# George Lucas’s museum gets a spaceship home

> Ma Yansong’s Lucas Museum opens in Los Angeles with a design meant to feel futuristic, natural and open to everyone.
- Title: George Lucas’s museum gets a spaceship home · Malay Mail
- Summary: Ma Yansong’s Lucas Museum opens in Los Angeles with a design meant to feel futuristic, natural and open to everyone. Ma Yansong wants landmark buildings to…
- Keywords: architecture, museums, los angeles, design, george lucas, news, world, George, Lucas, museum, gets, spaceship
- Source: Malay Mail — https://malaymail.com/news/life/2026/09/16/george-lucass-futuristic-museum-lands-in-los-angeles-with-ma-yansongs-spaceshipstyle-design/235307
- Published: 2026-09-16T07:00:00+00:00
- Read time: 2 min
- Topics: architecture, museums, los angeles, design, george lucas, news, world
## A ship has landed
Near downtown Los Angeles, the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art looks like a spaceship, a tree canopy or a low cloud dropped among the palms.

> a giant spaceship has just landed
## Curiosity comes first
For architect Ma Yansong, the exact comparison matters less than the feeling. If the building makes people wonder, it is doing its job.

> sparks curiosity
## Lucas meets Ma
The museum opens on September 22. It was founded by George Lucas and Mellody Hobson, and Ma’s sci-fi energy fits the Star Wars connection.

> The building takes on a futuristic feel that generates excitement
## Every visitor sees differently
Ma expects people to notice light, sky, clouds or even the cosmos as they move through the museum. He wants those reactions to vary.

> They might catch a beam of light
## Born near nature
Ma grew up in a Beijing hutong courtyard house, where trees and open pockets shaped daily life. That early closeness to nature still guides him.

> There was a very close connection to nature
## A global practice
After Yale and time in Zaha Hadid’s studio, Ma built MAD Architects into a firm behind major works in China, Canada and the Netherlands.
## Mountains and water
His design language draws from shanshui, traditional Chinese paintings of mountains and water. The Lucas Museum turns that idea into lawns, trees and flowing paths.
## A living roof
The Los Angeles museum is tied to its surroundings with grass, trees, running water and a roof planted with vegetation and solar panels.
## Old ideas, new need
Ma sees today’s push for ecological design as linked to older Eastern architecture, where designed gardens still felt natural.

> traditional Eastern architecture mastered this long ago
## People before monuments
Ma says architecture is shifting away from buildings as status symbols. His goal is space people can enjoy, not structures that perform wealth or power.

> We aren’t using architecture to flaunt wealth or power
## Cities should feel open
That belief also shaped his Baiziwan Social Housing project in Beijing, designed with open movement, sunlight and shared gardens for low-income residents.

> everyone feels they are the masters of the city
## Key takeaway

Ma Yansong wants landmark buildings to stir curiosity while making people feel welcome, not small.