Drake

Changing skyline The birth of a building Here's the story behind the radical Museum Plaza skyscraper By Chris Poynter [email protected] The Courier-Journal www.courier-journal.com Architect Selva Gurdogan of the Office for Metropolitan Architecture is part of the Museum Plaza team. The design for a radical, new, 61-story skyscraper burst onto the Louisville scene Thursday, when Museum Plaza was unveiled to the public. But the story of the building began well before that. For the past five months, Courier-Journal staff writer Chris Poynter was granted access to the creative process by Museum Plaza's investors.

now just fill in the gaps..this photo doesn't even show the 20+ floor waterfront park located on the other side of the bridge to the left.

courier-journal.com > Local News View 7 days > Su M Tu W Th F Sa Adv. search > Thursday, February 9, 2006 E-mail this | Print page Who are the architects? Who: Office for Metropolitan Architecture. Headquarters: Rotterdam, the Netherlands. The New York City office is designing and overseeing Louisville's Museum Plaza. History: Founded in 1975 by architect and urban thinker Rem Koolhaas of Rotterdam. He received the Pritzker Prize, the architecture profession's highest award, in 2000. Museum Plaza partner-in-charge: Joshua Prince-Ramus, a Seattle native who oversees OMA's New York office. Museum Plaza's design is a result of a collaboration of architects headed by Ramus. He received a bachelor of arts in philosophy with distinction from Yale University and a master's in architecture from Harvard University. Other supervising designers: Erez Ella, 34, a native of Israel who holds a bachelor's in architecture from Tel Aviv University; and Selva Gurdogan, 27, a native of Istanbul and graduate of the Southern California Institute of Architecture in Los Angeles. some of their other projects. Charles Wyly Theatre in Dallas (under construction) (Courtesy of Office for Metropolitan Architecture) New CCTV headquarters in Beijing (under construction) (Courtesy of Office for Metropolitan Architecture) Seattle Central Library in Washington (Photo by Ted S. Warren/Associated Press)

Yes, all you have to do is type "Louisville skyscraper" or "louisville museum plaza " in google and a bunch of stuff pops up about this new tower.

did you take pictures of the exhibit, do they let you? wow was it different from the rendering on page one? was there strong support for it there?

yeah yeah yeah...........

from emporis Identification Official name Museum Plaza Emporis Building Number 241741 Location Address * City Louisville Country U.S.A. Technical Data Height (struct.) 214 m 703 ft Floors (OG) 61 Construction start * Construction end 2010 GFA * Parking places * Units (rooms) * Costs at completion * Building in General Type of construction high-rise building Main usages * * * * " First proposed in the summer 2005 at 26 floors, the proposal grew to 61 floors by the time of the design's public unveiling in February 2006. - The building features four separate 'legs' which are united by a multilevel arts center 'island' holding an acre-sized public garden 22 floors above the ground. - A large cube and two additional towers will sit atop the middle section, forming a unique, multi-peaked silhouette. - In addition to the arts center 'island', the building will contain 300,000 square feet of commercial office space, 150 condominiums, 85 residential lofts, and 300 hotel rooms. - Each of the 'legs' and towers rising above will have a different function. - Two of the legs will contain primarily vertical circulation elements. One is a simple elevator shaft, the other is an angled shaft containing glass elevators rising from a 7th Street plaza to the Arts Center. - The building will become the tallest in Kentucky, surpassing the Aegon Center. - Joshua Prince-Ramus of the New York office of OMA is the chief architect.

the architect originally wanted to go higher than 700 ft, but they couldnt because the FAA prohibited it. This site is in the flight path of the west runway of Standiford Field/Louisville Int'l airport.

i guess they wanted to give it a times sqaure type of feal....if so, of course people will be drawn to the area if thats what it is...but i'm not even sure if thats a t.v. screen across there. thats the plaza section though.

i said it was supposed to be solid black in another post...i dont know...this model looks glass..kind of transparent...but then again, that could just be the model...in the rendering on page one it is black. In this slide, Joshua Prince-Ramus shows an illustration of the interior of the museum space in the building. Construction is scheduled to begin in 2007 and be completed in 2010.

here are some aerials of the site

Coming Sunday: The story behind Museum Plaza For many Louisvillians, the vision of a towering Museum Plaza seemed to fall out of the sky this week. But there was nothing sudden about the design of Louisville’s first skyscraper since 1993 — or about the choice of the world-renowned architects to design it. Museum Plaza investors Steve Wilson, Laura Lee Brown and Steve Poe devoted 10 months of long days to the project. They jetted across Europe and the United States, interviewing architectural firms and visiting museums to gather ideas. Throughout the process, they focused on two things: Achieving a blockbuster design — and having the financial will to see their dream built. Staff reporter Chris Poynter was the only journalist allowed to observe the creative process behind the new skyscraper. Read his full report Sunday in The Courier-Journal Arts section and at courier-journal.com. http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/artikkel?NoCache=1&Dato=20060210&Kategori=NEWS01&Lopenr=60210021&Ref=AR

i just can't wait to see the view after it is built from the south side of Louisville...forget from across the river, i want to go to Churchill downs and see how this baby looks from there.

well someone posted this to see how it would look if they built it closer to the other buildings and what if they built two lol but that would never happend because it would crush the Muhammad Ali center haha

the vencor tower was supposed to go in this location 7 years ago..... Which tells me the area is suitable for a high rise skyscraper. It didn't go through because Vencor went bankrupt....I doubt Brown-Foreman will go bankrupt anytime soon..so i'm confident museum plaza will go through with no major issues. here is the vencor tower