CHICAGO | Lucas Museum of Narrative Art

[tintinex]

And the images are out!

Lucas Museum design an architectural mountain on city's lakefront

If you expected filmmaker George Lucas to give Chicago a low-slung museum that would slip quietly into the fiercely contested ground of the city's lakefront, I have news for you: You expected wrong.

A conceptual plan for the proposed Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, revealed Monday, sketches a far more ambitious vision from the "Star Wars" creator: A curvaceous, nearly windowless mountain of a building, topped by a glassy observation deck that would resemble a flying saucer.

http://gizmodo.com



http://www.trbimg.com/img-1415055702...-20141103/1280

[Steely Dan]

^ wow, that sure is out there!

expect a shitstorm of pushback from the lakefront protection people.

[UrbanLibertine]

It's different. That building legitimately looks like something from a Star Wars movie...

Originally Posted by migueltorres

And the images are out!




http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/c...mn.html#page=1

[Via Chicago]

gonna be honest, i was expecting a lower profile design. not really feeling this....

[CHI -21c]

Didn't Lucas tell Rahm Emanuel, "I have to warn you, I want something bold, something avant-garde"

....well?

As a layman, I see today's attempts to try and be novel and abstract as very conventional. White freeform has been done over and over, and the freeform isn't that free; it's just imitations of what everyone's been doing.

Far from iconic.

[the urban politician]

Steely, you should plop a few renderings onto the first page

I recommend these:

http://gizmodo.com

[F1 Tommy]

Those higher res photos really make this project look nice. Maybe a few changes could be made but I hope they build it close to as shown. We do need a few buildings from this artchitect in Chicago.

[chiphile]

I'd like to see some renderings during winter, it may look even better in a field of snow. If anyone's obsessed with the Chicago prairie landscape, 5 months out of the year it is snow white. In that instance, a snow mound is perfectly within context.

We have very few buildings that serve as expressive art themselves.. Aqua is an obvious, but everything else in Chicago is form, function, box and steel. This should be considered art/sculpture more than building, then maybe more people would be open to it.

We are just conditioned to think museums have to look like the unapproachable roman column style. Nothing about the Field Museum draws me towards it. It looks like a government fortress. This has gravity to it.

For the form follows function crowd, the theory is the shape and design of the building should reflect its use or purpose. OK... this IS form following function, the point of the building is to evoke imagination, storytelling, and curiosity. It does just that, and will house art that also does that.

[Tom Servo]

Originally Posted by F1 Tommy

Those higher res photos really make this project look nice. Maybe a few changes could be made but I hope they build it close to as shown. We do need a few buildings from this artchitect in Chicago.

I couldn't agree more. I would love to see them do a high profile skyscraper in LSE or some other prominent location where it'd have big visual impact on the skyline. If only Trump tower could be magically erased and replaced with a MAD design.

Maybe Related... wait, never mind, that's just stupid to even consider...

[Onn]

I don't know how I feel about this, doesn't seem to jive well with Chicago's classic architecture in the area. I feel like they should have built this in San Francisco.

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by Onn

I don't know how I feel about this, doesn't seem to jive well with Chicago's classic architecture in the area. I feel like they should have built this in San Francisco.

[chiphile]

Originally Posted by Onn

I don't know how I feel about this, doesn't seem to jive well with Chicago's classic architecture in the area. I feel like they should have built this in San Francisco.

I think for an out-of-towner (I am assuming you are), the renderings make for a skewed perception.

The skyline in the back, for example the Sears Tower, is still about two and a half miles away (three and half miles in case of the Hancock). The Sears Tower's two white antennae are around 280 feet tall, this museum is about HALF their size.

So the classical architecture you refer to is not "in the area," this is a large park space that is away from most of the skyline. Furthermore, this would only be visible for maybe less than a half mile on lakeshore drive, and won't be visible from the vast majority of downtown, let alone the city. If the museum was in the middle of a downtown block on Michigan ave, yes, totally out of place, but this is pure parkland with the lake to the east.

