CHICAGO (AP) - The
team behind George Lucas’ art and movie museum released revised renderings
showing more green space at the Chicago site but no radical changes to the
undulating, futuristic building stoking passions in a city that guards its
Lake Michigan shoreline with religious-like devotion.
Images that will be
presented to City Council next week show designers have significantly shrunk
the lakefront building while preserving a smooth, tapering, dune-like form
topped with an observation deck resembling a floating disc - a shape that
critics have compared to Jabba the Hutt. Defenders of what will be known as
the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, including Mayor Rahm Emanuel, have said
the design is loyal to Chicago’s history of making bold architectural
statements and its devotion to keeping the lakefront open, accessible and
green.
"Currently, it’s a
vast asphalt parking lot that is not welcoming; it’s not very green,” museum
President Don Bacigalupi said of the site to the south of Soldier Field,
home of the Chicago Bears. “And so replacing that with both a museum that’s
an amenity, that’s an attraction and an educational inspiration, plus this
very new green space park ... that’s really our goal.”
The 17-acre site
will erase the parking lot and add 4.5 acres of new parkland.
A group committed
to preserving open space, especially along the Lake Michigan shoreline, has
fought the museum’s location out of concern it opens the way for more
construction on the valuable ribbon of public, open land. In a lawsuit
currently in federal court, it says the city has no authority to hand over
the land, citing a legal principle known as the public trust doctrine, which
requires the state to ensure open spaces are preserved and accessible to the
public.
The design
revisions unveiled Thursday were not an attempt to appease critics. Rather,
as more planning went into the interior space, the exterior changed,
Bacigalupi said. The original building was scaled back from 400,000 to
300,000 square feet, allowing for more park space.
That space will
include an “event prairie” and expanses of trees and native plantings to
attract birds and other wildlife, as well as layers of pools designed to
filter storm runoff.
Its designers,
architects Jeanne Gang and Kate Orff, said they wanted the space to function
as educational “green infrastructure,” while providing an inspiring gateway
to the museum rising in the distance.
The design is
essentially final, although there could be minor adjustments. Construction
is expected to begin in March and last until 2018.
It features an
open-air observation deck on the rooftop, accessible for free by a ramp
winding up the building’s interior cone shape.
An outdoor plaza in
front gently rolls upward into the sloping face of the building.
“It reminds you of
the sand dune landscape that had been there on the lakefront a long time
ago,” said architect Ma Yansong. “So it’s very organic architecture.”
The museum will
showcase popular art Lucas has collected since college, including
illustrations by Norman Rockwell, Maxfield Parrish and N.C. Wyeth, as well
as works by Lucas’s visual effects company, Industrial Light and Magic.
It also will
feature digital media arts and film industry art, including props, costumes,
set pieces and story boards. Three auditoriums will host films, lectures and
workshops. And there’s an educational library.
The vision is to
highlight art that tells a story. The collection will have “Star Wars” and
“Indiana Jones” fans mingling with art connoisseurs, Bacigalupi said.