Ma Yansong brings futuristic nature to Lucas Museum

Chinese architect Ma Yansong says his Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles, due to open on September 22, is designed to blend a futuristic form with nature and spark curiosity.

The museum was founded by “Star Wars” creator George Lucas and his wife, Mellody Hobson. Its design includes lawns, trees, running water and a roof covered in vegetation and solar panels.

Ma told AFP at the Beijing office of MAD Architects, which he founded in 2004, that the building has a “futuristic feel” and should invite visitors to bring their own perspectives.

Ma, 50, grew up in a courtyard house in Beijing’s hutong alleyways, studied at the Yale School of Architecture and briefly worked at Zaha Hadid’s studio. His projects include the Harbin Opera House in China, the Absolute Towers near Toronto and a migration-themed museum in Rotterdam.

He said his work draws on traditional Chinese “shanshui”, or “mountains and water”, and on a shift in architecture toward people rather than buildings as status objects. Ma said he wants his buildings to be open places where people feel “they are the masters of the city.”