The Extreme Model Railroad and Contemporary Architecture Museum was a museum proposed for North Adams, Massachusetts that plans to display model trains running through a landscape of notable modern architecture. Architect Frank Gehry has contracted to design the new museum, which will be located a few blocks away from the MASS MoCA modern art museum. Thomas Krens, former director of the Guggenheim Museum who oversaw the creation of the Gehry-designed Guggenheim Museum Bilbao and Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, and a Mass MoCA founder, is heading the creation of the new museum.[1] [2] [3]
The plan calls for an 83,000-square-foot museum to be built at an estimated cost to $65 million, featuring model trains running continuously past scale-models of buildings by notable architects including Louis Sullivan, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Frank Gehry.[4] It will be built on publicly owned land overlooking a disused rail freight yard; the proposed Museum holds an option to purchase the land.[1] About half of the financing is projected to come from state and local government funds allocated to support the growth of tourism, and half from private donations of which $2.5 million had been raised by August 2017.[1]
As of 2017 the projected opening date was 2020,[2] but as of February 2022 the new projected opening date is 2025.[5] As of January 2023 the project did not have a start date or funding finalized.[6]