View Full Version : Harley-Davidson Museum in Milwaukee - Pentagram Design
Took a little road trip to Milwaukee this weekend. Stopped in to the see the newly opened Harley-Davidson Museum by Pentagram Design.
Here are some photos and some info from Pentagram's blog.
Website:
Museum (http://www.harley-davidson.com/wcm/Content/Pages/HD_Museum/Museum.jsp?locale=en_US)
Site and Map of buildings
Client: Harley-Davidson Motor Co.
Stacey Schiesl, museum director,
Jim Fricke, curatorial director,
Grayson Albert, Kurt Jansen, Barbara Mannion, Willie G. Davidson (and many others)
Design Architect: Pentagram Architects
James Biber, FAIA, partner in charge
Michael Zweck Bronner, AIA, associate and project architect
Alex Mergold, AIA, Suzanne Holt, Dan Maxfield, James Bowman, Marshall Brown, Denise Ramzy
Exhibition Design: Pentagram Design
Abbott Miller, partner in charge
Jeremy Hoffman, associate
Brian Raby
Graphic Design: Pentagram Design
Michael Bierut, partner in charge
Katie Repine
Landscape Architects: Oslund and Associates
Tom Oslund, partner in charge
Misa Inoue
From Pentagram's Blog
Listen closely this weekend and you may hear a rumble coming from Milwaukee, where the Harley-Davidson Museum opens on Saturday. Designed by Pentagram Architects' James Biber with his team and associate Michael Zweck-Bronner, the $75 million, 130,000-square-foot museum complex showcases the history, culture and engineering of this American icon.
The museum sits on a twenty-acre reclaimed industrial site directly across the Menomonee River from downtown Milwaukee and has been conceived as an urban factory ready-made for spontaneous motorcycle rallies. The three-building campus includes space for permanent and temporary exhibitions, the company's archives, a restaurant and café, and a retail shop, as well as a generous amount of event and waterfront recreational space. The museum's indoor and outdoor components were inspired by the spirit of Harley rallies in towns like Sturgis and Laconia, where thousands of riders congregate every year.
Harley-Davidson was founded in Milwaukee in 1903, and the company has a pride of place and history within the community that made the museum’s location key. Sitting on a peninsula surrounded by water, the chosen site is one of the oldest remaining industrial areas in Milwaukee and has the advantage of being directly connected to downtown via the pair of newly constructed Sixth Street bridges. Addressing the site’s design, we began with a few basic goals: integrate the site back into the city; respect and reflect the site's history; make the water an important recreational element and plan for future development. From these objectives, we developed an urban design that essentially restored the area's lost street grid and, by doing this, connected the site to the surrounding city by giving it a scale and “grain” that felt like a neighborhood within the city.
The museum houses the permanent exhibition, designed by Pentagram partner Abbott Miller, and developed in close coordination with the building. Over the past hundred years, Harley-Davidson has grown far beyond its humble beginnings into an international success story. Inside the museum, the exhibition traces the company's history through a chronological and thematic narrative that draws from Harley-Davidson’s extensive archive of historical documentation as well as their collection of motorcycles that begins with Harley’s first, the Serial Number One built in 1903.
View from parking. Museum on left and retail/restaurant on right.
Views from river side of site.
I asked one of the museum staff why the chaines were hanging form the columns on either side of the entrance. He said they didn't have a "ribbon-cutting", they had a "chain-cutting"!
You can see it in the pic pasted on the column.
Entry doors. Couldn't figure out the material on the face of the door. Looked like metal, but the doors would weigh 10 tons.
More from the blog
Rather than find a decorative skin for the buildings, we turned to the motorcycles themselves for inspiration, and we found it in the Harley-Davidson motorcycle. The parts are not concealed behind plastic or metal, but are simply and honestly expressed as structure, function and, most significantly, as a jewel of an engine within the frame of the bike. Form follows function in Harley-Davidson’s iconic designs. With this inspiration, we developed an expressed structure, an exoskeleton of exposed supports in a frame of galvanized steel. Both the inside and outside of the structure is simple and honest utilizing I-beams and columns, exposed gusset plates and cross-bracing to stiffen the frame. The hot-dipped galvanized steel is not a perfect, painted finish, but an honest expression of an industrial process and the structures are weatherproofed and permanent, not shrouded or concealed.
Bridge from museum to archive building
Cafe and retail area. Nice beams for seats and wire mesh for graphics. Also a very nice screen between the bar and the eating area made of old cycle engine parts.
Few shots in the museum. Pentagram is know mainly as a graphic design firm.
