Natural History Museum of Los Angeles

Brief information

The museum did not begin only as a natural history museum. In 1913, it opened under the name “Museum of History, Science, and Art,” while a separate Los Angeles County Museum of Art appeared later, in 1961. So the current name conceals the broader concept of the early institution: from the start, different ways of telling the story of the world were brought together here.

The most visible trace of this early history is not a display case, but the building. The museum is housed in a marble structure with a dome and colonnade; the building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Later additions show that the museum was not a fixed shell: new sections were added to it in different decades.

What to notice first

It is worth comparing the old ceremonial foundation of the building with the very fact of the later additions. The marble, dome, and colonnade speak of the museum image of the early 20th century: the institution presented itself as an important public place. The additions from 1925, 1930, 1960, and 1976 change how the building is read: it is not a single monument completed once and for all, but a museum that physically grew along with its purposes.

Another detail for understanding it is the former name. It explains why the museum’s history is broader than natural history: at first history, science, and art stood side by side, and then art became a separate museum. After that, the building can be seen not simply as the shell of a collection, but as a place where the former universal model of the museum gradually narrowed and became more defined.