6 L.A. Museum Projects to Open by 2028
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| Rendering of Armenian American Museum's hazarashen skylight. The feature, now under construction, is an homage to traditional Armenian roofs of latticed wood. (Alajajian Marcoosi Architects) |
Tourism is tumbling, reports the Los Angeles Times. Nevertheless, the Los Angeles Business Journal lists six major museum construction projects that are expected to open in time for Los Angeles' summer 2028 Olympics and the expected visitor tsunami.
1. LACMA's David Geffen Galleries is to open in April 2026.
2. The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art is also expected to open in 2026, probably late in the year.
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| Rendering of Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center, California Science Center. (ZGF) |
3. Construction of the California Science Center's Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center is to be complete by the end of this year. Installation of exhibits—there's a lot more than the Space Shuttle—will be a long process, and no opening date has been announced.
4. The Huntington is renovating its Library. Most of the work is in back-of-house areas, but the project will include new public exhibition spaces for library materials covering literature, history, and science. No opening date has been set.
5. The Armenian American Museum and Cultural Center of California anticipates an early to mid 2027 opening.
6. The Broad is expanding, with the new addition expected to be open by the 2028 Olympics.
Keep in mind that it's a rare museum construction project that comes in on time.
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| Rendering of Broad expansion. (Diller Scofidio + Renfro) |
Comments
> reports the Los Angeles
> Times.
> Keep in mind that
> it's a rare museum
> construction project
> that comes in on
> time.
The statistic of tourists from Mexico and the long-term decline of San Francisco sort of upend certain narratives.
Not mentioned is Increased tourism to Japan. That's likely due to the strength of the dollar, weakness of the yen and perceptions of greater peace and safety in places like Tokyo or Kyoto.
Just as the museums of Paris are to that city what amusement parks are to Orlando, the volume of tourists to Florida punches way above that of LA/Southern Calif.
Las Vegas, however, is also dropping the way that LA or San Francisco is. Not sure what's going on in a New York City, Chicago, Miami, Boston, etc.
Los Angeles was crushed during the 1990s when riots instead of a huge fire hurt it. Then it was wrecked by a huge earthquake instead of today's political fighting or issues of crime, squalor and homelessness.
If the region didn't have things like certain cultural projects to take attention away from negative news, just as in the 1990s, lights out for LA in 2025.
As for an Olympic games, they have a way of losing impact quite quickly.
"Paris hosted the games last year? I almost forgot about them!"
Construction delays affect not just museums in LA, but also things like transit projects. Someone just told me that the LA Airport people mover, reminiscent of the little cars that serve the Getty Museum, has again been delayed. Or from 2023-2024, then to early 2025, then to late 2025 and now 2026.
LACMA still has videos posted that list the opening of the Geffen as in something like 2023 or 2024.
Okay, Rome wasn't built in a day, but things in LA are getting ridiculous.
Scandinavia is lovely this time of year.
In the United States, international arrivals fell 3.4% in June, leaving traffic at just 80% of 2019 levels....Meanwhile, Latin America is bucking the trend. Central America posted a 6.8% gain in US arrivals, while Brazil surged by 18.6% and Argentina climbed 15.6%.
Europe presents a patchwork of contrasting fortunes. Scandinavia’s tourism market has slumped, with Denmark suffering a stunning 17.8% drop. Other Scandinavian countries weren’t spared either. Sweden, Norway, and Finland all recorded double-digit declines, signaling a broader malaise in Northern European tourism.
However, Southern Europe is defying gravity. Italy rose 3.4%, and Spain edged up 2.1%, driven by travelers chasing sun, cuisine, and culture.
Asia’s tourism markets have also faced turbulence. Regional arrivals dropped 6.9%, with major economies like India and China each recording declines of over 8%.
The Middle East experienced even sharper losses, with a 15.6% decline in visitors. Egypt was a rare bright spot, achieving a modest 2.4% increase. [END QUOTE]
In terms of Egypt, its new Grand Egyptian Museum has the impressive ring of a modern, Egyptian version of Paris's huge Louvre. When Cairo had just the old, dusty Egyptian Museum, I had a different impression of that city's cultural life.