Some devoted fans and architectural purists may grumble over big changes coming at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The museum, now in its 30th year will never look the same after a new wing is completed next fall.
I’ll bet, however, that most visitors will love the Rock Hall’s evolution, which is unfolding even while the museum stays open during construction. There will be tradeoffs, but they should be worth it.
A recent hard hat tour with Rock Hall CEO Greg Harris offered early assurance that the Rock Hall’s new wing should bring major improvements and address longstanding liabilities. The work is positioning the Rock Hall to tackle big goals without obscuring key aspects of the original building, designed by world-renowned architect I.M. Pei, who died in 2019 at 102.
The new wing also won’t block important vistas connecting City Hall, North Coast Harbor and Lake Erie. That matters because the harbor’s attractiveness would be undercut if it were edged by a solid wall of buildings.
At the same time, the Rock Hall addition won’t be shy and retiring. It will have its own dynamism, but it will also harmonize, as Harris puts it, with the existing building.
All those factors make the Rock Hall’s expansion and associated renovations, for which it has raised and committed $169 million in a capital campaign, one of the most compelling architectural projects now planned or under way in Cleveland.
Instant landmark
When it opened in 1995, the Rock Hall instantly became one of Cleveland’s most important landmarks and a notable addition to Pei’s portfolio.
Born in Guangzhou, China, in 1917, Pei was one of the world’s most famous 20th-century architects. He expanded the design language created by Europe’s first-generation modernist architects, particularly the Franco-Swiss architect Le Corbusier.
“Corbu’’ championed the raw, cast-concrete forms of Brutalist architecture. He also advocated scraping a portion of Paris flat and replacing it with a grid of towers.
Pei adapted Corbusier’s city planning concepts to the industrial Midwest in his 1961 Urban Renewal plan for downtown Cleveland’s Erieview District, which later earned opprobrium. But he made Brutalism lovable by using cast concrete, marble and limestone to sculpt elegant, finely detailed abstract forms, such as the triangular shapes of the National Gallery East Wing in Washington, D.C., completed in 1978.
Triangles appeared again in Pei’s 1990 Bank of China Bank tower in Hong Kong, and the glass pyramid lobby of the Louvre he completed in Paris a year earlier.
Odd choice
Pei brought echoes of those and other projects to the Rock Hall. However, his record as a designer of corporate headquarters and fine art museums made him an odd choice for the Cleveland assignment.
As The New York Times reported, Pei, “not a rock ’n’ roll fan, initially turned down that job. After he changed his mind, he prepared for the challenge of expressing the spirit of the music by traveling to rock concerts with Jann Wenner, the publisher of Rolling Stone.’’
Wenner, who helped create the Rock Hall, was so taken by the eventual design that he gave Pei a very public hug and kiss at the groundbreaking in 1993.
Pei interpreted rock music with a collection of thrusting forms jutting from the Rock Hall’s glass pyramid lobby and a squarish tower rising above and behind it. A small theater extended from an upper floor on the east side of the building in an angular shape like that of a giant loudspeaker. Another assembly space, which now hosts the introductory “Power of Rock Experience’’ film, is set atop a giant concrete stalk, somewhat like a mushroom attached by two bridges reaching out from the west sides of the Rock Hall’s pyramid and the tower.
When finished, the Rock Hall conveyed a sense of finality, of being impossible to expand. The addition now under construction, designed by the New York-based Practice for Architecture and Urbanism, or PAU, shows otherwise.
Expanding an icon
Renderings of the project’s design, approved by the city’s planning commission in 2023, depict a 50,000-square-foot wing that will extend from the west side of the glass pyramid lobby. Overall, the Rock Hall is expanding by nearly a third, to just over 200,000 square feet.
Led by PAU founder and creative director Vishaan Chakrabarti, the author of several books on city planning, the project looks both respectful and assertive in relation to Pei’s building.
