Self-cleaning kitchens and quickly assembled plastic houses enter LACMA's Resnick Pavilion in Home of the Future, 1925-1985: Designing Domestic Utopias. The exhibition follows sixty years of proposals for changing household life, through models, images and manufactured objects.
The exhibition opened September 27, 2026 and runs through March 14, 2027. Its materials include architectural models, drawings, photographs, films and household objects. Sinks and television sets belong to the story alongside more ambitious visions of tomorrow's home.
The work behind the promise
LACMA describes a period of push-button appliances, quickly assembled plastic houses and emerging desktop computers. The exhibition examines who imagined these futures, how they were sold and who was excluded.
Promises of easier housework also rest on assumptions about who cooks, cleans and maintains equipment. A machine can reduce one task while leaving much of a household routine intact. New equipment can bring demands for storage, maintenance or attention, even when it saves effort elsewhere.
The 1925-to-1985 span allows comparisons between earlier and later answers to familiar domestic problems. A mechanical appliance and a desktop computer may look far apart while both leave someone responsible for learning and maintaining the equipment. Models, images and manufactured objects also represent different stages of a proposal: an imagined house is not necessarily a product people could buy.
Visiting the Resnick Pavilion
The museum's visitor page recommends advance timed entry because walk-up slots may be unavailable. LACMA is closed on Wednesdays. Its listed Monday hours are 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.; check live hours and admission options for the date of a visit.
The exhibition page links large-print labels, providing access to the museum's object-specific descriptions before or after a visit. On campus, the Resnick Pavilion has its own location on the map, so allow time to reach it after entering.
