If You Build It, Will They Come?: Roanoke Tries for the Bilbao Effect

When we hear “Roanoke” we think of two things: that whole spooky “Lost Colony” business (that was North Carolina though, not Virginia) and infomercials (it seems like every one of them would us send our $19.95 plus shipping and handling to a company headquartered there). But a new $66 million art museum designed by Gehry protegee Randall Stout aims to change our perceptions of the mid-size Virginia city (population: 92,500), with the help of the so-called Bilbao Effect.