LACMA Gallery Tour: Home of the Future

Two LACMA exhibitions about how Americans imagined domestic life get a guided walk-through on Thursday, November 5. A museum docent leads the 60-minute tour of Home of the Future, 1925-1985: Designing Domestic Utopias and The Kitchen and Its Discontents, and it is a good pick if you are sorting through things to do in Los Angeles that don't need a big night out.

When: Thursday, November 5, 2026, 2 PM to 3 PM Where: Resnick Pavilion, LACMA, 5905 Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles Price: Free with museum admission

What the tour covers

Home of the Future follows the century's promises of tomorrow's house. Between 1925 and 1985, Americans were offered self-cleaning kitchens, plastic houses assembled in a day, push-button appliances and desktop computers. The show gathers architectural models, drawings, photographs, films and objects ranging from sinks to television sets. It traces how the home of tomorrow was imagined, packaged and sold, by whom and for whom, and it asks who was left out of that future and who imagined radical alternatives.

The Kitchen and Its Discontents is smaller and more pointed. The kitchen has long been a site of women's labor, and also the subject of their design research and cultural critique. The show puts two influential kitchens from LACMA's collection side by side: Margarete Schutte-Lihotzky's 1926 to 1930 kitchen for the New Frankfurt housing program in Germany, and the 1948 to 1950 kitchen by Charlotte Perriand and Le Corbusier for L'Unite d'Habitation in Marseille. Both applied modern ideas about efficiency and modularity, aiming to make women's lives easier. Photographs, prints and advertisements from the museum's holdings show how much messier the reality was.

Why go with a docent

A guided tour is the easiest way to see how the two shows talk to each other. One is a sweeping look at the marketing of the future, the other a close study of a single room. A docent can point out details you might walk past on your own, and an hour is enough to cover both without museum fatigue. If you are scanning upcoming events in Los Angeles for something free-ish and thoughtful, this is a low-effort afternoon.

Practical info

The tour meets at the Resnick Pavilion, and the price is included with general museum admission, so check LACMA's site for current ticket options and free-entry programs before you go. LACMA notes that these tours are volunteer-led and subject to cancellation, so ask a member of the team on the day if you want to confirm it is running.

Parking on the Miracle Mile fills up, and the Metro D Line now stops at Wilshire/Fairfax, right at the museum, which makes transit the easier way in. Browse more art, design and museum listings in the arts and culture events section, and you will find plenty of ways to fill LA events this weekend and beyond.