About Us

We make the world a better place through culture.

Lord Cultural Resources was founded by Gail and Barry Lord in 1981 and grew to become the world’s most impactful cultural planning firm focused on museums, cultural districts, and the creative economy. With offices in Toronto, New York, Los Angeles, Madrid and Mumbai, Lord Cultural Resources has helped to create places, spaces and experiences in over 2,700 projects in 57 countries and 450 cities. In 2024, Joy Bailey-Bryant (President & Managing Partner), Dov Goldstein (Managing Partner) and Javier Jimenez (Managing Partner) joined Gail Lord in leading the firm into the future.

We are thinkers, collaborators, and problem solvers

We employ a human-centric approach to all our projects, engaging with stakeholders, communities, and subject matter experts, to ensure that visitor and user needs, and expectations are first and foremost in an ever- evolving and competitive market. Our team of designers and architects, planners, writers, market and financial specialists and experience creators apply their expertise to a wide spectrum of cultural projects, offering a broad range of integrated services.

We plan and develop implementable solutions, help create new visitor experiences and craft visionary strategies for museums, universities, mixed-use developments, cultural centers, art galleries, science centers, world expositions, visitor centers, heritage sites, festivals, theaters, archives, libraries, gardens, conservatories, and arboreta around the world.

We write the textbooks

In addition to this extensive practical planning experience, Lord Cultural Resources has made a definitive contribution to the development of museum planning through its pioneering publications. Our Manual of Museum Planning – an exhaustive 350-page guide considered to be the authoritative text on the subject – was originally published in 1991 and has since been released in a third edition in 2012. See all our publications.

Our Commitment to Diversity

At Lord Cultural Resources, we live diversity and inclusion through our teams in Toronto, Los Angeles, New York, Mumbai and Europe. We emphasize belonging and learning, and gain strength from the many communities of gender, culture, race, and ethnicity we serve.

We actively work to create new leadership opportunities for racialized culture sector professionals.

2020: Lord established “Fellowship 2020 for Black Americans in Arts, Culture and Museums” in collaboration with the Association of African American Museums (AAAM) to achieve sustainable leadership positions in the cultural space.

2021: Lord founded the BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) Fellowship to develop new leadership opportunities for BIPOC professionals in the Canadian arts and culture sectors.

2021-2022: Lord provided coaching services to the “Professional Alliance for Curators of Color (PACC)” – a project of the Association of Art Museum Curators.

2023-ongoing: Sponsored the Association of Children's Museums Diversity in Action Fellowship.

We know that inclusion is a process that requires daily focus, and our commitment remains continuous, evolving and steadfast.

Land Acknowledgement

Our Toronto office is located within the traditional territory of many nations, including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat peoples. Toronto is home to many diverse First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples. Our New York office is located on the traditional lands of the Lenape peoples. Our Long Beach office is located on the land of the Tongva/Gabrieleño and the Acjachemen/Juaneño Nations, who have lived and continue to live here. We encourage you to acknowledge the presence of the people who came before, wherever you are.