Sure, it has ‘Star Wars,’ but the Lucas Museum’s free library and gardens are just as stellar – Timeout Los Angeles

September 20, 2026

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Sure, it has ‘Star Wars,’ but the Lucas Museum’s free library and gardens are just as stellar. Two of the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art’s most unique and transportive spaces don’t require a paid admission ticket.

Written by Michael Juliano, National Things to Do Editor, U.S.Saturday September 19 2026

Photograph: Michael Juliano for Time Out | Library at the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art

You’ve probably already seen footage of the Star Wars props, the Van Gogh–inspired Pikachu and the striking spaceship-like architecture. But the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art’s most unique assets actually might be outside of the galleries—and, after it officially debuts on September 22, open to visitors for free, no museum ticket required.

George Lucas has referred to his eponymous institution as a temple to the people’s art, where a self-portrait of Frida Kahlo, an oil painting of dogs playing poker and a screen-used Batman suit make unexpected neighbors. But that for-the-people perspective also—especially—extends to the entrancing gardens surrounding the building, as well as the open-to-the-public library. “I love that if you walk into our parks and gardens, you feel different,” says Lucas Museum CEO Tracey Bates. “You do feel like you’ve been transported somewhere else, which is the joy of storytelling—which is what the museum is all about.

Photograph: Michael Juliano for Time OutLucas Museum of Narrative Art

Whether you enter down the street from the Metro station on Vermont Avenue, across from the Natural History Museum and Coliseum at Bill Robertson Lane or into the middle of the Exposition Park–adjacent campus via the parking garage, you’ll find yourself in a mix of open grassy spaces and meandering walking paths.

(Access here is completely separate from the museum galleries, which cost $25 for adults and nothing for kids 17 and under.) Dense clusters of native flora that have been maturing off-site for the past six years add much-needed greenery to what was once a parking lot. The cloud-shaped profile of the museum building, designed by Ma Yansong of MAD Architects, seems to float above the multi-tiered gardens.