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NATIONAL NEWS| Winter 2008

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NATIONAL NEWS| Winter 2008 Changes to Halprin’s Landmark Freeway Park in Seattle Originally designed by Lawrence Halprin and Associates, the plantings at Seattle’s Freeway Park are currently being updated by Seattle landscape architect and University of Washington professor Iain Robertson, who aims to “not change the character of the park, but to recharge the design." Executed by Mr. Halprin’s office under the design direction of Angela Danadjieva, Freeway Park is one of the best preserved masterworks of post-war landscape architecture, yet the horticultural requirements of the plants necessitate renewed attention to the origi- nal design intent. However, its fate may also be a bellweather for the future of modernist architecture, landscapes and engineering feats associated with the interstate highway system across the country. After the publication of Halprin’s book Freeways in Aerial view of the park over Interstate 5 in downtown Seattle circa 1999. 1966 and his work with the Freeway Park, Seattle, WA (Photo courtesy of the City of Seattle) Federal Highway Administration’s Urban Advisors group, the Seattle Parks Commission sought his assistance in designing a park along the edge of the new interstate gorge. Rather than confining himself to the proposed plot of land, Halprin pushed the ideas in his book into the cityscape by proposing an extensive landscape that scaled down the impact of the freeway for both driver and pedestrian by building right over it. Rather than balking at this audacious plan, the city bun- dled the proposal into the county-wide open space bond measure cont’d on pg. 11 NATIONAL NEWS | winter 2008 ARTICLES ARTICLES (cont’d) ANNOUNCEMENTS (cont’d) 1 Changes to Halprin’s Landmark 9 Louisiana Supreme Court Building 14 New Resources at the Freeway Park in Seattle Faces Demolition Environmental Design Archives by Brice Maryman by Toni DiMaggio by Marc Treib 2 Urban Renewal Renewed: A 10 Rehabilitation of Bunshaft 15 Glass House Maintenance Makeover for Baltimore’s Designed LBJ Library in Austin by Deirdre Gould Center Plaza by Catherine Gavin by Olivia Klose 15 Protecting Beijing’s Modern Architecture ANNOUNCEMENTS 3 Boston City Hall Plaza: A Modern by Deirdre Gould Space for the City Upon a Hill 13 D.C.’s Only Brutalist Church by Gary Wolf 15 Albert Ledner House Tour Designated a Landmark by Toni DiMaggio by Olivia Klose 4 Landscapes of Industrial Archeology Sites: Preservation 13 Bell Labs Update DOCOMOMO NEWS Projects for Social Spaces by Hélène Lipstadt by Maristella Casciato 2 Welcome 13 NY/Tri-State Chapter Spotlights 5 Parkmerced, a Modern Landscape 3 Chapter News the O’Toole Building and its Masterpiece under Assault Tri-State/New York Architect, Albert Ledner by Chandler McCoy NOCA by Kathleen Randall Texas 6 The Temporality of Being: WEWA 14 Modern Talk: Northwest Conservation Through Subtraction New England Mid-Century Architect’s Oral by Nadya K. Nenadich & History Project 9 Winter Shows and Exhibits Enrique Vivoni-Farage by Eugenia Woo 7 Boston’s Christian Science Center 14 Book Review: DOCOMOMO US by David Fixler Louis I. Kahn: Beyond Time and Email: [email protected] Style, A Life in Architecture 8 UC Irvine Strips Off Pereira Façades Mail: PO Box 230977 by Olivia Klose by Deirdre Gould New York, NY 10023 www.docomomo-us.org Welcome Urban Renewal Renewed: A Makeover for Baltimore’s Center Plaza Welcome and Happy New Year. Continuing with our recent initia- escalators and skywalks in order to overcome the n the heart of Baltimore, 1960s-style urban tive for theme-based newsletters, I problem of the site’s steep topography (a 68-foot renewal has received a facelift with the comple- this winter issue looks at modern drop in grade from the northern boundary of the tion in October 2007 of a $7.5 million renovation site to the southern boundary) and in order to plazas and landscapes. Many of of Center Plaza, the urban plaza at the core of create a series of “pedestrian islands.” Though these were created in the context downtown’s complex of office, retail and residen- futuristic in appearance, this circulation system of urban renewal projects in the tial buildings known as Charles Center. In 2002, was a typical component of urban design of the postwar era as an integral part of the design of housing, civic, office or cultural institutions or simply as stand alone features. Many of these spaces and places have not been maintained and have fallen into disrepair or have been aban- doned in their entirety, serving as symbols of urban blight and failed design principles or social views. In recent years, so much has changed and so many alter- ations have been made to what are important designs and represent work by significant Center Plaza under construction, with Mies van der Center Plaza under construction, April 2007. designers of the period that we Rohe’s One Charles Center on the