Thursday, September 30, 2004

Update: No Gehry in KC

Hi-De-Ho Rene!

About six weeks ago, I posted about the possibility of Frank Gehry designing Kansas City's downtown sports arena. Well, today a commission led by the KC mayor, and stacked with her direct-reports, interviewed the Gehry team and the Kansas City Downtown Arena Design Team, a consortium of KC sports venue architects. By mid-afternoon, after a closed meeting (which was the subject of some controversy), the commission had picked the local guys over Gehry.

It might have been interesting to see what a starchitect might have produced -- perhaps we'll at least get to see what he proposed at some point -- but for now the focus is on the chosen team and its design. It's hard to tell much from what we can see at this point, but it appears a bit space-shippy for my tastes:



OK, so that's the Close Encounters spaceship. But here's the design being shopped -- complete with color-changing lights:



I do like the glass-enclosed concourses that allow great city views. (See more views here.)

Later,
Kari

2 Comments:

Blogger Rene said...

Wow! That is a pretty wild looking design!!

I'll be off to Seattle today for a business trip. I will have a little time for sightseeing so in addition to perhaps an audioblog from Safeco, I'll try to take a few photos of the city and when I get back blog that up.

I had fun doing that with Minneapolis last year.

6:09 AM  
Blogger Rene said...

I'm in Seattle. After I got to the hotel from the game I had the TV on and guess what was showing... Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Alas, it was late and I drifted off to sleep...

8:34 AM  

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