From the Board of Directors, Lucas Museum of Narrative Art “After extensive due diligence and deliberation, the Board of Directors of the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art is pleased to announce plans to build the museum in Exposition Park in Los Angeles.”

“I wanted somebody who was very leading edge, somebody who designed digitally because the third part of the museum is about digital art. So Ma Yansong’s a very avant-garde Chinese architect, he’s very brilliant, he’s never made anything in the United States,” Lucas told Charlie Rose

Lucas had Ma Yansong design a new scheme for the sites. It’s no longer part of an environment and is a stand-alone object. His fluid digital design brings to mind a long, lean spaceship that has landed. The LA version is a spaceship with gardens woven into its roof and flowing underneath.

“We have been humbled by the overwhelmingly positive support we received from both San Francisco and Los Angeles during our selection process. Settling on a location proved to be an extremely difficult decision precisely because of the desirability of both sites and cities.”

“While each location offers many unique and wonderful attributes, South Los Angeles’s Promise Zone best positions the museum to have the greatest impact on the broader community, fulfilling our goal of inspiring, engaging and educating a broad and diverse visitorship. Exposition Park is a magnet for the region and accessible from all parts of the city. As a museum uniquely focused on narrative art, we look forward to becoming part of a dynamic museum community, surrounded by more than 100 elementary and high schools, one of the country’s leading universities as well as three other world-class museums.

“Now we turn our attention to finalizing the details and building what we believe will be one of the most imaginative and inclusive art museums in the world—a global destination that all Angelenos and Californians will be proud to call their own.”

The art critic for the San Francisco Chronicle, Charles Desmarais, managed to get a look at the collection and wrote that it “may just be the core of a great museum.”

Otoh Gunga City
STAR WARS™: Episode I The Phantom Menace

“I think it’s a spectacularly good collection for what it set out to be. I think every museum collection should have a clear mission and a clear definition of where the institution wants to go with its collection.

Couple in Rumbleseat
c. 1935

The museums that we love, the great institutions, none of them pay attention to these popular art forms that have defined in very interesting ways who we are as a culture,” Desmarais said.

Building a Snowman
Beatrix Potter (c. 1893)

Mouse with a Spinning Wheel
Beatrix Potter (c. 1890)

More of the museum’s collections can be viewed here:

The History of Narrative Art features traditional paintings by Edgar Degas, Winslow Homer and Pierre-Auguste Renoir, as well as a broad range of illustration, children’s art, comic art and photography from many periods and cultures.

Art of Cinema explores all facets of cinematic art and its design processes, including concept art, storyboards, set design, props, costume and fashion, animation and visual effects.

Digital Art features new technologies and media from digital cinema to digital architecture, bringing together works by artists such as Andy Warhol, Zaha Hadid and Pixar Animation, to name a few.

Source: The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art

And apparently they even have plans to hire the kids that Sarah Conner watches get nuked in The Terminator:

And here’s some images from long, long ago and far, far away: