design as an icon and its contribution to the urban realm along Miracle Mile is not a surprise. This stretch of Wishire Boulevard is cursed to be half-baked: the unresolved Zumthor scheme for LACMA or Piano's ovoid Academy Museum of Motion Pictures (not to mention the architect's lacklustre additions to the LACMA campus). The Petersen's closest cousin is a Googie, Johnie's Coffee Shop – circus striped and covered in light bulbs.