The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) has finally unveiled its new David Geffen Galleries, a $724 million concrete and glass structure designed by Swiss architect Peter Zumthor. Spanning Wilshire Boulevard, the 110,000-square-foot elevated gallery space will house 1,700 works from the museum’s permanent collection, including masterpieces by Francis Bacon, Henri Matisse, and Katsushika Hokusai. The building is scheduled to open to the public on April 19, marking the completion of a massive campus expansion that has been nearly two decades in the making.
This project has been one of the most debated architectural undertakings in recent museum history due to its high cost, controversial design, and the decision to replace several older buildings with a single-story horizontal layout. By organizing art into non-hierarchical "oceans" rather than traditional chronological or regional departments, LACMA is attempting to redefine the encyclopedic museum experience. The opening solidifies the Miracle Mile as a major cultural hub, coinciding with the expansion of Los Angeles's public transit system and the integration of surrounding institutions like the Academy Museum.