LOS ANGELES, CA.- The Los Angeles County Museum of Art announced that the public will be able to begin exploring multiple features of the new David Geffen Galleries in summer 2025, as the museum prepares for the April 2026 opening of this new home for its permanent collection. Major construction of the building, designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Peter Zumthor, was completed at the end of 2024, and LACMA has begun to move in key operating functions. While this process continues, the building and its surroundings will start to come to life with installations of outdoor sculpture, the openings of dining and retail spaces, and special preview events.
Named in recognition of David Geffen’s extraordinary $150 million gift, the new building, for which the County of Los Angeles invested $125 million, straddles Wilshire Boulevard, with floating staircases as well as elevators allowing access into the exhibition-level galleries from both the north and south sides of the boulevard. The north wing is named the Elaine Wynn Wing in recognition of trustee and board cochair Elaine Wynn’s leadership contribution of $50 million that launched the Building LACMA campaign to build the new galleries. The south wing of the galleries has not yet been named.
“The Geffen Galleries are both a stunningly beautiful work of architecture and a hub of the dynamic activity across LACMA’s entire campus,” said Michael Govan, LACMA CEO and Wallis Annenberg Director. “Our board co-chair Elaine Wynn’s significant pledge in 2016 was a meaningful catalyst for many others to throw their support behind the new LACMA. I am also grateful to our trustee Steve Tisch, whose generosity is helping LACMA create welcoming, accessible spaces on our campus for all of Los Angeles to enjoy. We’re excited that visitors from both near and far can begin to experience the impact of this amazing building this year, as we ramp up toward the 2026 grand opening celebration. Harnessing the power of art to console, we also hope to be a part of the spiritual healing of Los Angeles as it recovers from the recent unprecedented fires.”
Amenities on the Plaza Level Will Begin to Open in Summer 2025
In summer 2025, the public will begin to see the plaza level of the new building north of Wilshire Boulevard. Later, LACMA will begin opening amenities, including Ray’s and Stark Bar, which will re-open in a new space, and a new LACMA Store, made possible by a major campaign gift by LACMA trustee and donor Kelvin Davis and his wife, Hana. In 2026 that restaurant and store will be complemented by a second restaurant, located on the south side of Wilshire Boulevard and named in honor of campaign gifts by LACMA trustee Ann Colgin, her husband, Joe Wender, and LACMA trustee Ryan Seacrest, as well as a new cafe on the north side of Wilshire Boulevard, named in recognition of a gift by LACMA trustee Ashley Merrill and her husband, Marc.
Protected and shaded by the galleries above, the exterior ground level is designed to accommodate outdoor dining, education, events, and artwork. Located north of Wilshire Boulevard, East West Bank Commons, named for a generous $10 million gift by Pasadena-based East West Bank and its Foundation to enhance and expand art education programs at LACMA, can hold events of up to 500 people outside and under cover. Other spaces are designed for outdoor concerts, films, and lectures.
The new W.M. Keck Education Center, a central destination on the W.M. Keck Plaza, north of Wilshire Boulevard, will offer a broad range of education and public programs to visitors of all ages.
Anchoring the plaza-level of the building, a state-of-the-art theater, located south of Wilshire Boulevard, will be the new home for LACMA’s robust schedule of film screenings, lectures, discussions, musical performances, and other public programs. Named the Steve Tisch Theater in recognition of LACMA trustee Steve Tisch’s gift to the campaign, it will function as a gallery during the day, showcasing time-based media works.
The new Geffen Galleries have created 3.5 acres of park-like public space on both sides of Wilshire Boulevard. The entire ground plane of the 75,000-square-foot expanse of the W.M. Keck Plaza on the north side of Wilshire Boulevard will become a commissioned artwork by Mariana Castillo Deball titled Feathered Changes, which will also extend to the south side. One of the new restaurants will house a monumental textile piece, Threading the Boundless: Omnidirectional Terrain, by Los Angeles-based Sarah Rosalena.
A number of outdoor works by artists, both new and familiar to the collection, will appear over time around the building. Artists will include Liz Glynn, Thomas Houseago, Shio Kusaka, Pedro Reyes, and Diana Thater, among others. In addition, LACMA will begin to welcome back beloved sculptures that have become synonymous with the museum. These include Tony Smith’s monumental Smoke (1967), followed later by Alexander Calder’s iconic Three Quintains (Hello Girls) (1964), originally commissioned by the museum when it moved to Wilshire Boulevard in 1965. LACMA’s significant collection of large-scale works by Auguste Rodin will also return to greet the museum’s visitors in an 8,000-square-foot garden along the north side of Wilshire Boulevard. Funded by decades-long supporters of LACMA, Iris and Bernie Cantor and the Cantor Foundation, the new Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Sculpture Garden will feature Rodin’s most iconic works in a beautiful, newly designed setting.
