Marcus Prize-winning Architect Issues Call for High-flying Ideas

Marcus Prize-winning Architect Issues Call for High-flying Ideas
For a city known for its heavy Germanic buildings, Dutch architect Winy Maas could be the equivalent of electroshock treatment.

Imagine Milwaukee, he urged an audience of architects, developers and civic leaders on Friday, as a sci-fi city built on cutting-edge technologies, such as cars that fly.

His "Sky Car City" is just a fantasy, he admitted Friday.

But as a member of the team that won the first Marcus Prize, a $100,000 architectural plum established by Milwaukee's Marcus Corporation Foundation, Maas wants to plant the seeds for futuristic thinking about urban design.

Maas, 46, generated lots of buzz in his speech to about 75 design activists at a luncheon at the Pfister Hotel.

The event was hosted by the Design Council, which advises Bob Greenstreet, dean of the School of Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee.

Greenstreet is also Milwaukee's city planning director.

MVRDV, the Rotterdam architectural firm that won the Marcus Prize, had been expected to work on a specific urban design project, in addition to teaching a studio class this semester at UWM.

But Maas said he and his partners, Jacob van Rijs and Nathalie de Vries, wanted instead to work with students on theoretical visions of an urban future.