This MS Coast museum with unique design could soon get national attention. Here’s why 

Even along the row of bright casinos that line Beach Boulevard, the museum stands out.

Its buildings are silver. Its unusual shape was designed by Frank Gehry, one of the most famous architects in the world.

But Hurricane Katrina ruined the Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art two decades ago, and Gehry’s striking plan was never truly finished.

Soon, finally, it will be.

The museum expects to build the last steps of Gehry’s design by spring. Doing so will make the buildings an official Gehry project. That means Biloxi and the museum will be able to advertise with his name. It also means the Mississippi Coast will join a list of places including New York and Paris that boast his distinct works of architecture.

“Not too many places in this country can say that,” said Biloxi Mayor Andrew “FoFo” Gilich.

“It’s a really good moment,” said David Houston, the museum’s executive director.

The pod-shaped galleries that make the museum so noticeable from the beach road have long been finished on the outside. But the museum is now finishing the inside of the last of four pods. The pods hold pottery by George Ohr, the famous and self-proclaimed “Mad Potter of Biloxi,” whose thin, twisted and folded work gained recognition only after his death.

The museum is also adding steel, sculptural elements to an outside staircase. Houston said the curved design is inspired by the actor Marilyn Monroe.

A $1 million grant from the Gulf Coast Restoration Fund is paying for the work.

Gehry, 95, is excited for his design to be finished, according to Houston. Gehry agreed to design the museum over two decades ago in part because he loved Ohr’s pottery.

He also liked the city.

“I love the friendly feel of Biloxi,” Gehry told the Sun Herald in 2000, before construction started. “It is engaging and welcoming, it is soft and has beautiful light.”

Recognition for Biloxi

Finishing Gehry’s design means the museum could start being featured in architecture books and magazines. Those publications would not include the property when it was incomplete.

Gilich also said he hopes using Gehry’s name to advertise the museum will attract national attention to Biloxi.

Once certified in Gehry’s official portfolio, the museum will join a list of the architect’s designs that included the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles and the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain.

The museum sold its buildings to Biloxi last fall for the symbolic amount of $1. Gilich said the sale has changed almost nothing about operations but will make it easier for the museum to get grant money, including if it gets damaged by hurricanes.

Molly Jo Shea, the museum’s director of marketing and public relations, said staff hopes the finished campus will attract more visitors. She also said the museum is committed to locals.

“We are your museum,” she said. “We are here for our community.”

Rebuilding from Katrina

The museum first planned to open in 2006.

Then Hurricane Katrina hurled a floating casino barge into one of the galleries.

“There was marsh grass at the top of the phone poles,” Houston said. “The campus was totally decimated.”

The museum opened its welcome center and two galleries in 2010. But the storm, and later the BP oil spill and the coronavirus pandemic, hurt tourism and raised operating costs.

“When you couple all this stuff together you can see the obstacles that were overcome to get to this point,” Gilich said.

Now, the museum has at least 70 feet of steel underneath the buildings, heavy doors and double-paned glass windows made to withstand hurricanes, according to Houston.

The museum has finished the pods one by one as it slowly got grant money. Houston and Gilich said the museum moved as fast as it could in hopes that Gehry can see the finished design in his lifetime.

“It’s a sense of fulfillment,” Houston said.