George Lucas Chooses Star Powered Architects for Proposed Museum on Museum Campus

Now that we know that George Lucas is planning on building his museum in the neighborhood, we are going to be posting about this a lot.  Yesterday it was announced that Mr. Lucas picked the architects and if you like interesting designs you're probably excited about this announcement (Chicago Tribune):

Marilyn Monroe Towers
(via Wikipedia)

"Star Wars" creator George Lucas on Monday announced an architectural team for his controversial planned museum on Chicago's lakefront: an avant-garde Chinese designer whose credits include Toronto-area skyscrapers dubbed the "Marilyn Monroe Towers" and Chicago's Jeanne Gang, shaper of the undulating Aqua Tower here. 

Ma Yansong, founder of the Beijing firm MAD Architects, will design the building for Lucas' Museum of Narrative Art. Gang, who heads Studio Gang Architects, will conceive the landscape around the building and design a pedestrian bridge linking the museum to Northerly Island, a peninsula east of the museum site. 

The announcement of the star-studded team, a surprise given Lucas' penchant for traditional designs, has political implications for a project championed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel. It would rise on 17 acres now occupied by parking lots between Soldier Field and McCormick Place.

Our favorite item of this project is the pedestrian bridge that Lucas has promised.  Here is the update:

Conceptual designs are expected to be released later this year.  

Lucas is promising to pay for the pedestrian bridge, which would have to be high enough to allow sailboats using Burnham Harbor to pass beneath. It won't come cheap. The price for a soon-to-be-built lakefront pedestrian bridge at 35th Street is pegged at more than $18 million.

Seems like we will hear more about the legal battle to prevent this from coming to fruition, but it seems like they're moving fast to get this thing started.