lofter1
September 8th, 2005, 10:45 PM
Wednesday, September 07, 2005
The City of Biloxi Updates Status
of Ohr-O'Keefe Museum of Art
and Other Historic Structures
The Ohr-Okeefe Museum of Art in Biloxi, Miss., devoted mainly to
eccentric ceramist George Ohr (1857-1918), the "Mad Potter of Biloxi,"
apparently suffered damage, as yet unassessed, to a $16 million
extension still under construction, designed by Frank Gehry.
************************************************** **
UPDATE: NOAA STORM TRACKER SATELLITE PHOTOGRAPH
OF THE EXTENSIVE DAMAGE TO THE FRANK GEHRY
OHR-O'KEEFE MUSEUM OF ART CAMPUS (see below)
************************************************** **
Famed architect says he'll
help Gulf Coast rebuild
http://www.sunherald.com/images/common/spacer.gif
BY PAM FIRMIN
http://www.sunherald.com/images/common/spacer.gif
Knight Ridder Newspapers
http://www.sunherald.com/images/common/spacer.gif
http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/news/special_packages/hurricane_katrina/12555173.htm
BILOXI, Miss. - (KRT) - World-renowned architect Frank Gehry told the
Gulf Coast Saturday that he will help it rebuild.
Gehry, who is in Japan, said that while he is currently more concerned
for the people than the buildings, he "would be in the fight to rebuild the
city with you."
The partially completed Ohr-O'Keefe Museum structures on Biloxi's East
Beach Boulevard seem to have been harder hit by the Grand Casino barge
that landed on one of them than by Hurricane Katrina. At least physically.
A Biloxi police officer said the site on east U. S. 90 had sustained a lot of
damage, but hopefully could be salvaged.
That about sums it up.
The Pleasant Reed house house, built around 1887 by the son of a freed
slave and preserved, moved and restored as a component of the new
Ohr museum, is obliterated. Only a brick chimney is identifiable. Someone
has know where the house was to realize it is gone.
The gracefully curving beams of the pods for the George Ohr Gallery
are flattened and twisted.
Still standing and seemingly unscathed is the partially constructed Center
for Ceramics at the northwest corner of the site. Its steeply angled
aluminum-colored roof panels were designed to look as they do, just
a bit cock-eyed, like George Ohr's pots.
Structurally, the partially built Exhibitions Gallery looks sound, though
stripped of its exterior materials.
The casino barge that floated, washed or was blown onto the property
is on top of where the historic Tullis-Toledano Manor on the east side
of the museum stood and it now abuts what's left of the museum's
Gallery of African American Art, which is the Southern most structure.
The $30 million museum complex was to have five Gehry-built structures
connected by walkways and was scheduled to open in July 2006. Hopes
were it would attract international cultural tourism due to the combined
effect of Gehry's fame and the Coast's burgeoning role as an entertainment
mecca.
While checking out the museum, we were told its staff members were all safe,
though we could not reach them. One has a house just north of the museum
on a street where every house is gone.
The beachfront home of the museum's benefactor, Jerry O'Keefe, located a
couple blocks west of the museum, is also gone, although the two-story
columns at its entrance remain. On Saturday, O'Keefe, who is staying at a
motel in Mobile, drove slowly by the front entrance of the current museum
building on G. E. Ohr street, looking for damage.
"We're only looking forward, not backward."
Based on debris piled at the building's entrances, it appears it has not
been entered since the storm. O'Keefe said he had shipped his personal
collection of Ohr art elsewhere.
What's unknown to date is the status of all the Ohr pottery that was on
display at the museum.
---
The Wall Street Journal reported: "Photographs of the Ohr-O'Keefe (http://www.georgeohr.org/pics_construction.html#)
Museum of Art in Biloxi, Miss., showed that a dislodged casino barge
crushed part of an addition designed by Frank Gehry that had been a
year from completion."
http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2609/289/400/15.jpg
Model of the Frank O. Gehry designed new Ohr-O'Keefe Museum of Art
campus in Biloxi, Mississippi. The brown shotgun house in the middle on
the North side is the Pleasant Reed Home. To the right of the Pleasant Reed Home
is the Center for Ceramics, which appears from news reports to have have survived.
