Lucas museum’s long road from S.F. to L.A.
The saga of George Lucas’ quest to build his museum of cinematic and illustrative art, from San Francisco to Chicago and now — Los Angeles.
Early 2010:
George Lucas tells the Presidio Trust, which manages the former Army post at the foot of the Golden Gate Bridge, that he’d like to build a museum on the site of a former commissary at Crissy Field. The legendary filmmaker would pay for the museum himself.
October 2012:
The Disney Co. buys Lucasfilm for $4 billion.
November 2012:
The Presidio Trust announces a “request for concept proposals” for the site, now occupied by Sports Basement.
April 2013:
Lucas and two other finalists are asked to submit proposals.
September 2013:
The Lucas Cultural Arts Museum, with a design modeled on the Palace of Fine Arts, is unveiled. It comes with letters of support from Gov. Jerry Brown, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee and filmmaker Martin Scorsese.
November 2013:
The Presidio Trust sends all three teams back to the drawing board. In a statement it praises the Lucas concept but says, “We have significant issues with the proposed building.”
February 2014:
The trust calls off the competition. Lucas is offered a nearby site, but shows no interest.
April 2014:
Mayor Rahm Emanuel of Chicago appoints a task force to find a site for the Lucas Museum, the latest step in a courtship that began months before.
June 24, 2014:
Lucas and his wife, Chicago native Mellody Hobson, accept Chicago’s offer of a 17-acre site on Lake Michigan. One month later, Chinese architect Ma Yansong is named the museum’s architect.
November 2014:
The design is released for what now is the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art — a mountain-like stone blob quickly likened by critics to Jabba the Hutt. Chicago advocacy group Friends of the Park files suit, saying the proposal violates the city’s Lakefront Plan of 1973 and its ban on private construction.
September 2015:
Chicago’s City Council approves the Lucas proposal.
February 2016:
U.S. District Judge John Darrah says the lawsuit may proceed.
June 2016:
With litigation likely to extend for years, Lucas gives up on his Chicago plans and turns his attention back west — to Treasure Island in San Francisco and Exposition Park in Los Angeles.
October 2016:
The Lucas Museum offers a glimpse of its conceptual designs by Yansong for Treasure Island and Exposition Park. Each has a futuristic sheen — the one for Treasure Island looks like a silvery cloud from some angles, a sleek platypus skull from others.
January 2017:
“After extensive due diligence and deliberation,” the museum’s board of directors says that it has selected the Exposition Park site to build “a global destination that all Angelenos and Californians will be proud to call their own.”