La Brea Tar Pits closing
Los Angeles’ Page Museum at the La Brea Tar Pits will close in July for a two‑year renovation that aims to modernize the building and improve accessibility — a major shift for the city’s museum calendar ahead of the 2028 Olympics. (The Los Angeles Times reports the July closure and two‑year timeline, and CBS Los Angeles ties the work to broader pre‑Olympics renovations including the Getty Center.) (latimes.com) (cbsnews.com)
One of Los Angeles’ best-known museums now has a last call date: the George C. Page Museum at La Brea Tar Pits will stay open through July 6, 2026, then shut for about two years while the campus is rebuilt around it. (latimes.com) The closure is not for a quick paint job. It is the first major renovation since the museum opened in 1977, nearly 50 years ago. (tarpits.org) La Brea Tar Pits is not just a museum with old bones in cases. It is a 13-acre fossil site in Hancock Park where scientists are still pulling Ice Age specimens out of asphalt in the middle of Los Angeles. (tarpits.org) That active dig is one reason the project is bigger than the building. Los Angeles County approved a revised master plan that renovates the existing roughly 63,200-square-foot museum, updates old systems, and brings the site up to modern seismic, electrical, and building-code standards. (file.lacounty.gov) Museum officials say the current building has simply run out of room. The collection holds more than 2 million specimens, and the renovation is meant to expand storage, research labs, and public display space for those fossils. (tarpits.org) Visitors are also supposed to see more of the science instead of just the finished results. The plan calls for enlarged visible labs and collections areas, plus a new immersive theater and a rooftop terrace facing Hancock Park. (yahoo.com) The redesign also changes how people enter the site. Planning documents describe new and improved access from Wilshire Boulevard and Sixth Street, along with a new northwest entrance intended to make the campus easier to reach and move through. (la.urbanize.city) The museum building will go dark, but the tar pits do not disappear. The surrounding park will remain open during construction, and officials say guests will still be able to watch active excavation from new vantage points while researchers keep working on site. (latimes.com) This is landing as Los Angeles starts reshaping its museum calendar before the 2028 Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games. CBS Los Angeles reported that the Getty Center will also close for renovations, with that project scheduled to start on March 15, 2027 and reopen in spring 2028. (cbsnews.com) So the next two years will leave a gap on Museum Row even as the fossil site stays alive behind the fences. If the schedule holds, the Page Museum returns in 2028 with a rebuilt front door, bigger research spaces, and a very different role in a city getting ready to host the world. (latimes.com)
