Curbed Chicago: Prepare Yourself For a Sponge-Like Lucas Museum

top left: Absolute Towers photo by Iwan Baan,
bottom left: Ordos Museum photo by Iwan Baan Image from Curbed Chicago

The Lucas Museum continues to get a lot of attention around the city and the interwebs. Real estate/architecture blog, Curbed Chicago is preparing us for an unusual structure for the Lucas Museum:

While we wait for designs from Beijing's MAD Architects, we're left to interpret vague hints about the design from Lucas himself and to infer from MAD's portfolio of work. We've tried to be subtle about it, but we think it's important to get used to the idea of an... unusual look for the building now, because we have a feeling that when the general public actually sees this thing there's going to be a minor whirlwind of shock and indignance from people who are already skeptical about a George Lucas museum. At Chicago Ideas Week, George Lucas spoke with Charlie Rose a bit about the forthcoming design, and Lucas said it's "going to be organic architecture" and that it's going to look like a living thing, "like a sponge." If you ask us, that sounds a lot more like MAD's Ordos Museum design, than the neoclassical rectangles the average Chicagoan might think of as standard-issue museum design.

Whatever it ends up being, it seems like it will be unique.  We're pretty excited, but also strangely nervous about this new museum.  Yes, we have problems.