Lucas Museum in Los Angeles Slated to Open in 2025

The Lucas, designed by Ma Yansong, one of China’s most prominent architects, is part of a recent wave of museum construction in Los Angeles. The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures opened in 2021, and the Hammer Museum this month completed yearslong renovations. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art is also in the midst of a major overhaul.

“Even without this project, Los Angeles has emerged as a major art center in the United States,” Adam said. The Lucas is “set on a vast, landscaped park,” he said. He continued, “I’m guessing people are going to want to go there: The big question is whether tourists (who are more familiar with Hollywood, Venice and Santa Monica) will make the trip as well.”

One key thing that Adam (and almost everyone) will be watching for is what’s actually inside. The museum isn’t a shrine to Lucas, one of the nation’s best-known filmmakers, as one might have assumed, but a home for his sprawling, eclectic collection of some 10,000 paintings and book and magazine illustrations, including works by Norman Rockwell, Frida Kahlo, Judy Baca and more.

As the name suggests, the museum’s theme is supposed to be art that tells stories, though that label doesn’t offer much in the way of details. When I asked Adam what exactly “narrative art” is, he replied: “You are not the first person to ask that question, and I will not be the first person not to answer.”

Regardless, the museum’s contents will decide its fate.

“There’s no question that the building is architecturally striking,” Adam said. “But what ends up going inside the walls is going to determine whether this is viewed as a vanity project by George Lucas and Mellody Hobson, as Christopher Knight, the art critic for The Los Angeles Times put it, or a real addition to this city’s vibrant and cutting-edge art world.”