The veil, the vault, and the olive trees
Architecture you can read from the street
Designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro in collaboration with Gensler, the 120,000-square-foot building merges public exhibition space and collection storage in its 'veil-and-vault' concept. The vault's heavy opaque mass hovers midway through the building — its carved underside shapes the lobby, its top surface is the floor of the skylit third-floor galleries, and viewing windows let you peer straight into the collection holdings. Wrapping it all is the veil: an airy, honeycomb-like structure spanning the block-long gallery that filters natural daylight. Outside, a public plaza planted with 100-year-old Barouni olive trees adds critical green space to Grand Avenue.
Built to last
- LEED Gold, 2016 — The first major art museum in Los Angeles — and one of only a handful nationwide — to achieve LEED Gold status.
- Daylit by design — The 35,000-square-foot top floor gallery is illuminated most days by natural diffused light from skylights.
- Transit-adjacent — Steps from the Metro Regional Connector station at 2nd and Hope streets.