Not My Old Kentucky Home

Unveiled this week: plans for a 61-story skyscraper to be called Museum Plaza in Louisville, KY. Its enormity either threatens or promises great changes for Louisville, depending on your point of view. The images are startling (it's on the right in the first two, below): (via)

Watch the video.

Brought to you by AMO, the American branch of OMA, Rem Koolhaas' office. And, in case you are wondering: yes, there would be big issues integrating such a thing into the cityscape (note the lack of context in the vaguely Star Wars-esque "sunset" rendering), and yes, city elders actually think the market could absorb the new space.

Visitors to Museum Plaza would ride a diagonal elevator to an "island" 22 stories in the air that would house an art center. The rest of the building would be mixed-use:

"I fully expect people to be shocked by the building," said architect Joshua Prince-Ramus, 36, who will formally unveil and discuss the project for an invitation-only audience at 2 p.m. today at Actors Theatre of Louisville. "I can't think of another building that looks quite like this. It's going to break convention...The structure has four legs below the island and three towers above it. All seven structures, each with varying functions, intersect on the island.

Think of it as a chair, Ramus said. One leg will contain the hotel, another lofts, the third a vertical elevator, the fourth the angled glass elevator. Two towers will have luxury condos, the third an office tower. The lofts will be in one of the legs and the museum will be in the "seat."

In Louisville, of all places.

Proponents note that it could become an icon of Louisville in the way that Calatrava's Milwaukee Art Museum or Norman Foster's new Gherkin in London both have for their cities.