For Audacious Architecture in Louisville, Form Follows Structures
How many structural engineers does it take to shape a building? Ordinarily, none. That’s the architect’s job. But the $490-million Museum Plaza, smack on an Ohio River flood plain between a levee wall and an elevated highway in Louisville, Ky., is no ordinary job. The site is terrible. The packed, multifaceted program is intertwined. And the project is the most ambitious and audacious to date for its up-and-coming design architect—the one-year-old REX.
The architecture for the 1.6-million-sq-ft Museum Plaza is a “complex synergy between the constraints of economics, structure and layout,” says 37-year-old Joshua Prince-Ramus, who with his 36-year-old partner, Erez Ella, founded the 55-person New York City-based REX.