“A Good Old Building Is Better Than A Bad New One”

I ran across an interesting commentary on St. Louis:

Except for the arch and the old courthouse, which form some genuinely provocative urban views, downtown St. Louis is a monument to chamber of commerce planning and design. It is a businessman’s dream of redevelopment come true.There are all the faceless, characterless, scaleless symbols of economic regeneration — luxury apartments, hotels, a 50,000 seat stadium and multiple parking garages for 7,400 cars. Sleek, new, prosperous, stolid and dull, well served by superhighways, the buildings are a collection of familiar profit formulas, uninspired in concept, unvarying in scale, unrelated by any standards, principals or subtleties of planning or urban design. They just stand there. They come round, rectangular, singly and in pairs. Pick your standard commercial cliche.

The new St. Louis is a success economically and a failure urbanistically. It has the impersonal gloss of a promotional brochure. A prime example of the modern landscape of urban alienation, it has gained a lot of real estate and lost a historic city.

Wow, pretty harsh words. Tragically they are nearly as true today as the day they were first published — February 4, 1968. Yes, the words above are from nearly forty years ago.

Ada Louise Huxtable, Architecture Critic for the New York Times from 1963 – 1982, had plenty to say about Architecture and planning. I read a compilation of articles called Goodbye History, Hello Hamburger: An Anthology of Architectural Delights and Disasters while I was in architecture school in the late 80’s. Today while boxing up some stuff I ran across the book, long since forgotten. I recall enjoying her writing when I was in college so I look forward to re-reading the book to see how her views have stood up to the test of time and my own personal experiences in the last 15 years.

I’ll leave you with another quote from Huxtable. Remember that in 1968 our symphony hall, Powell Hall, had just opened:

The success of Powell Symphony Hall in St. Louis is probably going to lead a lot of people to a lot of wrong conclusions. In a kind of architectural Gresham’s law, the right thing wrongly interpreted usually has more bad than good results.

The first wrong conclusion is that Powell Hall represents the triumph of traditional over modern architecture. False. The correct conclusion here is that a good old building is better than a bad new one. Powell Hall represents the triumph simply of suitable preservation. And, one might add, of rare good sense.

Ms Huxtable was awarded the first Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism in 1970.

– Steve

Historic Doering Mansion in Path of Broadway Bluffs Townhouses

The South Broadway bluffs overlooking the Mississippi River in South St. Louis offer some of the most stunning views in the region. Seldom does a week go by that I don’t stop at Bellerive Park and take in the view. The view of Illinois is rural and lush while barges and industry remind me of the long history of the Mississippi as a working river.

Since the founding of St. Louis and Carondelet people have enjoyed these views. Most often is was the well to do that built great country mansions along the bluffs. But over time we’ve lost nearly every early mansion. We are about to lose yet another.

… Continue Reading

Rita Is Personal

I have an Aunt & Uncle that live in League City Texas, about halfway between Galveston and Houston. So Rita is personal to me.They wisely left on Tuesday and are safe in Dallas with my cousin.

Their home and possessions may not be so lucky. Their neighborhood has had flooding in the streets just from heavy rains. Hopefully damage will be minimal but at least we know they are safe.

A funny aside. This Aunt and one of her three sisters are married to two brothers. One Aunt married one of the brothers I think in the early 60s and the other Aunt married the other brother about 10 years ago.

New Target Store Not As Urban As It Could Be

No doubt about it, the new Target store currently under construction is far more urban than the store it is replacing. With the bulk of the parking under the new building and a front facade closer to Hampton Avenue this is the most urban big box we will have in the City of St. Louis.

The problem is I’ve seen a far more urban target in a less urban context. A few years ago, on a visit to Seattle, I visited their newest Target store. We were in North Seattle – pretty suburban and no different than most suburban areas. Seattle’s NorthGate mall was across the street. Both the mall and Target are visible from the always congested I-5 highway.

(Note: photo by Target – my helicopter is in the shop)

I asked a friend, Seattle Architect Richard Kenney, to take pictures of the Target for me.

The NorthGate Target store is on the top two levels of the four story structure. You can enter/exit the Target from either floor and it contains internal escalators like you would expect in any department store. A Best Buy and other national chains are part of the building. Yes, this is not the most attractive structure in the world. But, compared to the typical mall across the street it is a major improvement.

Basically the building is divided into two sections – the Western section is the retail portion while the Eastern section is a parking garage. A plaza is in the middle.

Looking into the plaza you can see the retail section on the left and the garage on the right. Smaller retail spaces front the main street and the plaza space.

The Quizno’s at right makes the corner of the parking garage more friendly (and toasty…).

A closer look in the plaza you can see how plantings have been incorporated into the design to soften the concrete and steel. On my one visit to the building we parked on the top level of the parking garage. Some surface parking is also located behind the building.

As you can see, nobody is going to mistake this for a great street. Still, as big box developments go I will take this over sprawling parking lots and horizontal buildings any day.

Another view looking into the plaza area.

Looking from the plaza out toward the main street, with the typical suburban mall across the street.
When land is scarce and valued, developers and retailers will build more urban out of necessity. I’m not foolish enough to think that urbanity is their motivation. No, they are motivated by the all mighty dollar. In this case the result was far better than the sprawl surrounding it.

Better big box projects are possible. We just have to find ways to more sure they work for the developers and retailers as well as the general public.

– Steve

White Middle Class Suburban Man

I don’t know about you but one of my favorite reasons for picking up the RFT is the cartoon called ‘The City’ by Derf. The best is when Derf brings out ‘White Middle Class Suburban Man’ to poke fun at life in the ‘burbs.

The derf website only has a few cartoons in the archive but for a good example of White Middle Class Suburban Man click here.

Ok, back to work on my campaign…

– Steve