Las Vegas Museum of Art Reveals Plans for Francis Kéré–Designed Building
65Dec. 20, 2025
TheLas Vegas Museum of Arton December 17 released updated renderings of its future home, designed by the office of Pritzker Prize–winning Burkinabé architectDiébédo Francis Kéré. New York–basedarchitecturefirm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill is serving as the architect of record on the project. Influenced by southwestern Nevada’s Mojave Desert, the African savanna’s baobab tree, and the history of modernist architecture, the 60,000-square-foot structure, located in downtown Las Vegas’s Symphony Park, will be the city’s first freestanding art museum.
The new renderings reveal a trapezoidal building clad in local stone cut into diamond shapes, the exterior’s hue intended to mirror that of the surrounding Red Rock Mountains. An overhang projecting from the museum’s roof over its entrance is intended to conjure a front porch and offer visitors shelter from the sun. A winding interior staircase, visible from outside through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the lobby, is meant to recall a canyon. Other features include an oasis-like outdoor sculpture plaza and interior galleries inspired by the city’s Guardian Angel Cathedral, designed in 1963 by Paul Revere Williams, the first Black architect to join the American Institute of Architects and a force in the Southern California architecture scene of the era.
“We see the Las Vegas Museum of Art as a gathering place where the entire community can recognize itself and take pride in a building that reflects the history and spirit of the city and the beauty of its natural surroundings,” said Kére in a statement. “Las Vegas is a place of architectural marvels and of a timeless, awe-inspiring desert landscape. We hope to create a welcoming, engaging building that reflects both aspects of Las Vegas, restoring the presence of the natural world to the iconic skyline.”The museum is expected to be completed by 2029, with programming partly supported through a partnership with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, which will loan artworks and offer consultation.