right, April 2007. Charles Center, Baltimore, MD believe it is important to dedicate Charles Center, Baltimore, MD (photo: Olivia Klose) (photo: Olivia Klose) a newsletter to this issue. We a national competition was held for the re-design 1950s and 60s and was often promoted as a want to highlight the significance of the unpopular and rundown Center Plaza, origi- means of separating pedestrians from the escalat- of these landscapes and advocate nally designed by the Baltimore firm of Rogers, ing nuisance of auto traffic and congestion. In the for their preservation in a mean- Taliaferro, Kostritsky & Lamb as the focal point of case of Charles Center, the exterior circulation ingful and appreciative way. Baltimore’s first urban renewal project and system was also intended to provide a venue for Too many of these landscapes or inspired by the great urban plazas of the Italian extensive retail activity. spaces have become the victim Renaissance. The local architecture and design Although the Charles Center plan had all the of unnecessary and insensitive firm of Brown & Craig won the competition with right ingredients for successful place-making, its changes, or have been obliterated their design of extensive greenscaping, a reflect- physical realization made plain many of the short- altogether because of poor or ing pool, movable seating and dynamic lighting comings of modern urban design principles. In the inappropriate maintenance or effects. Brown & Craig had collaborated with words of Charles Center’s chief urban planner misbegotten ideas about safety Daniel Biederman, the talent behind the success- himself, David Wallace, the skywalks at Charles or use. ful revitalization of New York City’s Bryant Park in Center were “circuitous and hard to find,” and 2007 saw the continued growth the early 1990s; however, it is too early to tell retail was consistently “lackluster.” City govern- of DOCOMOMO US with the whether the team’s design will foster the desired ment did not end up retaining ownership of the addition of Florida as a US chap- transformation of Center Plaza into a hip and entire system of open spaces and exterior infra- ter and entry of New Orleans and inviting urban space. structure (only the three plazas), and so treatment North Carolina for approval. The As originally designed, Charles Center’s open of its various sections—in terms of services, spaces reflected the principles and ideals of the end of 2007 had its usual array of amenities, ambiance and maintenance—was left urban renewal movement that swept through building preservation challenges. up to individual building owners and retail tenants. American cities beginning in the 1950s, forever While the emblematic Encounter The first skywalks were dismantled in the 1980s, transforming the urban landscape. As consulting restaurant at LAX airport was and by the 1990s only two remained. architects to the Charles Center urban renewal The introverted nature of the Charles Center reopened, the Morris A. Mechanic project, which was launched by a public-private plan was a built-in handicap and prevented the Theater in Baltimore was partnership in 1957, RTKL’s goal was to make the lively, populous atmosphere envisioned by nominated for designation and plazas and open space a “social center for 24- planners. Placement of the two major plazas, the Brutalist Third Church of hour citizens of Baltimore.” The 1958 Charles Center and Hopkins Plazas, on the interior of the Christ, Scientist in Washington Center promotional report gushed that ”Here, superblocks meant that they were virtually invisi- D.C. was designated. Many others open space will be used, loved and economically ble from the street. Fixed seating, copious hard- remain uncertain: the fate of successful because it will be full of pleasant scaping, and insufficient greenery all contributed Albert Ledner’s O’Toole building things: fountains, sculpture, flowers, umbrellas, to the plazas’ underuse. As early as 1962, a in New York City is tied to the flags and trees. The open space will be, in its own member of Baltimore’s Planning Council predicted expansion plans of St. Vincent’s way, as concentrated as the city around it.” that the majority of plaza users would be office hospital, and the future of such George Kostritsky of RTKL envisioned an urban tenants on their lunch break, and that a mere corporate campuses as Eero landscape along the themes of light, sculpture, quarter would be the visitors, shoppers and Saarinen’s Bell Labs in Holmdel, and water, for Charles, Center and Hopkins plazas, tourists envisioned. A distinct obstacle to the New Jersey, remains unresolved. respectively. The three plazas, located on the plazas’ popularity stemmed not from design, but interior of the two superblocks comprising the perhaps from the absence of integrated planning: Charles Center urban renewal site, were to be cont’d next page linked through a series of elevated walkways, cont’d on pg.
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