Building at Laumeier

On a visit yesterday to the great Laumeier Sculpture Park I noticed some construction adjacent to the old house where the museum shop is located:

[Photo by John Hill]

My first thought was, "Hooray! They're finally building the Aronson Fine Arts and Education Center designed by Brooks + Scarpa with Eskew+Dumez+Ripple":

[Rendering: Brooks + Scarpa]

But after parking the car I saw a billboard that showed a much different building:

[Rendering on billboard at Laumeier]

The project under construction goes by the similarly named Adam Aronson Fine Arts Center, but it is now designed by Trivers Associates, an architecture firm with offices in St. Louis and Granite City, Illinois. Although the building under construction doesn't look bad, per se, it's not as exciting – as "sculptural" – as the Brooks + Scarpa design. I don't know the story behind Laumeier's choice in architect and design, the scale of the project (cut in half) and its new design point to severe budget cuts. Whatever the case, it's great to see them building at Laumeier.