The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art is ready to open

The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art. Courtesy of the Lucas Museum. Photo by Hufton+Crow After more than a decade of work and a cost of around $1 billion, the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art is finally finished. More than 150 architects, engineers, and designers worked on the project. The museum will officially open to the public on September 22. The unusual building looks almost like a spaceship that has landed in Los Angeles. Inside, it houses a huge collection of art focused on storytelling, ranging from Star Wars props to ancient Egyptian pottery. Designed by MAD Architects, the Lucas Museum is a passion project of George Lucas and his wife, Mellody Hobson, who funded the project themselves. The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art. Courtesy of the Lucas Museum. Photo by Hufton+Crow Creating the building's large exterior panels required technology that only became available in recent years. The panels were made using both advanced robotics and skilled handcrafting. Getting from the original drawings to the finished building was a long and difficult journey, with plenty of changes along the way. The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art. Courtesy of the Lucas Museum. Photo by Hufton+Crow The museum was first announced for Chicago in 2014, with a very different, volcano-like design. The project was later redesigned and moved to Los Angeles. It was originally expected to be completed in 2021, but construction took much longer than planned. The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art. Courtesy of the Lucas Museum. Photo by Hufton+Crow George Lucas said, 'The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art was created to honor humanity's stories and the artists who illustrate them. The artists in this collection didn't just create images; they connected our modern imaginations with our ancient emotions—with common beliefs creating community. Their work spans genres, media, and time. They deserve to be in a museum.' The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art. Courtesy of the Lucas Museum. Photo by Hufton+Crow Mellody Hobson said, 'We wanted a museum unlike any other — one that brings people from every walk of life through the same doors. That's why this collection holds so many different kinds of stories: so that more people can walk in and, somewhere in these galleries, see themselves, and the world they know, reflected back. That kind of recognition is what we built this place to offer.'