Four cranes are standing tall in Exposition Park, as the steel framework begins to take shape for the $1-billion Lucas Museum of Narrative Art. — Urbanize LA

Four months ago, ground was broken for the $1-billion Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Exposition Park.  Construction has now gone vertical, with a tower crane soaring above Vermont Avenue.

The 300,000-square-foot facility, which is being built as a legacy project by Star Wars creator George Lucas, replaces two former parking lots with a four-story, 115,000-square-foot structure that will serve as the permanent home for the filmmaker's 10,000-piece collection.  — urbanize.LA

After several years of planning and proposals in different cities, the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, funded by the “Star Wars” filmmaker George Lucas, is breaking ground today on a new building here that its leaders predict will take about four years to complete.

Designed by Ma Yansong of MAD Architects, the museum will occupy a corner of Exposition Park, an urban hub near the University of Southern California that already contains three museums [...]. — The New York Times

One year after Los Angeles unexpectedly won the right to host the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, the spaceship-like project is now ready to push dirt in Exposition Park. Protective fencing now encircles the site of filmmaker George Lucas' $1-billion legacy project, which replaces two parking lots at the intersection of 39th Street and Vermont Avenue. The eventual four-story, 115-foot-tall building will feature[...] Lucas' 10,000-piece collection, a library, two theaters, classrooms, and offices. — urbanize.LA

For all of the dubious attention attracted by the “Bilbao Effect” theory [...] a more prosaic, and arguably more important aspect of museum location has received little attention: not which city a museum is built in, but where in that city. Locations that would once have seemed inevitable, such as Chicago parkland, are hugely contentious in the 2000s, while locations previously unthinkable in that year – an abandoned lumbermill in Bilbao [...] – are now commonplace. — theguardian.com

Designed by architect Shohei Shigematsu of Rem Koolhaas' OMA practice, the striking glass building was a losing entrant in George Lucas' 2014 competition to design his museum.

Now that legal wrangling over the use of the lakefront site between Soldier Field and McCormick Place has prompted Lucas to definitively rule out Chicago as the home of his project, OMA has released the images for Chicagoans to further ponder what might have been. — chicagotribune.com

[Friends of the Park] said in a news release that the stay "gives all parties the opportunity to have a more direct and productive dialogue to reach a potential solution about a museum site." [...]

The move marks the latest twist in a controversy that began in 2014 when Lucas shifted the museum's location to Chicago... It gives momentum, if only momentarily, to a compromise plan for the museum that Emanuel floated last month. — chicagotribune.com

this plan creates a new complication all its own: a financing scheme that involves borrowing nearly $1.2 billion and extending five taxes beyond their expiration dates: Tax dollars collected in 2066 still would be paying off a deal cut a half-century earlier, in 2016. [...]

By law both proposed museum sites are submerged lake bottom and have special protections. [...] If you're a citizen, you own what's called a fractional beneficial interest in this public trust land. You can use it. — Editorial Board – chicagotribune.com

Does Mayor Rahm Emanuel want to tear down the McCormick Place East building to make way for the controversial Lucas Museum of Narrative Art?

If reports to that effect are true, the move, which would demolish most of the massive structure, could be an olive branch to parks advocates dedicated to keeping the shoreline clear of buildings. — Blair Kamin | the Chicago Tribune

In a filing Tuesday, the city asked the judge in the case to lift an order barring Lucas from starting construction before the legal fight is resolved. The city argues the order "puts the entire project at risk" because the museum "may choose to leave Chicago and relocate to another city." A status hearing is set for Wednesday. — Chicago Tribune

The Chicago City Council voted on Wednesday to approve the zoning proposal for the 300,000-square-foot Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, which will be located near Soldier Field. — NBC News