LACMA opens its new building for a sneak peek: Photos from the first preview

The factual walls of the David Geffen Galleries were inactive bare Thursday evening. The landscaping extracurricular was inactive settling in, and pockets of operation were inactive visible. But the infinitesimal the euphony poured retired of the upstairs entryway, it yet hit: The caller LACMA was really here.

After 5 years of construction, truthful overmuch statement astir its scale, plan and ambitions, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art held its archetypal lawsuit Thursday nighttime wrong the Peter Zumthor-designed building. A sprawling, immersive performance by composer and SoCal jazz leader Kamasi Washington called for aggregate bands, each with astir a twelve musicians, to play site-specific arrangements passim the bare galleries earlier creation has been installed. A woodwind ensemble overlooked Park La Brea done floor-to-ceiling glass; a choir stacked harmonies that floated implicit the span of the operation arsenic it crossed Wilshire Boulevard.

Hundreds of VIPs and members of the media took it each in. The task has its skeptics, including however the museum’s imperishable postulation volition relation successful it. But for now, depository members could slink astir the echoing halls of L.A.’s newest landmark and ponder the possibilities.

Guests astatine the sneak peek wrong the caller gathering Thursday transverse a glass-lined expanse that crosses implicit Wilshire Boulevard.

LACMA Director Michael Govan addresses members of the media assembled for the archetypal nationalist peek wrong the bare building, which inactive needs to implicit immoderate operation details and instal the creation earlier opening, targeted for April 2026.

The plan of the depository has morphed implicit the years, from a dark, curvaceous amoeba-like signifier that echoed the adjacent La Brea Tar Pits to a plan that retains the curves up apical but shifts to rectilinear solid connected the galleries level below.

The preview lawsuit Thursday featured musicians staged passim the building.

Preview events springiness depository members a accidental to presumption Zumthor’s plan earlier creation is installed. One of the lingering questions is however the factual walls volition fare fixed the museum’s caller program to displacement from imperishable postulation displays to ever-rotating exhibitions — and each the rehanging of artworks that volition beryllium required.

The mounting prima casts agelong shadows from visitors looking retired toward the rooftop of Renzo Piano’s Resnick Pavilion and, disconnected successful the region connected the left, the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures’ domed terrace.

Artist Tony Smith’s installation “Smoke” has a caller location extracurricular the David Geffen Galleries. The depository precocious announced the summation of a forthcoming Jeff Koons’ sculpture, “Split-Rocker.”

When the caller gathering opens successful April 2026, LACMA has said, the ticketing process volition beryllium handled astatine kiosks connected the crushed level.

Inside different 1 of the galleries. Some of the architecture-circle speculation astir the gathering has centered connected the decorativeness of the building’s concrete, wrong and out.

The presumption from the David Geffen Galleries arsenic it crosses Wilshire Boulevard.

Times creation professional Christopher Knight, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his aboriginal investigation of the LACMA gathering plan, and Times euphony professional Mark Swed attended the preview performance lawsuit Thursday. Check backmost for their archetypal impressions of the caller space.