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Queen Mary Development Area

Rick Meghiddo, Ruth Meghiddo, Meghiddo Architects, www.architectureawareness.com , www.rick-RE.com , www.naturaltowergarden.com , Long Beach, Queen Mary, Globe Theater, Pacific Rim, bazaar

The 50-acre area adjacent to the Queen Mary in Long Beach is mostly used for parking on surface. It includes a dome designed by Buckminster Fuller, originally created to display Howard Hughes’ H-4 Hercules mammoth airplane known as theSpruce Goose, and partially used as customs for cruise tourism.

We were first commissioned to design a temporary Shakespeare’s Globe Theater to last for five years. Following its design we dealt with several developers willing to invest in the area. To set a quantifiable direction, we created a Master Plan which included an international “bazaar,” a restaurants’ promenade, a floating lobby for the Queen Mary, parking structures and a “Westgate Tower,” to function as a West Coast “Statue of Liberty.”