Wrecking Philadelphia

Inga Saffron, writing about urban design issues in the Philadelphia Inquirer, is one of the best areound. Yesterday's column, "Growth great for conventions, grave for the city," is about an expansion of their convention center. (The Kimmel Center is a big performing arts center that is similarly disconnected from the street wall.) She writes:

Big institutions tend to formulate their designs to satisfy their internal imperatives, regardless of how they infringe on the public realm. Philadelphia saw that scenario at the Kimmel Center, where blank walls make the concert hall appear as shuttered as a bank vault after hours.

Yet the Kimmel suffers from its isolationism. Had its facade been more inviting, it might have won the public's heart and become a true gathering place, with obvious benefits for its balance sheet.

Philadelphia's previous great hope for Broad Street was dashed before by a flawed design. It can happen again.

Mt. Vernon Square in DC had the same experience already, and the same kind of disconnection between 9th and 7th Streets and the Convention Center. I wonder if the Carpenters Union building will be retained for the new DC Convention Hotel, or will it be demolished? (See the previous blog entry "If you don't understand linkage and context then you have learned nothing.")

Again, see the work by Haywood Sanders about Convention Centers, such as this report from the Brookings Institution: Space Available: The Realities of Convention Centers as Economic Development Strategy.
---------
More from Inga Saffron:

Design? Couldn't be worse - 12/21/2006 03:01 AM EST By Inga Saffron, Inquirer Architecture Critic For those who care about the way cities look and function, the Gaming Control Board's decision to anoint Foxwoods and SugarHouse heirs to Philadelphia's two gambling licenses is the worst-case scenario. The winners offered the fewest amenities, uninspired designs, and two of the most cramped and inconvenient sites.

Changing Skyline: Zoning board thumbs its nose at laws - 1/12/2007 03:01 AM EST By Inga Saffron, Inquirer Architecture Critic In the marbled corridors of Philadelphia's government, he is often invoked by nickname, sotto voce, with a touch of grievance: Lord Auspitz. In the sunny hearing room, however, it's always Mr. Chairman.

Changing Skyline: Can city life penetrate Vine St. barrier? - 12/08/2006 03:01 AM EST By Inga Saffron, Inquirer Architecture Critic The great gulch that divides Center City from parts north, also known as the Vine Street Expressway and I-676, was heralded as a landmark urban improvement when it opened in 1991. Since then, Philadelphia has seen just two major structures rise atop the road's perilous cliffs: one, a squat office building; the other, a towering parking garage. So much for claims that highways draw development to their edges.

Changing Skyline Museum design not welcoming - 2/16/2007 03:01 AM EST By Inga Saffron, Inquirer Architecture Critic Independence Mall, the perennially underperforming park in Philadelphia's tourist center, has been waiting a half-century for a project like the National Museum of American Jewish History to land on its doorstep. Due to open in 2010, the new museum will mine the rich themes of the immigrant experience. It has, thankfully, adopted a dignified modernist style that avoids the colonial cliches that plague the historic area. And its convenient location at the corner of Fifth and Market Streets promises...