MOAH
PROJECT SUBTYPES
Date Complete
2012
Location
Downtown Lancaster, CA
Owner/Developer
City of Lancaster Parks Recreation & Arts Department
Total Units
—
Lot Area
34,850
Building Area
18,635
Awards
2013 LABC Award of Excellence – Civic
The Lancaster Museum of Art & History (MOAH) serves as the jewel of the city’s revitalized downtown, anchoring its main intersection and standing as a landmark of cultural renewal. Once a neglected stretch lined with vacant buildings, downtown Lancaster has been reimagined through the 2008 Downtown Specific Plan, which focused new growth and public life within the city’s original urban core. MOAH embodies that vision—functioning as both a museum and a community gathering place at the heart of the city.
Designed to the standards of the American Alliance of Museums, MOAH is a state-of-the-art facility composed of opaque and transparent volumes. Its bold black gallery forms house a 2,500-square-foot main exhibition hall with a 25-foot ceiling and three smaller galleries for rotating shows and works from the museum’s collection.
A transparent classroom along the street activates the public realm, inviting passersby to engage with art in progress. Above, a luminous rooftop event space acts as a glowing beacon visible across downtown.
Sustainability and adaptive reuse are integral to the design—one-third of a former bank building was repurposed to accommodate MOAH’s offices, collections storage, and back-of-house functions. With its thoughtful architecture and diverse programming, MOAH has become a catalyst for the city’s rebirth, embodying Lancaster’s evolution into a walkable, culturally vibrant desert community.
