peter zumthor’s david geffen galleries open at LACMA as a sweeping glass-and-concrete arc

LACMA opens long-awaited building, designed by Peter Zumthor

 

Peter Zumthor’s David Geffen Galleries at LACMA open to the public on April 19th, 2026, completing a two-decade transformation of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art into its most expansive institutional form yet. The new building, a 275-meter-long, curved glass-and-concrete structure that stretches along Hancock Park and crosses Wilshire Boulevard, houses the permanent collection of the museum across 10,220 square meters of gallery space elevated nearly 9 meters above street level.

 

The raised exhibition floor rests on seven ground-level pavilions accommodating education, retail, dining, and a theater, while the spaces between them open into publicly accessible plazas, including the East West Bank Commons and the W.M. Keck Plaza. Zumthor’s design prescribes no single path through the galleries; instead, perimeter terrace galleries admit floor-to-ceiling natural light while interior rooms offer shelter and shadow, with custom sputter-plated chrome textile curtains by Tokyo-based designer Reiko Sud modulating illumination across light-sensitive works.

exterior view northeast from Wilshire Boulevard with Chris Burden’s Urban Light (2008) in foreground, David Geffen Galleries at LACMA, art © Chris Burden/licensed by The Chris Burden Estate and Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, photo © Iwan Baan

 

 

oceans as organizing principle shape David Geffen Galleries

 

The inaugural installation at LACMA’s David Geffen Galleries was developed by 45 curators working across disciplines, departing from conventional art-historical chronology in favor of a geographic framework structured around four bodies of water: the Pacific, Indian, and Atlantic Oceans and the Mediterranean Sea. The Atlantic galleries trace independent artistic traditions around the Atlantic rim and the transformations initiated by European contact with the Americas, drawing on African and Black American textiles, modern Latin American art, 20th-century photography, and American decorative arts. The Pacific galleries of the museum address Indigenous voyaging, imperial expansion, and global trade, encompassing Oceanic works, West Mexican and Peruvian ceramics, Spanish American mercantile objects, East Asian blue-and-white porcelain, and California design. The Indian Ocean section foregrounds South and Southeast Asian sculpture, a collection strength, alongside Indonesian batiks, Kashmir shawls, and the Ardabil Carpet, within the context of one of humanity’s oldest maritime exchange networks. The Mediterranean galleries consider shared material and stylistic practices across Islamic and European painting, Syrian decorative arts, Baroque masterpieces, and Egyptian, Greek, and Roman antiquities.

exterior view northwest from Wilshire Boulevard with Tony Smith’s Smoke (1967) at left, David Geffen Galleries at LACMA, art © Tony Smith Estate/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, photo © Iwan Baan

 

 

commissioned works and public art

 

Four major new commissions anchor the building’s interior. Todd Gray’s Octavia’s Gaze (2025), a three-dimensional photographic assemblage, greets visitors near the entrance. Do Ho Suh contributes Jagyeong Hall, Gyeongbok Palace (2026), an actual-size re-creation in translucent material of a section of the primary Joseon royal palace in Seoul. Lauren Halsey’s two works — a 10-foot reclining sphinx sculpture and a large-scale wall relief — and Tavares Strachan’s bust Fulani (A Map of the Crown) (2024) are installed in the Mediterranean galleries. At plaza level, the entire 207,000-square-foot ground plane constitutes a single commissioned artwork: Mariana Castillo Deball’s Feathered Changes, developed in close collaboration with Zumthor, connects the new structure to the site’s history as a marshy ecosystem. Pedro Reyes’s 18-foot stone carving Tlali (2026) and Diana Thater’s light installation Five Days in Claude Monet’s Garden (2026) join Jeff Koons’s recently acquired 37-foot topiary Split-Rocker south of Wilshire Boulevard, while Tony Smith’s monumental Smoke (1967) and a reimagined pool setting for Alexander Calder’s Three Quintains (Hello Girls) (1964) complete the exterior program.

Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Sculpture Garden with Auguste Rodin’s Monumental Head of Pierre de Wissant (1884–85) in foreground, David Geffen Galleries at LACMA, photo © Iwan Baan

David Geffen Galleries at LACMA with Tony Smith’s Smoke (1967) in background, © Tony Smith Estate/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, photo © Iwan Baan

David Geffen Galleries at LACMA, exterior view of exhibition level with reflection of LACMA’s Pavilion for Japanese Art, photo © Iwan Baan

exterior view of exhibition level, David Geffen Galleries at LACMA, photo © Iwan Baan

installation view of the inaugural presentation in the David Geffen Galleries, April 2026 | image © Museum Associates/LACMA

the inaugural installation at LACMA’s David Geffen Galleries was developed by 45 curators | image © Museum Associates/LACMA

departing from conventional art-historical chronology in favor of a geographic framework | image © Museum Associates/LACMA

view southeast from exhibition level with The Bateman Mercury (2nd-century copy after a Greek original of the 4th century BCE), David Geffen Galleries at LACMA, photo © Iwan Baan

Classical Revivals in Europe and America with Pompeo Batoni’s Portrait of Sir Wyndham Knatchbull-Wyndham (1758–59) at right, David Geffen Galleries at LACMA, photo © Iwan Baan

exterior view of exhibition level at night, David Geffen Galleries at LACMA, photo © Iwan Baan

exterior view southeast toward Wilshire Boulevard with Tony Smith’s Smoke (1967) in foreground, David Geffen Galleries at LACMA, art © Tony Smith Estate/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, photo © Iwan Baan

 

project info:

 

name: LACMA | @lacma

architect: Peter Zumthor

location: Los Angeles, California, US

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