Lucas Museum Gets Design Update, Still Not Coming to Chicago
The day after the Obama Foundation unveiled its preliminary design for the Obama Presidential Center’s Jackson Park campus, the Lucas Museum unveiled a revised vision for its Museum of Narrative Art. While the Obama museum will eat a large chunk of public park in Chicago, the city is safe from any such incursions by the Lucas Museum because it is still being built in Los Angeles, after being forced out of Chicago by… well,...
Lucas Museum Gets a West Coast Makeover: Smoother, Curvier, More Elegant
The museum that Chicago cast out is homing in on a new place to put down roots. The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art has released information and renderings of the two leading proposals for its new building — one in Los Angeles, and one in San Francisco. Both buildings retail the stark-white-and-curvy sci-fi aesthetic from the original Chicago design. They also do what they can to simulate a building in a park, within the constraints...
Chicago Luminaries Publicly Support Lucas Museum… Now That it’s Gone
As George Lucas, his museum, and a $700 million investment in the city of Chicago slip into the distance, two groups of prominent Chicagoans are publicly voicing support for the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art. Where were they six months ago? In separate letters to the editor of the city’s largest newspaper, the heads of ten top Chicago museums, and the board of the Chicago Architecture Foundation all pledged their public support...
Lucas Museum Lawsuit Paused, But is it Too Little Too Late?
This morning, the activist group Friends of the Parks put out a statement telling the world that it has stayed its lawsuit opposing the construction of the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art on a parking lot south of Soldier Field. The move comes after Mayor Rahm Emanuel posited that it might be possible to demolish the McCormick Place convention center’s Lakeside Center building and put the museum there. The group was very specific...
Lucas Museum Groundbreaking Imperiled; Mayor Accused of “Cover Up”
The city of Chicago’s effort to throw out a lawsuit opposing the construction of the new Lucas Museum of Narrative Art on Chicago’s lakefront has failed. Today, federal District Judge John Darrah ruled that the lawsuit trying to stop the new museum from replacing a surface parking lot next to Soldier Field can move forward. The lawsuit was brought by Friends of the Parks, which doesn’t think the museum belongs on...
Chicago’s Lucas Museum Cleared to Make the Kessel Run in Less Than Twelve Parsecs
Though it was largely seen as an exercise in Chicago rubber-stamp politics, there was an unusual level of anticipation and tension yesterday as the Chicago City Council gave its formal approval to the construction of the Lucas Museum for Narrative Art on Chicago’s lakefront. Several weeks after another online news outlet proclaimed the $700 million project received its “final” approval, the futuristic-looking...
Eviscerating the Tauntaun: Inside the Proposed Lucas Museum
A lot of pixels have been lit (the modern equivalent of spilling ink) since it was first announced that legendary Hollywood filmmaker George Lucas wants to build a new museum in Chicago. Keyboards started clacking even more furiously when a slice of public lakefront land was offered to the science fiction pace setter for a token amount. Whether the lakefront lease for the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art is a good idea or a bad idea is...
Lucas Wars: The Esquires Strike Back
Late last week we showed you the latest design renderings for the proposed Lucas Museum of Narrative Art on the lakefront. In response, Friends of the Parks, the group that is suing to block the museum, put out what may be the shortest press release in Chicago news history: “The new design doesn’t change Friends of the Parks’ position. The problem is not the design. It’s the placement of this private institution on public trust land....
Jabba Goes on a Diet: New Lucas Museum Design 25% Svelter
A new design has been released for the proposed Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, which may one day rise on the shores of Lake Michigan in downtown Chicago. If you can’t tell the difference between the current proposal and the previous one, that’s OK — the changes are visually subtle. The big alteration is in the size of the project, now with a footprint reduced by 25% amid criticism from those who believe its footprint in...
Better Than a Parking Lot, But Is This the Museum Chicago’s Looking For?
The people behind the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art have released their vision of a new lakefront home. The controversial museum would be located near Soldier Field in the Chicago’s Museum Campus. Preservationists see the construction of any new structure along the city’s downtown shoreline as an affront, pushing instead to protect the surface parking lot which currently occupies the site. The early drawings of...
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