The Narrative Art Museum, conceived by the creator of Star Wars, director George Lucas, and his wife, a prominent figure in the film industry, Mellody Hobson, could not find a refuge for a long time - despite the fact that the couple are building it entirely at their own expense (the budget will be more than $ 1 billion). Initially, it was planned to build a museum in Chicago, hometown of Hobson, but local residents considered the building a threat to the adjacent park, sued, and Lucas thought it best to move to California.
Despite this setback, the director continued his collaboration with the head of the MAD bureau, architect Ma Yansong, entrusting him with
two projects - for his native San Francisco and for Los Angeles. The Los Angeles authorities showed much more enthusiasm for Lucas's plans, so the somewhat disappointed director opted for the city in January 2017. The mayor and the city council did not change their position, and at the end of June they unanimously supported the project. Construction should begin next year, and the museum will open in 2021.
The location of the building is parking lots two and three in the Exhibition Park. To compensate the city for the loss of parking spaces, the museum will set up an underground garage for 2,200 cars. In addition, the project includes 4.5 hectares of new green spaces.
Ma Yansong interprets his building as a "cloud of knowledge" that visitors can explore. Exhibition halls there are interspersed with cinemas, lecture and seminar audiences. The total area of the galleries will be almost 10,000 m2, and the interior as a whole - about 27,000 m2.
The Museum of Narrative Art of George Lucas is dedicated, according to the founder, to the history of this "trend" from ancient times to the present day. According to Lucas, now they have forgotten about the narrative in art, and he wants to remind about it. In addition, the focus will be on "popular art" (for example, the work of Beatrice Potter and Rockwell Kent), which, according to the director, has great social and educational potential.
The exhibition will include Impressionist canvases and a variety of cinematic objects, from props from the filming of Casablanca and The Wizard of Oz to all sorts of items related to Lucas's films - the Star Wars epic (including the very first lightsaber of Luke Skywalker and the mask of Darth Vader) and films about Indiana Jones, which the director created in collaboration with Steven Spielberg. All exhibits will come from the Lucas and Hobson collection, which has 10,000 items.
