Inside MAD Architects’ Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles

# A floating museum for narrative art

MAD Architects' Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, designed by Ma Yansong, opened in Exposition Park in Los Angeles in late September 2026. Funded by George Lucas (who personally financed the project), the museum occupies roughly 300,000 square feet and is the result of more than eight years of work on the site after earlier planning efforts in other cities.

# What the building is like

Instead of sitting on a conventional plinth, the building pulls much of its mass upward. A large open plaza runs beneath the main volume, creating sheltered public space at grade. Visitors approach under the building's "belly" and enter either a primary lobby or a five-story education and offices wing.

# How the interior is organized

The museum's internal plan is arranged around a handful of clear programmatic elements:

• A primary lobby that leads to twin theaters, a cafeteria, and a gift shop in a three-story configuration.
• A main gallery floor composed of pockets and curved bays that follow the exterior envelope and open occasionally to lookouts and a central oculus above the arrival court.
• A smaller exhibition space and a restaurant designed by Rockwell Group on the uppermost level, plus a rooftop promenade that wraps around planted humps on the building's back.
• A research library and an auditorium embedded within the galleries.

Ma framed the interior as a series of "neighborhoods," with circulation and vertical movement emphasized by theatrical, pneumatic-seeming elevators and stair sequences.

# The collection and curatorial approach

The museum stakes a populist curatorial position—presenting mass-media imagery and cinematic ephemera as the art of collective memory and storytelling rather than as strictly academic art-historical objects.

# Landscape and urban placement

Landscape architect Mia Lehrer of Studio-MLA designed the surrounding site to anchor Ma's floating form to Exposition Park. Lehrer's planting and paths create continuity between the park and the museum, with gardens and terraces woven around and beneath the lifted volume. A rooftop promenade and planted humps offer elevated outdoor space, though public access details were still clarifying during press previews.

# Context and reception notes

The museum's long history includes earlier proposals for other cities and a groundbreaking on this site in March 2018. The project's scale and stylistic affinities—fluid, parametric forms and a luminous white skin—invite comparisons to several recent high-profile sculptural museums. The building is one of MAD Architects' largest realized projects in the United States and represents a substantial investment in narrative-focused collecting and public programming in South Los Angeles.

# What visitors will encounter

Visitors can expect a strong architectural presence, deliberate theatrical circulation, a mix of gallery types geared to narrative materials, public amenities (theaters, restaurant, gift shop), and landscape spaces that blur the edge between park and museum.