Nov. 05--Mayor Rahm Emanuel declined to say Wednesday whether he likes the proposed architectural design for George Lucas' lakefront museum, instead describing the plans unveiled this week for a curving 110-foot building as a "bold" early step in a process.
Asked if he liked Chinese architect Ma Yansong's conceptual plan for the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art to be built south of Soldier Field, Emanuel talked instead about the reasons why he enticed the "Star Wars" filmmaker to bring the project here.
"I'm glad the museum will be built here, not in San Francisco," Emanuel said at a City Hall news conference. "It will add to the educational and economic strength of the city. These are conceptual, and part of an overall process. It's bold, I think we can say that. It's a bold piece. There's a lot of architects that like it. Other people have expressed their view. But this is the beginning of that interim process. We'll see what happens."
Emanuel's offer to allow Lucas to build on the lakefront was already controversial. After Ma revealed plans Monday for a 400,000-square-foot museum to be clad in whitish-gray stone or concrete, Cassandra Francis, president of open space advocacy group Friends of the Parks, which has threatened to sue over the site, called it an "amorphous, land-eating colossus."
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