George Lucas’s Museum of Narrative Art has been approved by the Los Angeles City Council. The museum will house his film collection and break ground early next year with a 3-year construction timeline and an opening set for sometime in 2021. It will cost approximately $1 billion to construct and will be located in Exposition Park adjacent to the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, the Natural History Museum, and the California African American Museum.
The five-story museum will include 300,000 square feet of floor space and include a cafe and restaurant, theaters, lecture halls, classrooms and exhibition space. The museum is a gift to the city of Los Angeles and will come with an endowment of at least $400 million.
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said that the gift represented the largest single donation from one family to a city. He called the museum a “new jewel that will be at the center of the crown,” and said that it will bring 1,000 construction jobs and 350 positions when it opens.
“The showcase of popular art appeals to people emotionally but also tells you something about who you are. It is the thing that tells us, ‘this is what we as a society believe in.'”
Lucas also recalled his days as a student at USC, which is just next door to his planned museum.
“The goal of the museum is to inspire people to think outside the box, to imagine whatever you want to imagine, to help build on the myths that help bind our city and our people together, and that is what I am hoping to do here.”
The Lucas collection includes about 10,000 paintings, illustrations, and other items, with works from Norman Rockwell, N.C. Wyeth, Thomas Hart Benton, and many others, along with mementos from many films, including Star Wars. Among the items slated for the museum will be Luke Skywalker’s first lightsaber, Darth Vader’s helmet and items from the movies Casablanca, The Ten Commandments and The Wizard of Oz.
