The following article was originally published in the February 25, 2006 edition of The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and written by Whitney Gould.

If you were expecting the new Harley-Davidson museum to be an architectural blockbuster, you're probably going to be disappointed. The museum design, unveiled Friday, has no swooping flourishes, no glitzy movable parts.

But what it lacks in glamour, the Menomonee Valley complex more than makes up for in honest, rigorously disciplined urbanism. Without trafficking in historicist design clichs, it's a coolly rational, industrial-strength presence, evoking the grit that built Milwaukee and Harley.

Located at South 5th, South 6th, and West Canal streets, the $95 million museum complex is on a 20-acre site that Harley agreed to buy from the city a year ago. The parcel is a pivotal gateway to the valley, which is being transformed from a brownfield into a center for light industry and recreation. Harley officials said they expect construction to get under way this year, with completion by 2008. The museum, a showcase for the firm's motorcycles and history, including Elvis Presley's 1956 KH model and the famous "Serial Number One" from 1903, is expected to draw some 350,000 visitors a year.

Instead of cramming multiple functions into one massive building that could have overwhelmed its site, design architect Jim Biber of Pentagram Architecture in New York has smartly broken the project into three separate, boxy units totaling 130,000 square feet: a museum, just off 5th Street; an annex and archives building on the west side of the street; and a retail shop, restaurant, and special-events facility just south of Canal Street. The buildings are connected by glassy skywalks. And they hug the street, in contrast to the yawning setbacks typical of suburban office parks.

The museum, overlooking the Menomonee Canal, is a long, rectangular building with end pieces of black brick and "Harley- Davidson" spelled out in big, capital letters; facing 5th Street, a glass curtain wall transparent below and translucent above, to protect artifacts from ultraviolet light glows behind a rhythmic steel framework whose soaring, brawny columns play against the building's horizontal thrust.

Three rooftop towers of steel latticework hide mechanical equipment and, at the western end, a fourth tower displays the distinctive Harley-Davidson Motor Co. logo. It's a clever way of letting the building's structure express itself, while announcing Harley's presence with the stylish graphics that Pentagram is known for.

The other two buildings are somewhat more low-slung but repeat the geometry, flat roofs, and materials of the parent. The trio's power as a composition derives from the marrying of beautiful proportions and skillful layering to Miesian minimalism. Less really is more here.

Biber told me his inspirations included the industrial history of the valley, the Bauhaus-influenced Central Steel & Wire Co. distribution warehouse at 4343 S. 6th St. (before its shimmering glass curtain wall was obliterated by ugly beige panels), and the deliberative way Harley assembles its own machines.

"Willie G. Davidson (a member of the founding family) liked to say, 'The engine is the jewel in the middle of the bike,' " Biber said. "And that's the way we approached this project. It's industrial, rather than trendy."

Jim Shields of Hammel, Green, and Abrahamson, the local architects on the project, agreed. "Harley works in a logical, painstaking way," he said, "and they've treated the design of this building very much like the development of a new motorcycle."

The site planning is equally thoughtful. When the location was selected 2 years ago, after an earlier plan to put the museum at Schlitz Park ran aground, Harley rejected the idea of parking garages in favor of more flexible surface lots. A lot of people, including me, grimaced at the unappetizing prospect of acres of asphalt.

But landscape architect Tom Oslund finessed that concern by inserting "parking gardens" on either side of 6th and Canal streets: Interlaced with lush plantings and double rows of trees native to the valley, and paved with porous material to control runoff, these spaces and on-street parking will accommodate a total of 600 vehicles.

Oslund, of Oslund and Associates in Minneapolis, has framed the site, which includes a riverwalk, with a mix of lawns, formal terraces, and native plants.

In sync with the grid patterns of the buildings, the public spaces are bisected with walkways, and the city's long-interrupted street grid will now continue through the site with the extension of West Canal, West Traser, West Seeboth and South 5th streets. Stacey Watson, the museum director, says the streets will be open for public use most of the time; they'll be shut off only for special events.

My one regret about this urbane, environmentally sensitive project is that the design team did not embrace green (read: planted) roofs. Yes, Harley's roofs will be reflective to reduce heat absorption, but a vegetative cover could have gone the next step, helping to cool the buildings in summer, keep them warm in winter, control runoff, and add visual interest to passers-by along I-794 and the 6th Street viaduct.

Oslund said that option was considered, but there was some worry that if the roofs leaked, exhibits and archives could be imperiled. Ten years ago, that might have been a legitimate concern. But the technology is now so well-proven that it's being used on buildings as disparate as Chicago's City Hall, a Ford plant in Michigan, and a garden store in our own north shore neighbor, Shorewood. What a great opportunity this would have been to advance the cause in Milwaukee.

That quibble aside, Harley and its designers have produced a winner here. It sets a high bar for future development in the valley. And it shows that, in the right hands, the design language of today can produce landmarks of elegant simplicity and integrity.

Museum at a Glance

Location and layout: Three buildings, totaling 130,000 square feet, at South 5th, South 6th and West Canal streets in the Menomonee Valley

Cost: $95 million

Timetable: Construction to start by mid-2006; completion in summer 2008

Employment: 500 construction jobs; 70 full-time jobs in museum operations

Designers: Pentagram Architecture, New York; Hammel, Green, and Abrahamson, Milwaukee; Oslund and Associates, landscape architects, Minneapolis

Construction managers: M.A. Mortenson Co.

Environmental Consultants: Sigma Environmental Services  

Copyright 2006, Journal Sentinel Inc. All rights reserved.