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 roughly 300,000 square feet of floor area, dedicated to exhibition space for Lucas' 10,000-piece collection, a library, two theaters, classrooms, and offices.  Parking for 2,400 vehicles will be provided within a basement garage.

Chinese architect Ma Yansong designed the futuristic, otherworldly museum, which will feature a skin of undulating metal panels, topped with landscaped terraces.

Additionally, plans call for approximately 11 acres of new public open space wrapping around the property.  An existing soccer field which occupied a part of the museum site has already been relocated south to Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, and is currently being excavated for the proposed garage.

Completion of the Lucas Museum is anticipated in 2021, at which point it will join a number of landscape-shifting projects in Exposition Park.  Work is already underway for a $270-million renovation of the adjacent Coliseum, and a $300-million soccer stadium is now rising on the opposite side of the park.  In the near-term future, the nearby Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History is also preparing for a substantial makeover.