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Ma Yansong on his Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles
The Chinese architect behind George Lucas's long-awaited museum talks clouds, science fiction and a greener kind of future.
Twelve years, three cities and one very patient client: the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, funded by Star Wars creator George Lucas, has finally opened in Los Angeles after earlier plans for San Francisco and Chicago fell away. In an interview with Dezeen, its architect Ma Yansong, founder of MAD, says the world changed around the project while the building stayed put. He and Lucas bonded over a shared love of stories that belong to ordinary people rather than high culture. Ma once wanted to be a science fiction director, and he says the museum let him come close to that goal.
Its curving exterior is clad in thousands of white polymer panels. Ma resists the "spaceship" label and prefers to think of it as a cloud. With landscape studio SLA he added green roofs and a large park, which he calls "surreal nature". The moment to look out for is the open-air dome, where you stand on the ground and look up through the panelled apex at the sky. It has a cathedral-like scale, but no statues or text to tell you what to feel.
This is an interview rather than a visitor's guide, so check opening hours and tickets before you go. For anyone in LA curious about where museum architecture is heading, it makes a good first look.
Our summary of a story from Dezeen, published 28 October 2026. Read the original
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From Dezeen