The first president of the museum was
Don Bacigalupi, former president of
Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in
Bentonville, Arkansas. He stepped down from this role in early 2019. In October 2019, Sandra Jackson-Dumont was announced as director and CEO. In March 2025 she stepped down from the role. Then
Jim Gianopulos became interim CEO and still is. In December 2025 chief curator Pilar Tompkins Rivas also left the museum.
Proposed sites To be known as the Lucas Cultural Arts Museum, it was originally planned for
San Francisco, on
Crissy Field. This version of the museum would have held Lucas's art collection, which is estimated to be worth approximately $1 billion. After four years of unsuccessful negotiations with
The Presidio Trust over the land in San Francisco, Lucas announced that
Chicago would host the museum instead, due in interest from the city's mayor,
Rahm Emanuel, and the promise of land on the shore of
Lake Michigan. The museum would lease the land from the
Chicago Park District for $1 a year.
Los Angeles Mayor
Eric Garcetti also made a bid to host the project, offering Lucas land in
Exposition Park adjacent to the
University of Southern California. In
Chicago, the proposed site on a parking lot near
Soldier Field,
Burnham Harbor, and the
Museum Campus was chosen by a Chicago city commission. After the formal announcement of the museum's location on Chicago's lake shore and the later unveiling of its architecture, the project faced opposition as it had in San Francisco. In an editorial, the
Chicago Tribune condemned the size of the structure, referring to it as "a monument to its patron rather than a modest addition to a democratic public space". The Chicago plan called for a museum building roughly four times the size of the one that had been planned in San Francisco, though that size was later scaled back. In March 2015, U.S. District Judge
John Darrah ruled the land intended for the museum is held in
public trust. Thus, the
Illinois General Assembly is the only body with the power to amend the law and allow construction to proceed. The state subsequently approved a law designed to enable such projects, and the
Chicago City Council approved zoning. while the
Chicago Park District approved a long-term lease and litigation ensued.
MAD architects, headed by
Ma Yansong, was responsible for designing a building for the Chicago site, while VOA Associates was designated to oversee construction.
Studio Gang Architects, already involved in the rehabilitation of
Northerly Island, was selected to design the landscape. The design was met with some criticism upon release.
Blair Kamin of the
Chicago Tribune called the structure "needlessly massive" and called for a "dose of restraint" to preserve the lakefront. In ''
Crain's Chicago Business'', Greg Hinz derided it as "[yelling] and [carrying] on, in its own way defacing the city's lakefront as much as any teenager with a can of spray paint...". Revised plans were released in September 2015, which scaled back on the size of the project but otherwise kept the basic design. Criticism also has been leveled against Friends of the Parks for its opposition to the project; a project that would have converted a stadium parking lot to a cultural attraction along with additional parkland, and also directly and indirectly provide millions of dollars annually to the host city. In May 2016,
Bill Kurtis wrote an op-ed in support of the Lucas Museum which appeared in the
Chicago Tribune. On May 3, 2016, a statement released by
Mellody Hobson, wife of George Lucas, stated that the couple was seeking other cities to host the museum after a protracted confrontation with
Friends of the Parks. On June 24, 2016, Lucas announced that the museum would not be located in Chicago.
Los Angeles site After unsuccessful negotiations in San Francisco and Chicago, in June 2016 museum officials announced that they were considering
Los Angeles. George Lucas announced on January 10, 2017, that the museum would be built in
Exposition Park in Los Angeles, California, citing the proximity of
University of Southern California, his alma mater, the
Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum,
BMO Stadium, other museums, and local schools in the
South Los Angeles region. The building was designed by Ma Yansong of Chinese architecture firm MAD Architects (
MAD Studio) and architect of record
Stantec. The museum's nearly 300,000 square-foot building will be five levels and include 100,000 square-feet of dedicated gallery space, a library, dedicated learning studios, two theaters, a restaurant, a café, and an event space, and will sit on 11 acres of new park space designed by landscape architecture firm
Studio-MLA.
Construction Construction prep began in January 2018. Hathaway Dinwiddie is the general contractor. The groundbreaking ceremony took place on March 14, 2018. The museum was originally set to open in 2021, but the opening was pushed to 2023 due to delays associated with the
COVID-19 pandemic. In 2022, the opening was pushed again, to 2025. In 2025, it was pushed back further to 2026. ==References==