Gensler Designs Bond Museum, James Bond Museum

by Nicholas Tamarin | Monday, July 12, 2010 | 8 Comments

Gensler Bond Museum

With a project that would make Q, James Bond’s exasperated gadgeteer, proud, Gensler unveiled its design for the Museum of Bond Vehicles + Espionage in Illinois, on July 8.

Slated to open in 2012—the 50th anniversary year of the first James Bond movie, “Dr. No”—the museum will house the collection of the Ian Fleming Foundation, including the world’s largest stockpile of vehicles used in the 23 Bond films. Its cache includes the Lotus Submarine Car used in “The Spy Who Loved Me,” the Aston Martin Volante seen in “The Living Daylights,” the BMW R 1200 C Motorcycle used in “Tomorrow Never Dies,” and the Bomabardier Rev 800 MXZ Ski-Doos from “Die Another Day.”

Gensler Bond Museum

Located in Momence, a historic town 50 miles south of Chicago near the Indiana border that already can claim to a bit cinematic history as one of the Depression-era locales in the dark 2002 drama Road to Perdition, the 14,000-square-foot museum is testing Gensler’s considerable talents as it seeks to be both a paean to one of film’s most fantastic characters and part of a rural recovery tale.

Gensler Bond Museum

Gensler, with a minimum of moneypenny due to a limited budget (the project is a partnership between the local non-profit Fleming foundation, the City of Momence and the Kankakee County Museum), decided to focus on single bold design move to make a statement against a simple backdrop. Dubbed the 007 window because of an angled jamb that resembles a 7, the feature piece will do quadruple-duty by providing exhibit display space, signage, a day lit interior, and an iconic backdrop for photographs. It will be located at the museum’s most prominent corner and set against the building’s remaining cladding of black horizontal corrugated metal. “It’s a mysterious silhouette that reveals very little of the museum’s content, much like James Bond himself,” says Gensler design director Brian Vitale.

Gensler Bond Museum

With a projected 20,000 visitors per year, the museum hopes to help spur a revitalization of Momence. “The project itself is a bit of a double agent,” adds Vitale. “At face value, we’ve designed a showcase for a world-class collection of James bond vehicles and the culture that surrounds them. But its real mission is to become a powerful catalyst for the revitalization of a once-vibrant city.”

Gensler Bond Museum

Images courtesy of Gensler.

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8 comments

Dan Keener

Posted Tuesday, July 13, 2010 at 07:29 pm | Permalink

looking good!!
Dan Keener
LaCrosse, KS USA
Enricomaya

Posted Tuesday, July 13, 2010 at 10:18 pm | Permalink

Simplemente espectacular
Cindy Davis

Posted Saturday, July 17, 2010 at 01:54 pm | Permalink

Good job, Momence on snagging this project! As a former board president of Downtown Springfield, Inc. (another historic Illinois town, and the capitol, whether Chicago knows it or not); I can attest to the value of a great museum attraction. The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum has drawn millions to Springfield because of it's exhibit design and the lure of its subject: the most beloved and read about figure, after Jesus Christ. Hoepfully, Mr. Bond can do the same for Momence.
Armand deBlouwe

Posted Friday, October 8, 2010 at 11:29 pm | Permalink

Thank you Doug Redinius and the rest of the contributors…… Amazing, just amazing !
Gary Moore

Posted Saturday, November 13, 2010 at 09:17 pm | Permalink

Momence, Illinois, you’re one up on movie museums. Incredible! What a great project. And in fact, long overdue. Wow! This news of a quality museum for 007 is worthy of my simply saying: THANK YOU. I can hardly wait!
Hui-Ling Hsieh

Posted Thursday, January 6, 2011 at 01:33 am | Permalink

great looking project!
Georg Whit

Posted Thursday, March 3, 2011 at 04:17 am | Permalink

It’s great that a small rural town is getting this attraction and I hope it does well and if I get the chance I’ll come and visit, but I’ll be coming for the exhibits, not the architecture.
Ian Fleming had a passionate loathing for modern architecture, describing some of Corbusier’s blocks of flats as looking like an up turned packet of cigarettes, even naming one of his villains after Erno Goldfinger, so I can’t imagine he would be too pleased with this number.
In a sense that is neither here nor there Ken Adam’s set designs from the movies have done a lot to promote interesting modern architecture, but unfortunately this looks more like the disused bauxite mine from Dr No, or for that matter the seventies cheapo architecture of the suburban high school I attended outside of Toronto, (Humberview S.S. if you want to check).
I appreciate of course that there may be a need to keep costs down but there must be something more interesting they could come up with than making one corner of a window at a bit of an angle… For example why not make the front of an old or ordinary building and have it all modern concrete and under-lighting inside to get that behind-the-world-you-know-is-James-Bond’s-feeling… Even a simple concrete box with 007 imprinted in the side’d do. A bunch of Quonset huts would be better than this, it would at least be more ‘Bondian’.
The cars are the only good-looking thing in these pictures and to be honest I’d rather look at them without the background they’re given here.
mohamad

Posted Thursday, November 8, 2012 at 07:54 am | Permalink

Hi … I Think that’s Amazing …
Thank you Doug Redinius and the rest of the contributors.