Buzz amid the art of progress

On a recent afternoon, the architect behind Roanoke's new art museum stood inside the metal-and-glass shell of his creation and declared: "We are on schedule."

Randall Stout was finishing a two-day checkup on the Art Museum of Western Virginia that he has designed, inside and out. And before flying home to Los Angeles, he offered a 10-minute status report to a small group of reporters and TV camera crews.

The second floor and its gallery spaces will be completed June 1 and the first and third floors by Aug. 1. The schedule is doable, Stout said, and will give the museum time to move into its $66 million home for the planned Nov. 8 opening. The building is slated to be renamed the Taubman Museum of Art.

Elsewhere, the maple flooring had arrived and was being clacked into place. The travertine marble for the lobby was crossing the Atlantic by ship.

Did the architect have any concerns? The texture of the auditorium's ceiling seemed too heavy, he said.

Stout is a calm, soft-voiced man, who wore a construction helmet and dress shoes. And anyone looking for a bit of flair that might connect the builder to his building -- perhaps the flashiest addition to the city's skyline -- was disappointed.

But for all of the glitz of the exterior, the museum's interior buzzed like a typical construction site. Exposed pipes and insulation lined the stairwells. When Stout concluded, construction workers returned to fitting floorboards.

Darnell Glover, a museum board trustee who joined the tour, admired their work. "It doesn't distract from what you have on the wall," he said of the flooring.

With opening day seven months away, what was Glover hearing from Roanokers critical of the ultramodern design?

"There are haters out there," he said. But mostly he hears, "It's a beautiful structure."

Stout was pleased with the building, too, and on walk-throughs enjoyed the exchange between the museum and its city, he said. Windows framed Roanoke landmarks and the museum offered different faces to different parts of the city.

And a visit to town also gave Stout a glimpse of the art museum off Interstate 581, the same view that greets out-of-towners.

"It works," he said. "I think it ultimately does provide the gateway that we talked about early in the project."