Los Angeles Art, Architecture & Culture: the back story

About Los Angeles Art, Architecture & Culture: the back story

By the ULTIMATE Los Angeles Editorial Team

Editor-in-Chief: Jai Michael

Los Angeles does culture on a grand, sunlit scale. In the space of three decades the city has given itself a hilltop museum campus, a stainless-steel concert hall, a contemporary art museum wrapped in a honeycomb veil, a gallery building that floats over Wilshire Boulevard and, this autumn, a museum of storytelling in Exposition Park. Behind them lies an older story of mid-century houses that taught the world how to live with glass, steel and sunshine. Here is how it all fits together, and how to see it.

The Getty on its hill

The Getty bought its Brentwood hilltop in 1982, chose Richard Meier as architect in 1984 and began building in 1989. The Getty Center opened on 16 December 1997, and its first visitors walked straight into Robert Irwin’s Central Garden, a 134,000-square-foot garden commissioned as a work of art in its own right.

Meier’s pale stone and white metal pavilions hold European paintings, sculpture, drawings and photographs, but you will spend as long on the terraces as in the galleries: the views run from the mountains to the Pacific. A tram climbs from the car park; entry needs a timed reservation, so book ahead on the Getty’s website, and pair it with the Getty Villa at Pacific Palisades for antiquities by the sea.

In Los Angeles the architecture is half the exhibition: you come for the collection and stay for the light.

LACMA over Wilshire

On Museum Row, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art has rebuilt its heart. The David Geffen Galleries, designed by the Swiss architect Peter Zumthor, opened on 19 April 2026 as the new home of the permanent collection. The building spans Wilshire Boulevard on concrete pavilions that lift the galleries 30 feet into the air, and the elevated floor leaves 3.5 acres of shaded public space below.

Inside, the inaugural installation uses the Pacific, Indian and Atlantic Oceans and the Mediterranean Sea as its framework, so you travel between cultures rather than through the usual chain of period rooms. Allow a half day, and note that LACMA closes on Wednesdays. The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures is next door, and the Petersen Automotive Museum and the La Brea Tar Pits are a short walk along the boulevard.

Grand Avenue

Downtown, Grand Avenue has become the city’s cultural spine. Lillian Disney’s gift of 1987 set Walt Disney Concert Hall in motion; Frank Gehry was chosen as architect the following year, and the hall opened on 23 October 2003. Gehry first planned to clad it in stone, then switched to the stainless-steel sails you see today. Inside, the acoustician Yasuhisa Toyota helped shape a 2,265-seat auditorium for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the pipe organ was designed with Manuel Rosales, and the rooftop garden is open to wander.

Across the street, The Broad opened in 2015 to show Eli and Edythe Broad’s collection of post-war and contemporary art: more than 2,000 works by nearly 200 artists. Diller Scofidio + Renfro, with Gensler, called the design “the veil and the vault”: a honeycomb skin around a solid core that stores the works not on show. MOCA’s Grand Avenue building faces it, and its Geffen Contemporary occupies a former warehouse in Little Tokyo. Add the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, the Ahmanson Theatre and the Mark Taper Forum of The Music Center, and you can spend a whole day and evening on one street.

The Case Study houses

The modern Los Angeles house was largely invented in the hills. The Case Study House Program produced roughly two dozen homes as experiments in post-war living, and two of them still welcome visitors. The Eames House, Case Study House #8, was built in 1949 in Pacific Palisades by Charles and Ray Eames and is now a National Historic Landmark; the Eames Foundation runs guided exterior tours that you book in advance. Guides start in the meadow with the story of Charles and Ray’s move to Los Angeles, and the tour includes the on-site studio.

Above Sunset, the Stahl House, Case Study House #22, was designed by Pierre Koenig for Buck and Carlotta Stahl and made famous by Julius Shulman’s photographs. The Stahl family still opens it for tours, booked on the house’s own website; go at dusk, when the city lights come on below the glass.

What’s new (checked October 2026)

The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art opened on 22 September 2026 at One Lucas Plaza in Exposition Park. Its sculptural building is by Ma Yansong, with landscape by Mia Lehrer, and the museum explores how narrative art, from painting and illustration to comics and film, shapes the way we see the world.

LACMA’s David Geffen Galleries, opened in April 2026, are the other big change of the year. And at Walt Disney Concert Hall, the Los Angeles Philharmonic has named Daniel Harding its next music director, with his tenure beginning in the 2027/28 season.

Cultural calendar

Frieze Los Angeles returns to Santa Monica Airport from 25 to 28 February 2027, and the city’s galleries plan their strongest shows around fair week. In summer the Hollywood Bowl takes over, and it has already begun announcing its 2027 season. From autumn to spring, the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s season fills Walt Disney Concert Hall. For exhibitions, check each museum’s own programme before you go.

How to see it

Our advice: give each area its own day. Start on the hill at the Getty in the morning light; spend a day on Wilshire between LACMA and the Academy Museum; and keep a day for Grand Avenue, ending with a concert at Disney Hall. Book the Getty, the house tours and the concerts direct with each venue, and see our Arts & Culture page for every museum, stage and concert hall we recommend.

Opening hours, prices and seasonal openings change, so please check with Los Angeles Art, Architecture & Culture: the back story before you go.