Architect Jeanne Gang to help Museum Campus planning

The Chicago Park District has tapped acclaimed architect Jeanne Gang to help it develop a long-range plan for the Museum Campus, the district will announce Wednesday.

The plan takes on added import because Mayor Rahm Emanuel wants to give Star Wars creator George Lucas 17 acres just south of the lakefront campus for the filmmakers proposed museum of narrative art. On the peninsula just to the east, the district continues to transform Northerly Island, site of the former Meigs Field airport, into new parkland.

Citing those two projects, the district said in a news release that its the ideal time to define the vision and aspirations for this central space and economic engine.

The district and Gang will work with a recently-announced group of policy experts and lakefront stakeholders that Emanuel has charged with proposing transportation improvements for the campus, which includes the Field Museum, the Shedd Aquarium, and the Adler Planetarium.

Envisioned as a serene respite from city life, the campus often suffers traffic bottlenecks when there are Chicago Bears game or concerts at Soldier Field, which is just south of the Field Museum.

In July, Lucas announced that he had selected Chicago-based Gang to design the landscape around his museum as well as a pedestrian bridge linking the building to Northerly Island. Gang, winner of a MacArthur Foundation genius grant and the designer of the Lincoln Park Nature Boardwalk, is also part of the design team that has remade the peninsula with new hills and wetlands.

Beijing architect Ma Yansong is designing the Lucas museum building.

In its news release, the park district said that the long-range campus plan would focus on recreation, education, access and sustainability. The planning effort will also include interviews, panel discussions, workshops, surveys and online research.

The district has previously used long-range plans, which are known as framework plans to guide the growth of Burnham Park, Grant Park and Northerly Island.

The museum campus was created in the mid 1990s when the northbound lanes of Lake Shore Drive were shifted west of Soldier Field. That opened a continuous swath of parkland connecting the three museums.

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Architect Jeanne Gang to help Museum Campus planning