At the heart of downtown Roanoke, the new 81,000 square foot Taubman Museum of Art proves an arresting landmark for visitors arriving from US I-581. As Roanoke's most contemporary structure, it provides an analog for the city's evolution from industrial and manufacturing town to technology-driven city. The building's forms and materials evoke both the drama of the surrounding mountainous landscape of the Shenandoah Valley and the lyrically gritty industrial-era building culture of the great early 20th century railroad boom, when Roanoke came to prominence as a switchpoint city of the new South.