Chicago Gets Lucas Museum

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George Lucas has chosen Chicago as the city where he will build the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art.

Pending approval by the Chicago Plan Commission, the museum will be sited on parking lots between Soldier Field and McCormick Place, reports the Chicago Tribune. Architectural renderings will be presented to the city in the fall and the museum is expected to open in 2018.

Lucas wanted his museum in San Francisco but he started looking at other cities when the Presidio Trust Board repeatedly balked at proposals to develop it in Crissy Field. His museum was one of three competing plans for the property, all of which were finally rejected by unanimous vote of the Board last February.

The Board’s offer of an alternative site for the museum was scoffed at by a Lucas spokesman who called it “a hail Mary” on the part of the trust.

The Tribune said Lucas’ decision to select Chicago “reflects both a bungling of the billionaire’s legacy project by the board of a national park in San Francisco as well as an aggressive lobbying effort by Mayor Rahm Emanuel.”

For years he has been seeking a home for his vast collection of popular art –

I want to create a gathering place where children, parents, and grandparents can experience everything from the great illustrators such as Rockwell, N.C. Wyeth and Maxfield Parrish, to comic art and children’s book illustrations along with exhibitions of fashion, cinematic arts, and digital art.

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11 thoughts on “Chicago Gets Lucas Museum”

  1. The first floor will be kind of interesting; the second floor will have a bit more character; the third floor will really be quite a mess; and the rest of the complex will never really feel completed or a part of the whole.

  2. And shortly after the museum opens, the first, second, and third floors will be re-numbered as floors 4, 5, and 6. Much later, the “first” floor will be built on top of floor “6”, followed by the “second” and “third” floors.

  3. Mike: I hate to be a nerd about this, but shouldn’t you say “reports the CHICAGO TRIBUNE” instead of “reports to the CHICAGO TRIBUNE?” Martin

  4. Martin: Without your help that bit of illiteracy might have remained til the trump of doom! Fixed now.

    Morris: Sounds a lot like the hotel in Rye where they used to hold Lunacon. Fans will feel right at home.

  6. Allow a Chicago fan to intrude for a moment upon the comments from jaded jokesters to express enthusiasm for the proposed museum.

    I love illustration, I love filmmaking, and I love digital graphics. Would be nice to see a museum devoted to “narrative art,” anywhere. Even better to have one near home.

    One may reasonably expect SF and fantasy to be represented in the collection. The Lucas group’s pitch for the Presidio site gives some flavor. (It’s been memory-holed from the museum’s own site, though.)

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