The Harley-Davidson Museum

Milwaukee, WI, United States

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The Harley-Davidson Museum

Milwaukee, WI, United States

Firm

Type

Commercial › Retail Exhibition Center
Hospitality + Sport › Restaurant
Cultural › Museum

YEAR

2008

SIZE

1,000,000 +

The recently opened Harley-Davidson Museum designed by James Biber showcases the history, culture and engineering of a uniquely American icon. Occupying a 20-acre reclaimed industrial site in the heart of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the museum design presents a new paradigm for the integration of a corporate museum into its local community, while also clearly presenting the Harley-Davidson design story to a global community of enthusiasts.Conceived of as a factory typology within an urban fabric, the 130,000- square-foot museum design consists of three interconnected buildings with space for permanent and temporary exhibitions, an extensive archive of motorcycles and Harley-related memorabilia, a restaurant, a cafand a retail store. Inspired by the bike rallies in places like Sturgis and Laconia, the museum has both indoor and outdoor components that create a new neighborhood within the city and allow for a continuously changing street display of visitors' bikes. The factory typology extends to the interior, which has an exposed structure and is organized with large open spaces, lined with mezzanines and four large towers. The museum's permanent exhibition, designed by Pentagram, was developed in close coordination with the architecture. The specially engineered displays include a massive cantilevered "bridge" that rises up from the ground floor to display stunt motorcycles, an engine room displaying 30 engines, and a replica of a board track, a death-defying wooden racing course from the 1920s. Platforms, railings, display cases and slatted walls refer to the industrial vernacular of simple machinery and the world of the garage and factory.