Most notably, the PAU addition will be covered by a sharp triangular roof that jabs downward into the base of Pei’s pyramid. Visible in renderings but not yet under construction, the roof can be viewed either as crashing into the base of the pyramid or exploding from it. Framed with heavy timbers and topped with water-absorbing plants, it will bring an eco-friendly aspect to the museum.
However it is interpreted, the geometry of the new wing, including the triangular roof inspired by the original building, should bring a fresh sense of action to Pei’s design.
Most of the architects interviewed for the job of expanding the Rock Hall either wanted to overwhelm Pei or whisper in his presence.
“Some architects gave concepts that overshadowed the Pei building,’’ Harris said. “Others gave concepts that were very deferential and almost subservient to Pei.’’
The PAU design, in Harris’s words, “pays homage to Pei, but it has its own identity. It's bold, and I believe they complement each other.’’
What’s going inside
Functionally, the new wing will add space for education, exhibits and new offices, plus a new multi-purpose event space in a drum-shaped enclosure that will seat 800 for concerts or 1,000 standing.
The segmented, curved facade of the new event space, now partially completed, already appears to rhyme with the nearby “Power of Rock’’ theater that explodes from the west side of the original building. The shapes echo each other.
The new main entrance will be positioned close to a new drop-off zone near Erieside Avenue. Visitors will no longer need to trek across the main entry plaza from Erieside to the front door of the pyramid, a trip that can be unpleasant in bad weather.
The lobby in the new wing will include a grand staircase with a sweeping view of North Coast Harbor and the Great Lakes Science Center and Steamship William G. Mather Museum nearby. The concrete and steel bones of the new entrance area, now taking shape, suggest its potential to capture views from inside.
The Pei building, in contrast, blocks views of the water. It faces southeast, away from the downtown skyline and the lake. The most sculptural parts of the museum, clad in white metal panels arranged in clashing grids, face north toward the lake, but they’re largely windowless.
The oddities of the museum’s orientation reflect that Pei originally designed it for a site along the Cuyahoga River at Tower City Center. There, the building’s geometry and orientation would have made more sense as a gesture of rebellion against the classicism of the Terminal Tower. The glass lobby would have framed views up and down the river.
After the city and the project’s sponsors failed to reach agreement on keeping it at Tower City, they instead chose the lakefront as the site.
Amping it up
Despite having been imagined for a different location, the Rock Hall has been a commanding presence on the Downtown Cleveland waterfront for decades. The addition will strengthen its relationship to the lake and give the museum and its visitors and employees a greater sense of place.
“People will see daylight,’’ Harris said. “They'll see sunrises and sunsets.’’
Since he became CEO in 2012, Harris has overseen enhancements aimed at bringing Pei’s crisp, white modernist aesthetics more in line with the needs of the museum and desires of visitors as determined through extensive surveys.
The exhibit honoring Hall of Fame inductees moved from an awkward spot in the museum’s tower to a more accessible location on a lower floor. The interiors were painted red and black to create more of a backstage mood. A “garage” area enables visitors to jam on instruments. A major overhaul of the main exhibit area is scheduled for completion in 2027.
The work completed so far has helped the Rock Hall maintain annual attendance of roughly 500,000, with economic impact the museum now pegs at $240 million a year. The changes leading to the current expansion were financed by part of the $169 million raised so far, of which $149 million is from private sources, Harris said. The rest was provided by the State of Ohio.
The PAU addition is doing more than just fixing problems. It’s realizing opportunities latent in Pei’s original building and its prominent location. That should be a big plus for the city and the museum.
It should be noted that the Rock Hall is one reason Cleveland is embarking on a $284 million project by 2027 to redo the downtown Shoreway and to build a pedestrian connector to better link downtown to the lakefront.
The city’s project, for which $150 million in federal and state money has been raised, will help it bring new parks and development to the lakefront. It will also help it to capitalize on a 30-year-old cultural gem now undergoing a much-needed upgrade.
Pei would likely be pleased.
