In a number of ways Roanoke, Va, offers an index for looking at Shreveport. The city population of Roanoke is only 95,000, but it is surrounded by a county / metro area of 293,000. Shreveport has a city size of some 200,000. The Shreveport-Bossier metro figure is about 375, 000.
Roanoke is an old crossroads in a valley in Southwestern Virginia. It is a long way from Washington, DC. The median income is not quite that of Shreveport, says Wikipedia.com.
It has a sleepy downtown split by a serious batch of railroad tracks. Coal and trains are a big part of Roanoke's background.
It doesn't have facilities as beautiful as Artspace and SciPort, though it has the Art Museum of Western Virginia and the Science Museum of Western Virginia. They have excellent collections but are almost hidden in a downtown warehouse.
Today, Roanoke is poised to make an explosive statement about art. Under construction is an art center created by an architect, Randall Stout, who studied with Frank Gehry. Their new museum is going to look like a steel and glass bird of prey arrived from a distant galaxy.
Says Wikipedia, "The facility's design has sparked debate in the community between those who feel it will be a bold, refreshing addition to Roanoke and those who feel its unusual, irregular design featuring sharp angles contrasts too strongly with the existing buildings. Some are also concerned about the facility's cost at a time when many Roanoke area artistic organizations face financial challenges."
Sounds like something that could happen in Shreveport.
Construction is well underway. For an arts advocate, the sight is a tonic. For a conservative, the oddly angled steel girders are an affront.
Yet it says to all comers that Roanoke is not asleep. Not dead. And it wouldn't hurt Shreveport's thinking to watch them complete and pay the bills and launch this wild bird.
1 comment:
Oh I would not be so quick to say that it speaks to people that Roanoke is not sleeping.
First off - in a town where young money, old money, and any money is limited - this privately funded museum is going to suffer some real hard times with the escalating cost of building it. Over $70 mil now.
Second - they took out the one design feature that would have made it money, an IMAX theater, claiming that "no one would really come to see anything there."
Third, and last - there's no parking on site, and no parking in a short "senior citizen" walking distance.
In short - the Art Museum had it's choice of about 10 spaces to build in, where it would have been truly unique and an attraction, but they took the one that was free - and in the worst possible location for it.
With all that said, I still love this town. I'm 32, I moved here 3 years ago, and I have a life here - a home, a lawn, the whole "American dream."
There is no place on earth as crazy, screwed up, or as nice and livable as Roanoke, VA.
And the Art Museum location is directly across the tracks from the O Winston Link Museum, which they have no dealings with, and do not consider them an ally.
Typical Roanoke.
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