Ma Yansong's Lucas Museum Is Finished and Open in Los Angeles
The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles is complete, and it opened to the public on September 22, 2026, according to the museum's own press release. The building was designed by Chinese architect Ma Yansong, who founded the architecture studio MAD.
The museum was funded by George Lucas, the creator of Star Wars. It is dedicated to illustrated storytelling, meaning stories told through pictures, and it describes itself as a first-of-its-kind institution. The museum says it was conceived to show the emotional power of narrative art.
The project did not start in Los Angeles. It was first planned for San Francisco, then for Chicago, before the team settled on a site in Exposition Park, a large public park in the city's south. The campus covers 11 acres, and the building itself is 300,000 square feet. The land was once an asphalt lot.
The building's shape is one of its most talked-about features. Ma Yansong conceived it as a sculptural, organic form, shaped by light, clouds and the trees around it. The curved outside is covered in thousands of white polymer panels, a plastic-based material. Michael Siegel of the engineering and design firm Stantec worked alongside Ma Yansong on the building, and Mia Lehrer designed the surrounding landscape, which is meant to keep changing as it grows.
In an interview with Dezeen, published on October 28, 2026, Ma Yansong said the project took 12 years and spanned two countries. Ma Yansong also said that China and the United States both like innovation and new things, and that both put a focus on young people and education. Architecture, Ma Yansong told Dezeen, works as a bridge between imagination and reality.
Ma Yansong earned a master's degree from Yale University in 2002, and the career since then has included work on buildings in several countries. The Lucas Museum is now the latest project to open with that name attached.
For visitors, the news is simple. The museum is open, and the building that took more than a decade to reach this point is now something people can walk through and see for themselves.
