Los Angeles County Museum of Art
The largest art museum in the western United States, with Peter Zumthor's David Geffen Galleries.
LACMA was established as an independent art museum in 1961, separating from the county's combined museum of history, science and art, and opened on Wilshire Boulevard in 1965 in three pavilions by William Pereira. It grew piecemeal over the following decades, gaining the Japanese Pavilion in 1988 and two buildings by Renzo Piano, the Broad Contemporary Art Museum in 2008 and the Resnick Pavilion in 2010. Chris Burden's Urban Light, a dense array of restored cast-iron street lamps, has stood at the Wilshire entrance since 2008.
The collection numbers around 150,000 objects spanning antiquity to the present, with particular strengths in Latin American art, Islamic art, Korean and Japanese art, German Expressionism, photography and costume and textiles. In April 2026 the David Geffen Galleries opened: a single curving concrete and glass floor by the Swiss architect Peter Zumthor, raised on piers above the park and bridging Wilshire Boulevard, which replaced four of the older buildings and now houses the permanent collection in one continuous, largely level sequence of rooms.
Highlights
- Peter Zumthor's David Geffen Galleries, a single raised floor crossing Wilshire Boulevard
- Chris Burden's Urban Light at the Wilshire Boulevard entrance
- Michael Heizer's Levitated Mass, a 340-tonne boulder over a walkway
- Renzo Piano's Broad Contemporary Art Museum and Resnick Pavilion
![[King Thibaw Min's Throne Room - Mandalay]title QS:P1476,en:"[King Thibaw Min's Throne Room - Mandalay]"label QS:Len,"[King Thibaw Min's Throne Room - Mandalay]"](https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/02/Felice_Beato_%28British%2C_born_Italy_-_%28King_Thibaw_Min%27s_Throne_Room_-_Mandalay%29_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg/500px-Felice_Beato_%28British%2C_born_Italy_-_%28King_Thibaw_Min%27s_Throne_Room_-_Mandalay%29_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg)
