BY LUCY MAY
The Cincinnati Enquirer
The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center picked a team of architects Thursday to design a riverfront museum that planners hope will be a centerpiece of Cincinnati's reborn riverfront.
Blackburn Architects of Indianapolis, BOORA Architects of Portland, Ore., and Martha Schwartz of Cambridge, Mass., will design the 125,000-square-foot museum and park space, scheduled to open in 2003 near the base of the John A. Roebling Suspension Bridge.
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Blackburn Architects designed Purdue University's Black Cultural Center.
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More than anything, the Blackburn-BOORA team impressed the center's selection committee with its knack for listening to what clients wanted and reflecting that in designs, said Ed Rigaud, the center's president and CEO.
"They will bring out the best in setting the mood for what we're trying to accomplish," Mr. Rigaud said, adding that planners want the center to be "a safe house for the education and inspiration of today's freedom seekers."
The museum aims to celebrate the courage and cooperation of the Underground Railroad, a secret network used by African Americans, white abolitionists and American Indians to help slaves reach freedom.
Center planners want the facility to be a beautiful addition to Cincinnati's riverfront, Mr. Rigaud said, but they consider the inside of the museum far more important than the building itself. "It's extremely important inside what happens and how it makes you feel and how the exhibits work," he said.
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Blackburn Architects worked with Ehrenkrantz and Eckstut to design the Indianapolis Artsgarden.
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Blackburn Architects owner Walter Blackburn, who called the job the commission of his life, agreed.
"There are a lot of architects with big egos that do signature buildings, but I like to do more contextual things," he said. "We understand there's a story to be told here."
Blackburn and BOORA also have a good record of bringing in projects on time and on -- or under -- budget, said Charles Alexander, of Alexander Camabeam & Associates, a local architect who will be the center's liaison to the architects.
That will be important as the freedom center works to raise the money it needs to bring the center to life.
The center hopes to raise between $80 million and $90 million, with half of that from public sources and half from private sources, Mr. Rigaud said. Of that, the building itself likely will cost around $50 million, although that number will have to be firmed up with the architect, he said.
The rest of the money will be used for an endowment, for exhibit design, research, management fees and other expenses, he said. The selection of Blackburn-BOORA ends more than nine months of work for the freedom center, which started its search in December and received responses from 65 national and international architecture firms and consultants. A selection committee interviewed four finalists in late May.
Blackburn's major projects have included the Hoosier Dome and Convention Center, the Black Cultural Center at Purdue University and a collaboration on the Indianapolis Artsgarden.
Mr. Blackburn said he's particularly proud of his firm's projects that have a connection to African-American history.
"Those have given me time to think and research some of the history of blacks in this country and the struggle of blacks in this country," he said. "Seeing that in my work gives me great satisfaction." BOORA has designed more than 60 facilities for the arts as well as NikeTown stores with multimedia facilities similar to those the freedom center is interested in featuring.
Ms. Schwartz is a landscape architect and artist whose projects include the Citadel Grand Allee in City of Commerce, Calif., Jacob Javits Plaza in New York City and the Becton Dickinson Atrium in San Jose, Calif.
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