The Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA), best known as the firm of world-renowned architect, Rem Koolhaas, has designed a radical new skyscraper for Louisville's Waterfront. Known as Museum Plaza, the series of towers will add a contemporary landmark to downtown Louisville and change Louisville's skyline the way Frank Gehry's Guggenheim Museum changed Bilbao.

The $380 million project will be a 61 story, 703 feet tall icon with 1.2 million square feet of mixed-use space. It will feature an acre-sized "island" open to the public that will hover 22 stories in the air and be located next to the Muhammad Ali Center.

Joshua Prince-Ramus, OMA's New York Partner-in-Charge, is the lead architect for Museum Plaza. Prince-Ramus is a Seattle native who received a B.A. in philosophy from Yale University and an M.A. in architecture from Harvard. He has overseen many other notable OMA projects, including the Seattle Central Library and two projects currently under construction, the CCTV headquarters in Beijing and the Charles Wyly Theatre in Dallas.

The building itself is the dream of Laura Lee Brown, her husband, Steve Wilson, and Louisville developer Steve Poe. Wilson and Brown -- whose family controls the Louisville-based Brown-Forman Corporation (one of the largest manufacturers of distilled spirits and wines in America) will open 21C, a boutique "art hotel" in downtown Louisville in March 2006. Poe is a longtime Louisville developer and CEO of Poe Companies. Last year, he opened a new 615-room Marriott in downtown Louisville.