The twisted metal pods in the middle of the South side comprise the Ohr Gallery,
which appears from news reports to have been destroyed. News reports also
seem to confirm partial destruction of the other structures on the campus.
http://blackcatbone.blogspot.com/2005/09/update-on-ohr-okeefe-museum-of-art.html
http://www.georgeohr.org/Images/ohrpic2.jpg
Pritzker Prize-winning architect Frank Gehry's model for a museum that will showcase
the cultural legacy of American artists of the Southeast. The centerpiece of the $16-million
Museum, designed as a series of pavilions amid a four-acre grove of ancient Live oak trees
on the Mississippi Sound, is a gallery dedicated to "the father of American pottery, "
George E. Ohr. The new Museum will also feature African American folk art and history
as well as works by contemporary artists of the region.
The architect's sculptural buildings blend the artistic with the functional and are
reminiscent of George Ohr's expressive and whimsical ceramic vessels. Ohr, a
pioneering 19th-century art ceramicist, was a skilled colorist, glazer and technician
who manipulated his hand-built vessels into unusual shapes and forms that pre-dated Surrealism.
NOAA STORM TRACKER SATELLITE PHOTOGRAPH
OF THE EXTENSIVE DAMAGE TO THE FRANK GEHRY
OHR-O'KEEFE MUSEUM OF ART CAMPUS:
http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2609/289/400/18.jpg
A casino barge rests on the site of the new Ohr-O'Keefe Museum of Art in
Biloxi, Mississippi. To the left (South) is Highway 90 and the beach. On the
upper right hand side of the casino barge appear to be what is left of the
Frank Gehry designed Center for Ceramics and the Exhibitions Gallery.
**************************************************
Other news outlining the status of numerous cultural
institutions in the Gulf Coast area following the hit by
Katarina:
http://www.aam-us.org/aamlatest/news/HurricaneFirstReports.cfm
The City of Biloxi Updates Status
of Ohr-O'Keefe Museum of Art
and Other Historic Structures
The Ohr-Okeefe Museum of Art in Biloxi, Miss., devoted mainly to
eccentric ceramist George Ohr (1857-1918), the "Mad Potter of Biloxi,"
apparently suffered damage, as yet unassessed, to a $16 million
extension still under construction, designed by Frank Gehry.
************************************************** **
UPDATE: NOAA STORM TRACKER SATELLITE PHOTOGRAPH
OF THE EXTENSIVE DAMAGE TO THE FRANK GEHRY
OHR-O'KEEFE MUSEUM OF ART CAMPUS (see below)
************************************************** **
Famed architect says he'll
help Gulf Coast rebuild
http://www.sunherald.com/images/common/spacer.gif
BY PAM FIRMIN
http://www.sunherald.com/images/common/spacer.gif
Knight Ridder Newspapers
http://www.sunherald.com/images/common/spacer.gif
http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/news/special_packages/hurricane_katrina/12555173.htm
BILOXI, Miss. - (KRT) - World-renowned architect Frank Gehry told the
Gulf Coast Saturday that he will help it rebuild.
Gehry, who is in Japan, said that while he is currently more concerned
for the people than the buildings, he "would be in the fight to rebuild the
city with you."
The partially completed Ohr-O'Keefe Museum structures on Biloxi's East
Beach Boulevard seem to have been harder hit by the Grand Casino barge
that landed on one of them than by Hurricane Katrina. At least physically.
A Biloxi police officer said the site on east U. S. 90 had sustained a lot of
damage, but hopefully could be salvaged.
That about sums it up.
The Pleasant Reed house house, built around 1887 by the son of a freed
slave and preserved, moved and restored as a component of the new
Ohr museum, is obliterated. Only a brick chimney is identifiable. Someone
has know where the house was to realize it is gone.
The gracefully curving beams of the pods for the George Ohr Gallery
are flattened and twisted.
