The Lucas Museum Of Narrative Art Is Officially Coming To L.A.

Rendering of Ma Yansong’s design for an Los Angeles-based Lucas Museum in Exposition Park. (Lucas Museum of Narrative Art)After a drawn-out battle of competing sales pitches that pitted the World’s Greatest City against our neighbor to the north (San Francisco), the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art is officially coming to Los Angeles. Mayor Eric Garcetti, who announced the news in a tweet and press release Tuesday, had long lobbied for the museum to come to Los Angeles.
Competition for the museum settled on S.F. and L.A. after the original plans to house the museum in Chicago fell through. The museum took the unusual step of releasing renderings for both S.F. and L.A. potential locations in late October. Beijing-born Ma Yansong (a Zaha Hadid protégée) created the sweeping, curvilinear designs for both possible locations.
The L.A.-based Lucas Museum (!) is now slated to join the California Science Center, California African American Museum, and Natural History Museum in Exposition Park, on the narrow strip of land adjacent to Vermont Avenue at the western edge of the the park. The land in question is currently occupied by surface parking lots. The museum will have between 265,000 and 275,000 square feet of interior space, with 100,000 feet devoted to galleries, according to L.A. Times.
In a statement released on Twitter, the museum thanked both Los Angeles and San Francisco for their efforts, and cited South L.A.’s “Promise Zone” designation as especially important. “While each location offers many unique and wonderful attributes, South Los Angeles’s Promise Zone best positions the museum to have the greatest impact on the broader community, fulfilling our goal of inspiring, engaging and educating a broad and diverse visitorship. Exposition Park is a magnet for the region and accessible from all parts of the city.”

Rendering of Ma Yansong’s design for an Los Angeles-based Lucas Museum in Exposition Park. (Lucas Museum of Narrative Art)“L.A. is gaining a new jewel with the breathtaking Lucas Museum of Narrative Art — and its presence here means that a day at Exposition Park will soon bring unrivaled opportunities to be immersed in stories told on canvas and celluloid, be moved by the richness of African-American history and expression, be awed by the wonders of science and the natural world, take a journey to the world of space exploration, and sit in the stands for a world-class sporting event,” Mayor Eric Garcetti said in a statement.
Article courtesy of We Like LA.