New Lucas Museum Designs Still Not Winning Any Popularity Contests
By Kate Shepherd in News on Oct 1, 2015 6:26PM
Latest design (Lucas Museum of Narrative Art)
The controversial Lucas Museum still isn't winning over critics, even after its latest redesign. Chicagoans were given a chance to voice their opinions about the museum at two public hearings this week and the reactions were definitely mixed.
The revised design shrunk from 400,000 to 300,000 square feet to allow more room for parks and green space and although the shape didn't change much, some have said it's less jarring, according to the Sun-Times.
"It's smaller, but it's still amazingly big," Chicago architect Carol Ross Barney, whose firm designed the Riverwalk, told the Sun-Times. "I'm just not sure we have the right building yet."
The museum is a good fit for the lakefront but it's location between McCormick Place and Soldier Field poses a big design problem, she said.
Ald. Will Burns (4th) whose ward includes the museum site thinks that residents will warm up to the design over time like they did to the Soldier Field renovation over 10 years ago.
But there's still controversy lingering not about the design, but the use of public land for a privately owned museum. Soldier Field itself is owned by the Chicago Park District, not the Bears or NFL.
"I'm here absolutely enraged by them taking away public land for private enterprise," Jim Purgatorio told the Tribune before a hearing Wednesday. "My major concern is that if we allow them to do this, that there's no end to the land grab that people are going to make beyond this."
There's no doubt that the proposed building's interesting so architectural experts are more likely to be excited about it. Zurich Esposito, executive vice president of The American Institute of Architects Chicago, is excited about the building's "dune-like" form, which others have compared to Jabba The Hutt. (And on a possibly related note, if you're wondering how a Jabba The Hutt-like structure would look on your own front lawn, you can find out here.)
"Personally, I think it will be exciting to see how such an architectural form will be constructed," Esposito told the Sun-Times. "It poses lots of interesting design problems and challenges. It's so unique."