Miscellaneous Musings

My Guardian/Observer fetish paid more dividends this week, as I noticed an article about the proposed construction of a modernist glass and steel office block next to St. Paul's Cathedral. According to the article:

"One of the country's best-loved landmarks, St Paul's Cathedral, is to have a stark, modernist neighbour designed by controversial Scottish architect John McAslan, who has been called 'that steel and glass man' by the Prince of Wales.

"McAslan has designed an office block to wrap around one side of Wren's 17th-century cathedral. The new building, with its challenging looks, has set fans of clean, futuristic lines against traditionalists who demand a return to classical proportions.

"The architectural critic and favourite of Prince Charles, Robert Adam, has called the building 'a dinosaur' because of its reliance on glass. Such buildings, he argues, are now 'fundamentally unsustainable' and, what is more, their sleek shapes offer us no glimpse of the future at all. 'It may be bold, but it's not modern,' said Adam, who has also described the block as a 'lumpy glass box'."

We see here again the repeated desire to surround more traditional architecture with modernist boxes, just as we saw in Chicago with the flying saucer landing on Soldier Field, and the new addition to the Indianapolis Central Library. These are typically mixed successes at best. The number of true winners, for example, the Louvre Pyramids, arguably the inspiration for all of these, is small.

It is interesting to see parallels to Indianapolis in London. In addition to this, they also have the great debate over what sculpture to put on the fourth plinth at Trafalgar Square. One big difference: in London there is a vigorous public debate, led by intelligent publications like The Guardian. Indeed, with the fourth plinth, the public is actually invited to give input. In Indianapolis, as exemplified by the library expansion and statues, there are only fait accomplis. I particularly find the London situation interesting because we seeing people criticizing the modern box from the opposite side of traditionalism, claiming it's not quite modern enough.

Urban Indy points us at a Fort Wayne based blog called The Good City. It looks like a good blog so far, though if they want to hit the big time they'd better add a link to yours truly. I particularly was struck with this posting wondering why the public hates publicly funded art when it has such a potential to positively affect a city. They seem to support the view of Dan at Cyburbia, who attributes this to the trend for amorphous art. If The Powers That Be in our cities would actually think about what the public wants, rather than kowtowing to contemporary art trends, perhaps the public would like public art more.

McCordsville, a tiny but rapidly growing burg northeast of Indianapolis, has launched a branding campaign to help build a distinct identity. This is good, so far as it goes. Now the challenge is for this nearly built from scratch suburb to make sure there's some steak with the sizzle, and really differentiate in its development patterns, etc.

An article in the Boston Globe notes how the Big Dig project has poisoned the well for similar projects elsewhere. They note the new trend of just tearing down elevated freeways without replacing them. The traditional experiences cited in favor of this are San Francisco, where the Embarcadero Freeway was demolished after an earthquake, and Milwaukee. They talk a bit about proposals in Seattle and Louisville to demolish downtown highways.

After establishing express bus services to Fishers and Carmel, IndyGo is now setting its sights on Greenwood. While the Urbanophile is a noted skeptic of rail transit in Indianapolis, I'm a big fan of these bus routes. The ridership is a blip as far as making a dent in traffic, but the key here is to establish a core of transit that actually serves rider needs, then work to expand it. The next challenge will be keeping these routes permanently when the special federal grant behind them runs out. I see that as the most critical challenge facing the region for expanding transit in the future. If the city can't keep these bus routes going, it will raise legitimate concerns in the public mind about their ability to sustain a larger system for the long haul. Find a way to keep them, and now you're building confidence in and enthusiasm for, transit.