Despite a very tight budget, this 69,000 sf museum is aerodynamic, bold and fun.  The museum includes a 165 seat sloped-floor theater, a 16,500 sf exhibit hall, a stand-up 360-degree mini-theatre, a 4,000 sf museum store, offices of the museum foundation, a library/archive for important documents, and back of house zones for storage and workshops. 

 

The heart of the museum is a flexible display pavilion for 20 cars -- the Skycone – a 130’ diameter, 65’ high truncated cone formed by a ring of steel columns. The airy white space becomes the armature for the bold yellow steel cladding, the building’s identity from the adjacent Interstate. Inspired by a tail light, a red spire, 20’ wide at its base and 11 stories high, pierces asymmetrically through the Skycone skylight, terminating in a pulsating red beacon.

 

Although preliminary conceptual design was developed over a four year period, the design was not approved when, in January, our client indicated that their fundraising was completed and they were arranging to have 5,000 Corvettes caravan to the site for a Labor Day grand opening. Project design, construction documentation and construction were completed in just nine months.