Selux

Designed by Pen­ta­gram Archi­tects’ James Biber with his team and asso­ciate Michael Zweck-Bron­ner, the $75 mil­lion, 130,000 square foot museum com­plex show­cases the his­tory, cul­ture, and engi­neer­ing of the Amer­i­can icon, Harley-David­son. The museum sits on a twenty-acre reclaimed indus­trial site directly across the Menomonee River from down­town Mil­wau­kee and has been con­ceived as an urban fac­tory ready-made for spon­ta­neous motor­cy­cle ral­lies. The three-build­ing campus includes space for per­ma­nent and tem­po­rary exhi­bi­tions, the company’s archives, a restau­rant and café, and a retail shop, as well as a gen­er­ous amount of event and water­front recre­ational space.

As well as its exhibits, the focus of this build­ing is to com­mu­ni­cate a dis­tinct atti­tude and way of life. The 8,000 exhibits include the first Harley, dating back to 1903, a model driven by Elvis Pres­ley from 1956, and the four meter long King Kong, which took more than 40 years to con­struct.

The museum’s design is an unmis­tak­able ref­er­ence to indus­trial archi­tec­ture, as well as the clear, geo­met­ri­cal light­ing scheme of the Selux M100 relates to the fac­tory building’s delib­er­ately raw design.