There are beehives – then there are behemoth beehives. The expanded LACMA’a brand new brutalist building, crossing over Wilshire like a jaywalker in the sky, might give off beehive vibes – or other shapes: a hexagon, the Vessel building in Lower Manhattan –  even a football. That’s from the outside. The inside seems like miles and miles of concrete curves, corners with breathtaking wide window views of the Fairfax district. Last week previewed a major triumph for the one of L.A.’s top culture locales: Miracle Mile’s Museum Row. In April 2026, the highly anticipated LACMA expansion, the David Geffen Galleries will open its imposing Brutalist doors after two decades in development – taking place among other major institutions: the Academy Museum, the original LACMA, the Petersen Automotive Museum, the LaBrea Tar Pits. Soon, there will be a Metro stop there, too.

While imposing to say the least, the building’s inspired all kinds of controversial contrarian opinions from art critics: Hunter Drohojowka-Philp calls it “magnificent, world class, a new level of museum architecture” – while THR’s Michael Slenke finds it too competitive with incoming purposeful art installations: “The building considers itself art – how can the art compete with it?” It’s the largest building ever designed by Pritzer Prize winning Swiss architect Peter Zumthor, known for small projects: European chapels, memorials, galleries, smaller museums. How will travelling art exhibitions work hung up against all that concrete? We will see . . . In the meantime, a grand majestic sculpture stands fixed at the front of the building, with concrete four legs and a tail. An animal to reflect the Tar Pits next to it? One thing we know: this sculpture, this building, will survive for hundreds of thousands of years. In that way, it’s a gift to humanity.