Bathroom materials in the museum.
Fantasatic, really looks good. I am taking a trip to Wisconsin this weekend for a weeding and was planning on taking a little detour into Milwaukee, wanted to take another look at Calatrava's Art museum, but will definitely see about taking a look at this.
If im running a little tight on time how much would you recommend visiting the Harley Davidson museum
The legendary Serial Number 1.
James,
You need three hours. Thirty minutes to shop for Harley swag, one and a half hours for the museum and an hour to enjoy a delicious peach cobbler at the restaurant. The food is pretty good. We also had a couple flat-head flatbreads (thin-crust pizza).
More pics and info at the Pentagram blog.
Pentagram blog (http://blog.pentagram.com/2008/07/new-work-harleydavidson-museum-2.php)
wait, is that a peddle powered motorbike? haha
its a great looking building, it captures the machine aspect well.
Interesting project, thanks for sharing. I particularly like the detailing.
It's an extremely difficult theme to work, given all the weight of the Harley Davidson name, and they may have succeeded in making a building that captures some of the essence of the Harley spirit without becoming too literal. It looks however too stiff and somewhat anonymous, lacking the iconic potential of other buildings like, for example, the Mercedes Benz or Porsche Museums... Honestly, as much as I like the building itself, I would have expected more from a Harley museum (and I'm not at all a Harley fan) .
It looks however too stiff and somewhat anonymous, lacking the iconic potential of other buildings like, for example, the Mercedes Benz or Porsche Museums... Honestly, as much as I like the building itself, I would have expected more from a Harley museum (and I'm not at all a Harley fan) .
Well, I think they were trying to true to the site too. It's an old industrial part of town near the expressway underpasses. I think a real statement building might have been too much for the area.
Also, think about the typical Harley rider. Sure there are some bank presidents and yuppies riding them, but for the most part these guys are the hard riding, salt of the earth types. A large statement building would probably not gone over too well with that bunch.
Not a Harley fan!?:eek:
Thanks for the explanation, the way you put it makes perfect sense, still I think they could have gone a little further.
Not a Harley fan!?:eek:
No, I prefer bikes with decent brakes and tires, that don't weight almost a ton and that have some ground clearance... The only inefficient bikes that I like are Vespas. :D
Thanks for the explanation, the way you put it makes perfect sense, still I think they could have gone a little further.
No, I prefer bikes with decent brakes and tires, that don't weight almost a ton and that have some ground clearance... The only inefficient bikes that I like are Vespas. :D
Brakes? We don't need no stinking brakes!
Funny, I have a picture of a Vespa in front of the museum. I tried to find out who had enough nerve to drive that through 100 Harley riders, but no one would admit to it!:eek:
sigue2000
06-08-2008, 22:11
Brakes? We don't need no stinking brakes!
Funny, I have a picture of a Vespa in front of the museum. I tried to find out who had enough nerve to drive that through 100 Harley riders, but no one would admit to it!:eek:
:D:D:D:D:D
That looks like the little kid with pimples, specs and runny nose that wants to play with the big boys.
:D:D:D:D:D
That looks like the little kid with pimples, specs and runny nose that wants to play with the big boys.
Either that or someone ordered a pizza......
dlo2k6The6
07-08-2008, 06:23
The detail within the building that caught my eye was "The Shop" sign. It was a bold sign but not this huge hindering element that broke up the interior and openness of the interior. I would def love to get a sign like that made of mesh!
Form follows function in Harley-Davidson’s iconic designs. With this inspiration...
Hardly a genius moment :poke fun:
as a jewel of an engine within the frame of the bike... we developed an expressed structure, an exoskeleton of exposed supports in a frame of galvanized steel.
Although this idea doesn't fill me with shock and awe it might have been better had they done what harley do and chromed the fiddly bits.
I agree with vOid the details (and the exhibition design) are in places interesting but the building looks a bit dull and lifeless. I woudl also add that the building doesn't need to be iconic / wacky to be good.
nicholas
07-08-2008, 14:36
I thought it was all about the noise...couldn't be the looks, handling or speed....
Hardly a genius moment :poke fun:
Although this idea doesn't fill me with shock and awe it might have been better had they done what harley do and chromed the fiddly bits.
I agree with vOid the details (and the exhibition design) are in places interesting but the building looks a bit dull and lifeless. I woudl also add that the building doesn't need to be iconic / wacky to be good.
Yea, not a genius moment, but I would say the building's functions and overall design fits the typical user's sensibilities without alienating them with "high-brow" architecture.
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