{"id":620741,"date":"2026-09-19T06:08:16","date_gmt":"2026-09-19T06:08:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/620741\/"},"modified":"2026-09-19T06:08:16","modified_gmt":"2026-09-19T06:08:16","slug":"contradiction-filled-landmark-what-critics-are-saying-about-the-lucas-museum-of-narrative-art-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/620741\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Contradiction-filled landmark\u2019: What critics are saying about the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art | News"},"content":{"rendered":"

In less than\u00a0a week, the\u00a0Lucas Museum of Narrative Art<\/a>\u00a0will open in Los Angeles after more than\u00a0a decade of debate, design, and construction.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ahead of the opening, critics and media outlets across the United States and beyond have weighed in on the project, expressing mixtures of excitement and skepticism.\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/a>Image credit: Hufton+Crow, courtesy of Lucas Museum of Narrative Art<\/p>\n

Writing for The Los Angeles Times<\/a>, Sab Lubell described the design as a \u201ccontradiction-filled landmark.\u201d Behind the dramatic architectural expression, Lubell argues, the scheme\u2019s populist message is undercut by conventional galleries and fenced-off rooftops.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s synthetic yet organic, monumental yet welcoming, populist yet elitist,\u201d Lubell notes. \u201cIts architecture conjures freedom and motion, but its galleries retreat into conventional rooms. It creates an extraordinary park, but fences and inaccessible surfaces weaken that generosity. It feels utterly foreign to its context, yet somehow it fits right in.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/a>Image credit: Hufton+Crow, courtesy of Lucas Museum of Narrative Art<\/p>\n

For The Los Angeles Times\u2019<\/a> culture critic Mary McNamara, the museum is \u201ca win for \u2018the people\u2019s art.\u2019\u201d McNamara argues that the \u201cgleaming spacecraft\u201d upends conventional expectations of a museum, instead offering an eclectic, nostalgia-rich journey for visitors.<\/p>\n

\u201cA captivating, welcoming and family-friendly space, with some jaw-dropping views, a cafe and a gorgeous rooftop fine-dining restaurant, not to mention an 11-acre garden, dotted with statuary and fountains,\u201d McNamara notes. \u201cIt is, in fact, on its own diplomatic mission: To make people think about art, and the world, a little differently than they did before they arrived.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/a>Image credit: Hufton+Crow, courtesy of Lucas Museum of Narrative Art<\/p>\n

At The Guardian<\/a>, meanwhile, Matthew Cantor took a wider view at the museum\u2019s timeline, tracing its genesis to failed attempts at the museum\u2019s construction in San Francisco<\/a> and Chicago<\/a>. Continuing the popular comparison of the museum to a spaceship, Cantor remarks, \u201cWith its sleek, flying-saucer-like design, it\u2019s impossible not to think of Star Wars<\/a>, though the museum\u2019s architect, Ma Yansong, says he was inspired more by tree canopies and clouds.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/a>Image credit: Hufton+Crow, courtesy of Lucas Museum of Narrative Art<\/p>\n

For The Hollywood Reporter\u2019s<\/a> Gary Baum, the museum is a \u201ctemple,\u201d rather than a museum. Baum describes the museum as \u201ca final-act provocation which only someone with fuck-you money can realize at such colossal scale and scope. A museum as Megalopolis. The approach taken by Lucas, 82, is a striking throwback to the rich, eccentric autodidact\u2019s cabinet-of-curiosities concept associated with Gilded Age figures like Henry Clay Frick, Henry Huntington and P.T. Barnum. But it\u2019s also a distinct expression of Lucas\u2019 own artistic influences and impacts.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/a>Image credit: Hufton+Crow, courtesy of Lucas Museum of Narrative Art<\/p>\n

Finally, James Parker in The Atlantic<\/a> gives perhaps the most dramatic account of the scheme\u2019s architecture, describing it as \u201c swooping, brain-beggaring, super-sexy, twin-bodied leviathan of a megastructure, white as the gown of Princess Leia, half spaceship, half cetacean, all curves, Shangri-la for skateboarders if they could ever get inside.\u201d<\/p>\n

Archinectors, what’s your take? Share in the comments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In less than\u00a0a week, the\u00a0Lucas Museum of Narrative Art\u00a0will open in Los Angeles after more than\u00a0a decade of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":620742,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[437,434,435,436,438,146,85,46],"class_list":["post-620741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-artsdesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620741","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=620741"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620741\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/620742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=620741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=620741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=620741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}