Rebuilding Place in the Urban Space

"A community’s physical form, rather than its land uses, is its most intrinsic and enduring characteristic." [Katz, EPA] This blog focuses on place and placemaking and all that makes it work--historic preservation, urban design, transportation, asset-based community development, arts & cultural development, commercial district revitalization, tourism & destination development, and quality of life advocacy--along with doses of civic engagement and good governance watchdogging.

Friday, July 22, 2016

Philadelphia's Mural Arts Program to be featured on CBS "Sunday Morning"

I do try to watch the CBS "Sunday Morning" program.  Typically, I learn about interesting/best practice  initiatives of various sorts.

Philadelphia's Mural Arts Program is slated to be featured this Sunday, July 24th.

The program is wide-ranging, and has been active for more than 30 years, having brought to life more than 3,000 murals, most produced by working artists, often working with community residents.

-- "Murals of Philadelphia," Time Magazine photo essay
-- Mural Arts @ 30, Temple University Press
-- "On Philadelphia's Walls, Murals Painted With Brotherly Love," NPR
-- "David Lynch hates Mural Arts' latest," Philadelphia Magazine, 2014

Lynch is referring to “psychylustro” by Katharina Grosse, a series of seven murals along the
Northeast Corridor in Philadelphia between 30th Street Station and the North Philadelphia stop.


Image: Mural Arts Program.

In legacy center cities, many of these buildings are vacant, or have long since been converted to uses that no longer require freight railroad services.

FWIW, I don't agree with him.  The work is stunning.  Of course he's right that the architecture of industrial buildings in the landscape of railroad corridors was designed to be complementary, and the murals change how we relate to the buildings in the context of the railroad but times have changed.

The work is especially noteworthy considering how it is much more typical for buildings along railroad lines to be tagged by middling works -- mixed in with standout efforts -- or mural programs for railroad corridors that aren't particularly interesting.

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