[alex1]

Originally Posted by chiphile

I think for an out-of-towner (I am assuming you are), the renderings make for a skewed perception.

The skyline in the back, for example the Sears Tower, is still about two and a half miles away (three and half miles in case of the Hancock). The Sears Tower's two white antennae are around 280 feet tall, this museum is about HALF their size.

So the classical architecture you refer to is not "in the area," this is a large park space that is away from most of the skyline. Furthermore, this would only be visible for maybe less than a half mile on lakeshore drive, and won't be visible from the vast majority of downtown, let alone the city. If the museum was in the middle of a downtown block on Michigan ave, yes, totally out of place, but this is pure parkland with the lake to the east.

I assume that poster if talking about the neoclassical designs from the Field, Shedd, Adler and Soldier field. The counterargument is that there have been modern additions to all these structures minus the Field.

[Tom Servo]

Originally Posted by Onn

I don't know how I feel about this, doesn't seem to jive well with Chicago's classic architecture in the area. I feel like they should have built this in San Francisco.

We were once a city of architectural innovation and the center of new thought in the architecture world. There's nothing classic about our architectural legacy. We have only a, rather unfortunately large, collection of neoclassical buildings and museums that mar our city and muddle our history. The Field museum is one of them, which I assume is the classic architecture you're referring to.

The architecture of Ma Yansong and his partners is more Chicago in spirit than anything I can think of since the Modern Wing. This museum, however the final design ends up, could not better capture the spirit of Sullivan, Van Der Rohe, Goldberg, Graham, Jahn... Say what you will about the look of the building, but our architectural legacy is defined by our ability to break away from antiquity and create new styles, to define our own norms, innovate, and never replicate. So tell me, please, how doesn't this museum "jive" with our city's ethos? Because I'll tell you this; it is the Field, Art Institute, Museum of S and I... it was Burnham and all his neoclassical piers that he brought over that does not "jive" with Chicago's architectural spirit.

[sentinel]

^^

Oh Lord.

[ChickeNES]

A bit of unintentional humor from CNN in their article on the Lucas Museum:

http://imgur.com/X7Ws3YM

[denizen467]

Originally Posted by ChickeNES

A bit of unintentional humor from CNN in their article on the Lucas Museum:

http://imgur.com/X7Ws3YM

Presumably you are talking about the "Architects Ludwig Mies van der Rohe have released the designs for the Lucas Museum..." caption!

[wrab]

More from Blair Kamin:

Chicago Tribune
George Lucas' Museum Proposal is Needlessly Massive
By Blair Kamin
November 6, 2014

I think I can explain the widespread public revulsion toward the just-released design for the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art. This isn't the typical shock of the new. People are mad because they instinctively get that this cartoonish mountain of a building would be glaringly out of place amid the horizontal sweep of Chicago's lakefront.....

Article continues here

[Tom Servo]

Whatever, Blair...

An affront to the lakefront? Needlessly massive?? Mount Lucas???



Give me a break. You're not going to get a low-slung building with proportions similar to Navy Pier on this site. There's just too much square footage. And more importantly, how is this museum in any way comparable or relatable to Navy Pier? It's not.



The only point of comparison should be its surroundings. The Field, Soldier Field, and Lakeside Center. Compared to these, Lucas's museum is comparable in size and shorter than two. So let's stop with the NIMBY language about height and size, please. God Kamin sounds like an idiot.


chicagotribune.com

[Via Chicago]

I think his points are valid. Also, it sounds like Rahm is being guarded in his comments as well so I wouldnt become too attached to the current iteration as I imagine its likely to get tweaked.

I still dont understand why if youre going to build so far above ground you'd include so few windows. Yes, theres an observation deck but the museum trend is away from this bunker mentality and towards natural light/views, which makes the interior easier to navigate and less claustrophobic.

Also, its a little unfair looking at this strictly from a height perspective...if nothing else Lakeside Center and the Field emphasize their width rather than height. And SF used to, before it was bastardized. Take away the spaceship, and all three of those speak pretty nicely to each other.