“The museum’s biomorphic, dream-like form…explores the relationship between nature, society, and the urban environment.”

Lucas Museum renderings, courtesy of MAD Architects

Innovation
& Artistry

The home of the new Lucas Museum of Narrative Art is an 11-acre campus with a landscape consisting of trees, gardens, walkways, and architectural features that embrace a nearly 300,000-square-foot building—all currently under construction on a site that was formerly an asphalt parking lot in Los Angeles’s Exposition Park. The five-story museum building includes approximately 100,000 square feet of dedicated gallery space, two state-of-the-art cinematic theaters, numerous spaces for learning and engagement, a café and a restaurant, and retail and special events spaces. The rolling landscape of the new park creates much needed green space for South Los Angeles while providing the Lucas Museum with a variety of outdoor areas for exploration and incorporates beautiful architectural features throughout including a hanging garden, an amphitheater, a pedestrian bridge, and a waterfall-like fountain.

With a stunning architectural vision for the building created by Ma Yansong/MAD Architects, a dynamic design for the park and gardens created by Mia Lehrer of Los Angeles’s Studio-MLA, and Michael Siegel of Stantec as executive architect leading a talented team through the process of realizing the vision and construction, the Lucas Museum’s campus will be an innovative new cultural landmark for Los Angeles.
The Building
The Campus
The Facade
Park and Gardens
Construction

The Lucas Museum’s state of the art building will add to the rich legacy of architectural innovation in Los Angeles. The five-story, 300,000-square-foot building is lifted off the ground to create human scale at street level, fostering natural social interaction, preserving views, and enhancing the overall experience of the site.

Featuring over 100,000-square-feet of gallery space spread across three floors, the Lucas Museum's building will offer an unparalleled experience. Visitors will explore two state-of-the-art theaters, ten dedicated studios for learning and engagement, special event space, a library, a restaurant and café, and a retail shop. This architectural marvel not only pushes the boundaries of design but also evokes a profound sense of wonder and discovery.

The design of the Lucas Museum’s campus invites the visitor on a journey long before stepping into the museum’s galleries. The museum’s 11-acres include extensive new green space consisting of trees, gardens, walkways, and architectural features that embrace a nearly 300,000-square-foot building—all currently under construction on a site that was formerly an asphalt parking lot in Los Angeles’s Exposition Park.

With an architectural vision by Ma Yansong of MAD Architects, a dynamic design for the park and gardens by Mia Lehrer of Studio-MLA, and Michael Siegel of Stantec as executive architect, the Lucas Museum’s campus will be an innovative new cultural landmark for Los Angeles.

To realize the design of the exterior, the building is clad in more than 1,500 panels of fiberglass-reinforced polymer (FRP), which was selected due to the material’s ability to create smooth, flowing forms and its minimal weight compared to other materials. The curved panels measure approximately 8 by 32 feet on average and each of the 1,500 panels are uniquely shaped and placed to create the whole.

The panels are fabricated utilizing a process which combines cutting-edge digital technology and robotics with handcrafting to fabricate and finish each unique panel to ensure smoothness and color consistency. The technologies needed to shape and fit the FRP panels only began to emerge a decade ago, making the Lucas Museum truly a building made for our time.

Designed by Mia Lehrer of Studio-MLA, the Lucas Museum Park and Gardens are dynamic environments that will bloom and blossom with the seasons, offering a different visual experience during each visit to the Lucas Museum. This diverse and enriching park landscape replaces what was previously asphalt parking lots with indigenous and drought-tolerant plantings and more than 200 trees and landforms that evoke the terrain of Los Angeles as a plain nestled between mountains.

The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art broke ground in March 2018. We are deeply committed to working with diverse enterprises including small businesses, and women-, minority-, and veteran-owned businesses. We are a labor-friendly project that provides jobs to workers who belong to local unions, while also encouraging construction employment and training opportunities for local and disadvantaged residents in Los Angeles. Approximately 60% of the museum's construction workforce lives in LA County.