The Los Angeles County Museum of Art has officially opened its decade-in-the-making David Geffen Galleries, a Peter Zumthor-designed building that reshapes how the city's flagship museum presents its permanent collection.
The opening marks the culmination of one of the most ambitious and closely watched museum projects in the United States. Zumthor's serpentine, single-level structure spans Wilshire Boulevard, replacing four older gallery buildings with a continuous, light-filled exhibition floor that encourages visitors to move freely between cultures and eras. Named for the entertainment mogul whose landmark gift helped fund it, the building has been more than ten years in the making, surviving redesigns, fundraising campaigns and public debate. The project was championed by the museum's leadership as a once-in-a-generation reinvention of how the institution presents itself to the public.
A new model for a global collection
Rather than organising galleries by geography or chronology in the traditional museum manner, LACMA has used the open plan to juxtapose works from across continents and centuries, inviting unexpected dialogues between objects. The approach reflects a growing belief among curators that rigid departmental boundaries can obscure the connections between artistic traditions.
- A single-level design that eliminates the hierarchy of floors and wings.
- Expansive glazing that brings California daylight into the galleries.
- Flexible spaces intended to rotate the encyclopedic collection more frequently.
- Pavilions and supporting structures that extend the museum's footprint across the boulevard.
For LACMA's curators, the building is also an invitation to experiment. With movable walls and adaptable lighting, displays can be reconfigured far more often than in conventional galleries, keeping the visitor experience fresh and allowing more of the vast holdings to rotate into view.
Part of a larger campus transformation
The Geffen Galleries anchor a broader expansion of cultural facilities on the Miracle Mile. The wider campus plans have folded in space for exhibition halls, conservation and library functions, and partnerships with other institutions seeking a Los Angeles home, turning the site into one of the densest concentrations of cultural infrastructure on the West Coast.
A divisive but defining building
The project has not been without controversy. Critics questioned the reduction in total gallery square footage and the cost and timeline of construction, while supporters argue that Zumthor's design offers a genuinely new spatial experience of art. The debate, playing out in architecture columns and city council meetings alike, has only sharpened public anticipation.
For Los Angeles, the opening is a statement of ambition. As cities around the world compete to anchor cultural tourism, LACMA's bet is that architecture itself, paired with a sprawling global collection, can draw visitors and redefine the West Coast museum landscape for a generation. Whether the building is judged a triumph or a compromise, it has unquestionably given the city a new civic landmark, and a fresh argument for the enduring power of the encyclopedic museum.