After spending three months speculating about the mysterious shipping crates stacking up on the side of Pacific Coast Highway, just north of the Santa Monica Pier, I wasn’t going to let the persistent rain, being late for a lunch date or having to pee really badly stop me from taking a detour to the opening day of Gregory Colbert’s “Ashes and Snow” exhibit. Fresh off its wildly successful New York tour, the exhibit is an ambitious traveling show of more than 100 large-scale photographs and three 35mm films Colbert shot over the past 14 years while roaming the world. And while the collection itself is worthy of terrific praise and attention, it is the structure that houses it — dubbed the Nomadic Museum — that warrants all kinds of fuss. Designed by architectural genius Shigeru Ban, the 56,000-square-foot itinerant gallery looms tall and proud — a graceful feat of progressive architectural brilliance constructed of more than 150 steel shipping crates and a minimal assortment of recycled materials, including wood,... More >>>