Still standing and seemingly unscathed is the partially constructed Center
for Ceramics at the northwest corner of the site. Its steeply angled
aluminum-colored roof panels were designed to look as they do, just
a bit cock-eyed, like George Ohr's pots.
Structurally, the partially built Exhibitions Gallery looks sound, though
stripped of its exterior materials.
The casino barge that floated, washed or was blown onto the property
is on top of where the historic Tullis-Toledano Manor on the east side
of the museum stood and it now abuts what's left of the museum's
Gallery of African American Art, which is the Southern most structure.
The $30 million museum complex was to have five Gehry-built structures
connected by walkways and was scheduled to open in July 2006. Hopes
were it would attract international cultural tourism due to the combined
effect of Gehry's fame and the Coast's burgeoning role as an entertainment
mecca.
While checking out the museum, we were told its staff members were all safe,
though we could not reach them. One has a house just north of the museum
on a street where every house is gone.
The beachfront home of the museum's benefactor, Jerry O'Keefe, located a
couple blocks west of the museum, is also gone, although the two-story
columns at its entrance remain. On Saturday, O'Keefe, who is staying at a
motel in Mobile, drove slowly by the front entrance of the current museum
building on G. E. Ohr street, looking for damage.
"We're only looking forward, not backward."
Based on debris piled at the building's entrances, it appears it has not
been entered since the storm. O'Keefe said he had shipped his personal
collection of Ohr art elsewhere.
What's unknown to date is the status of all the Ohr pottery that was on
display at the museum.
---
The Wall Street Journal reported: "Photographs of the Ohr-O'Keefe (http://www.georgeohr.org/pics_construction.html#)
Museum of Art in Biloxi, Miss., showed that a dislodged casino barge
crushed part of an addition designed by Frank Gehry that had been a
year from completion."
http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2609/289/400/15.jpg
Model of the Frank O. Gehry designed new Ohr-O'Keefe Museum of Art
campus in Biloxi, Mississippi. The brown shotgun house in the middle on
the North side is the Pleasant Reed Home. To the right of the Pleasant Reed Home
is the Center for Ceramics, which appears from news reports to have have survived.
The twisted metal pods in the middle of the South side comprise the Ohr Gallery,
which appears from news reports to have been destroyed. News reports also
seem to confirm partial destruction of the other structures on the campus.
http://blackcatbone.blogspot.com/2005/09/update-on-ohr-okeefe-museum-of-art.html
http://www.georgeohr.org/Images/ohrpic2.jpg
Pritzker Prize-winning architect Frank Gehry's model for a museum that will showcase
the cultural legacy of American artists of the Southeast. The centerpiece of the $16-million
Museum, designed as a series of pavilions amid a four-acre grove of ancient Live oak trees
on the Mississippi Sound, is a gallery dedicated to "the father of American pottery, "
George E. Ohr. The new Museum will also feature African American folk art and history
as well as works by contemporary artists of the region.
The architect's sculptural buildings blend the artistic with the functional and are
reminiscent of George Ohr's expressive and whimsical ceramic vessels. Ohr, a
pioneering 19th-century art ceramicist, was a skilled colorist, glazer and technician
who manipulated his hand-built vessels into unusual shapes and forms that pre-dated Surrealism.
NOAA STORM TRACKER SATELLITE PHOTOGRAPH
OF THE EXTENSIVE DAMAGE TO THE FRANK GEHRY
OHR-O'KEEFE MUSEUM OF ART CAMPUS:
http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2609/289/400/18.jpg
A casino barge rests on the site of the new Ohr-O'Keefe Museum of Art in
Biloxi, Mississippi. To the left (South) is Highway 90 and the beach. On the
upper right hand side of the casino barge appear to be what is left of the
Frank Gehry designed Center for Ceramics and the Exhibitions Gallery.
**************************************************
Other news outlining the status of numerous cultural
institutions in the Gulf Coast area following the hit by
Katarina:
http://www.aam-us.org/aamlatest/news/HurricaneFirstReports.cfm