LA’s Lucas Museum of Narrative Art brings science fiction to life

Project Name: Lucas Museum of Narrative Art

Country: Exposition Park, Los Angeles, California

Designer: MAD Architects

URL: http://www.i-mad.com/work/lucas-museum-of-narrative-art-los-angeles/?cid=4

A spaceship-inspired museum floating over the bustling terrain of Exposition Park is set to celebrate the
power of visual storytelling and how it rose world-renowned filmmaker George Lucas to fame.

Resting above two state-owned parking lots on Vermont Avenue south of Exposition Boulevard, the
Lucas Museum of Narrative Art is a five-storey, 115-foot tall building that covers three lenses of art –
digital art, narrative art, and the art of cinema. Set to be completed in 2021, the museum will house
artworks by George Lucas and his wife Mellody Hobson.

A prominent, sinuous form welcomes visitors en-route to the museum. Inspired by an intergalactic
spaceship, its lower floors are divided into two curvilinear wings, spanning a pedestrianized walkway
and congregation space beneath the otherworldly wonder above. These wings are eventually unified
through a curvy rooftop housing additional exhibition spaces, a restaurant, and a public plaza generously
adorned by vast foliage.

Going further its futuristic façade unfolds spacious interiors engulfed with natural lighting piercing
through the skylights above it. An array of tube-like elevator shafts smoothly ascends through the
building’s upper floors.

Nearly one-third of the building’s total floor area will showcase over 10,000 pieces of comics, paintings,
photographs, sculptures, motion pictures, and other forms of art linked to movies. Apart from a
dedicated gallery space, other spatial features will include a lecture hall, library, movie theater,
restaurant, and digital classrooms. Beneath it is an extensive parking complex with a capacity of 2,425
vehicles.

Eventually unifying the parabolic frame of the museum is a publicly accessible green roof terrace
breathing life to its white-laden exteriors. Upon completion, the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art will
serve as a barrier-free museum where the absence of artificial divisions between “high” and “popular”
art will allow its visitors to explore a wide array of persuasive visual storytelling.