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In the News
09.25.2004
"City architect to design center, Pelli to create Hartford landmark"
by Associated Press and Register Business Editor Steve Higgins in the New Haven Register
A design for a futuristic glass building with a giant plasma video screen landed Cesar Pelli the job Friday as architect of the new science center at Adriaen’s Landing.
The Connecticut Center for Science & Exploration chose the world-renowned New Haven-based architect Friday over three other finalists to design what developers hope will become Hartford’s signature landmark overlooking the Connecticut River.
The 160,000-square-foot building will sit on 2.3 acres of land and will be the cornerstone of the city’s $1 billion riverfront development.
Committee members said they were impressed with the design to lure in drivers traveling along Interstate I-91. The center would be nine stories tall and hard to miss, with a cantilevered roof extending over the highway.
Although the selection committee chose Pelli based on his design, it doesn’t plan to build the science center exactly as he envisions it.
“We have chosen an architect, but not a building,” said Cheryl A. Chase, chair of the selection committee. “The creativity and conceptual design is what we were looking for, but we know there are elements that we will be working to improve.”
Ground is set to break on the science center next fall and officials hope to open it by October 2007.
Developers estimate the center will cost $100 million to build, with another $50 million going toward financing staffing, exhibits and educational programs. So far, the center has raised $124 million of public and private money.
The center will be the main attraction in the 30-acre Adriaen’s Landing development, which will also include a convention center, hotel and entertainment district. The convention center and hotel are under construction and scheduled to open in July 2005.
“The Connecticut Center for Science & Exploration will be a building that will communicate the excitement of scie4nce to the surrounding streets, rivers and highways,” Pelli wrote in submitting his design.
“The forms are ambitions and dynamic. They appear to reach out, beyond their physical limits.”
Cesar Pelli & Associates, which was founded in 1977, has its offices on Chapel Street, opposite the Yale School of Architecture.
Pelli, who won the Gold Medal from the American Institute of Architects in 1995, is best known for building the former tallest building in the world, Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and the 1984 Museum of Modern Art expansion in New York City. He also built the Mystic Marinelife Aquarium expansion in 1999.
Pelli went up against three well-known architects for the science center contract: Moshe Safdie and Associates Inc. Architects and Planners of Boston; Zaha Hadid Architects of London; and Behnisch, Behnisch & Partner Inc. of California.
Reprinted with permission by the New Haven Register
September 25, 2004
