LA County Museum of Art Visitors Guide

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is considered the largest encyclopedic art museum in the western United States. Its collections, which include over 100,000 pieces, encompass the history of art from ancient times to the present, and from all corners of the world.

LACMA is in the middle of a transformation. It has gone through a variety of transitions since it was first established with borrowed art as part of the Los Angeles Museum of History, Science and Art in Exposition Park

The current museum opened in 1965 in Hancock Park on the Museum Mile next to the famous La Brea Tar Pits. By 1992, the original three buildings had expanded to six, including the acquisition of the former May Company department store on the corner of Wilshire and Fairfax, which became LACMA West, accessible through a separate entrance.

The new transformation and expansion will bridge the gap between the main museum and LACMA West with a new Contemporary Art Building and an Entrance Pavilion situated between the two. An underground parking structure is also being added on 6th Street behind LACMA West, with the green space of Hancock Park extended over where the parking lot used to be. A new corridor will be constructed to run from LACMA West across the campus to the Pavilion for Japanese Art.

The first phase scheduled for completion includes the Broad Contemporary Art Museum, the Entrance Pavilion and the parking structure, all set to open in early 2008.