9 Billionaire Art Museums

Featured on forbes.com

If there’s anything one-percenters love collecting more than real estate, it’s fine art.

And though some patrons choose to stash their treasures behind steel doors, others opt to share their precious troves with the masses (for a small fee, of course). Here’s a look at nine art institutions funded by some of the world’s wealthiest folks, from a volcano-shaped building budding in Chicago to a museum-mall hybrid making headlines in Hong Kong.

The George Lucas Museum of Narrative Art

The father of Star Wars and Indiana Jones has commissioned the construction of a one-of-a-kind museum in the Windy City, slated to open in 2019.

Designed by MAD Architects (the mastermind behind China’s Harbin Opera House), the structure resembles a sculptural mountain crowned with a metal halo and features an observation deck with 360-degree views of the city and Lake Michigan.

Set to display a range of popular art spanning three levels (each shaped like an infinite loop), the Lucas Museum will provide an insider’s look into the cinematic creative process and offer public outreach and educational programming services in partnership with various cultural, community, and civic groups.

Long Museum

Founded by Chinese financier Liu Yiqian and his wife, Wang Wei, the Long Museum houses a mix of modern and traditional Chinese pieces flecked with contemporary European and Asian art.

The couple’s 1,900-piece collection—which includes the Meiyintang “chicken cup,” a Chinese porcelain piece Liu paid a record-breaking $36.05 million for in 2014—is primarily housed within the establishment’s two exhibition spaces in Shanghai: Long Museum Pudong (in Pudong New Area) and Long Museum West Bund (in the Xuhui District).

Measuring four stories and over 100,000 square feet, Long Museum Pudong—designed by Chinese architect Zhong Song—features a permanent exhibition hall and a temporary wing exclusively for classic Chinese art and artifacts. Meanwhile Long Museum West Bund—located at the heart of the West Bund Culture Corridor in Binjiang—was conceived by Atelier Deshaus’ Liu Yichun. Showcasing an open-plan interior that includes a river-view restaurant and a concert hall, the umbrella-vaulted structure incorporates an old concrete bridge used to transport coal in the 1950s.

Neue Galerie

Housed in a landmarked Fifth Avenue mansion along 86th Street, Neue Galerie was established by prominent businessman Ronald Lauder in honor of his dear friend and internationally renowned art dealer Serge Sabarsky, with whom he shared a passion for modern German and Austrian art.

Centered on early 20th-century German and Austrian art and design, the museum’s permanent collection is housed in the building’s first two levels while special, temporary exhibits occupy the third-floor galleries.

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