Frank Gehry Comes to Biloxi!

BILOXI, Miss.— Can Biloxi become the American Bilbao? That seems to be the hope of executives at the Ohr–O'Keefe Museum of Art, who this weekend cut the ribbon on the world's newest Frank Gehry-designed arts building, the culmination of more than a decade's work that saw the first version of the structure destroyed by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, 11 months before its planned opening.
"Gehry's notoriety should have a great appeal, especially to the cultural traveler we are trying to entice to Mississippi," Mary Beth Wilkerson, the director of tourism for the state's Economic Development Authority, told the Sun Herald. The architect's Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, has become a major tourist destination, and has been credited with revitalizing the once-sleepy Spanish city.
The new Gehry buildings were designed to capture the spirit of George Ohr, the "Mad Potter of Biloxi," an ceramicist as well known for his billowing, windswept mustache as for his eccentric designs. The structures, roofed in the architect's signature shimmering, sail-like metal panels, include a "Mississippi Sound Welcome Center," crafted to echo the region's "shoefly" architectural style and containing a small gallery and administrative offices; a 1,700-square-foot "Gallery of African-American Art"; and an "IP Casino Resort Spa Exhibitions Gallery," with 1,050 square feet of space for work in varying sizes and mediums.
The Ohr–O'Keefe opened in 1989 as a satellite exhibition space for the Mississippi Museum of Art and was rechristened as the George E. Ohr Arts & Cultural Center in 1994. Former Biloxi mayor Jerry O’Keefe donated $1 million to the museum in 1998, and that same year traveled to Los Angeles with other museum supporters to propose the project to Gehry.
The entire museum complex comprises five buildings, three of which will be opened to the public next weekend. The remaining two structures are slated to be completed in 2012, bringing the total cost of construction to $45 million, less than a third of the amount of money that was spent on the Guggenheim Bilbao."
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