They got the Seaport right after all.

How the Seaport could --and should-- look at street level:

002.jpg

photo troyeth, wirednewyork.
 
Absolutely, but not going to happen judging from the site plans that have been released which shows all glass megablocks, wide streets, a regular grid, no little plazas for cafes and the like, and will probably be entirely occupied by corporate restuarants and stores rather than local establishments. Alas!
 
^^ It would take a century to resemble that photo even with good planning.

Fort Point might get there, with care.
 
You could set up the facades and set out the chairs, but I think word needs to get around for it to acquire that level of popularity, particularly in Boston, and even then there would be a bias against the general inauthenticity of it. This is not LA where artificial streetscapes are the only option for cafe culture.
 
Heck why wait for the Seaport to be built to get some streets like that? Just widen some sidewalks downtown and put out some chairs and tables. The people will come, just give them the space.
 
I think the question we're groping around is:
Can forthrightly modern (or Modern) buildings function if they are subjected to time-honored conventions of urbanism?

Rem Koolhass and Herzog & de Meuron have done urban buildings. Do the seem inauthentic? To architects? To "the folks?"
 
Beton Brut said:
I think the question we're groping around is:
Can forthrightly modern (or Modern) buildings function if they are subjected to time-honored conventions of urbanism?

Rem Koolhass and Herzog & de Meuron have done urban buildings. Do the seem inauthentic? To architects? To "the folks?"
Click to expand...

A local example of this may be the plaza/skating rink on Athenaeum St. in Kendall Square. Here you have the plaza surrounded by that new 650 E. Kendall building, the Genzyme building, the Aceituna Cafe building...and maybe sometime in the future the Constellation Center. Currently there's a farmer's market on Thursdays, and people gather during lunch for concerts on the plaza during summer and fall. With the new residential construction in this area, and if the Constellation Center gets off the ground, it has the potential to be a more lively urban spot, if only there were more retail. Currently, it's almost exclusively weekday lunchtime activity.

But, yes, I do feel a certain inauthenticity about sitting on a plaza, wining, dining, and being surrounded by Modern buildings. I find traditional architectural surroundings are more relaxing for that sort of thing.
 
People enjoy hanging out in the Au Bon Pain plaza in front of the unquestionably Modernist Holyoke Center in Harvard Square. But that's one modern building surrounded by a context of much older structures.
 
Can forthrightly modern (or Modern) buildings function if they are subjected to time-honored conventions of urbanism?

Rem Koolhass and Herzog & de Meuron have done urban buildings. Do the seem inauthentic? To architects? To "the folks?"
Click to expand...

That wasn't what I was after. Aesthetics aren't the question here. It's whether a neighborhood can become popular (and populated) overnight, even given good urbanism.

There is something about the inevitable sterility about such a place that will invite unwelcome contrasts in a place like Boston, I think.
 
^ Munich, Duesseldorf, Athens, Port Grimaud, Miami Beach, Warsaw.
 
^Miami Beach may be modern, but it was not built from scratch. In fact, the layered effects of development and redevelopment on Lincoln Rd (starting in the early 60s with Lapidus to now) is what has turned it into a vibrant pedestrian mall. This could be said about the whole revived deco district, really.

Perhaps Seaside, at about 25 years old, is our best contemporary example.
 
bdurden said:
^Miami Beach may be modern, but it was not built from scratch.
Click to expand...
The Deco district was built in a short time in the Thirties.

In fact, the layered effects of development and redevelopment on Lincoln Rd (starting in the early 60s with Lapidus to now) is what has turned it into a vibrant pedestrian mall.
Click to expand...
Didn't know Lapidus worked on Lincoln Road Mall. What did he do?

This could be said about the whole revived deco district, really.
Click to expand...
Deco District went through a cycle of dilapidation and renewal. Does that make it "layered"? The buildings date from a narrow range of chronology.

Perhaps Seaside, at about 25 years old, is our best contemporary example.
Click to expand...
You're right, it is our best contemporary example. I didn't want to bring it up, because among "knowledgable" folks who haven't been there it's often declared to be "Disney." A visit will dispel that notion, but Seaside is hard to get to, so few people know it first hand.

Celebration --which really was built by the Disney organization-- is another example built from scratch.

The others I cite in post 54 --except for Port Grimaud-- are so unselfconscious that they're rarely remarked upon. Like Miami Beach, they're incrementally built within a fairly short time-frame in their present form.
 
Munich, Duesseldorf, Athens, Port Grimaud, Miami Beach, Warsaw
Click to expand...

I think reconstructions work a bit differently. In Warsaw, there's almost a religious devotion to the Old Town as an icon of national survival and renewal (not to mention: it helps that there's a. nowhere else like it in the city and b. decades of industrial soot have rendered it indistinguishable from its old self). In any case, they merely help reestablish old patterns of urban life - even if these cities lay in ruins, their street patterns did not, and the uses these areas were put remain in living memory. This can be true for places remaining unrebuilt for a long time - despite its urban failures, Berliners have more or less embraced Potsdamer Platz as a "natural" center (part of this is geographic, and part is symbolic - aspects the Seaport does not possess). Urbanites don't have to "learn" to inhabit them, and, as in Warsaw, in many places they're entirely unique forms for that particular city. The same wouldn't be true for a perfectly urban Seaport conceived from scratch.
 
ablarc said:
Didn't know Lapidus worked on Lincoln Road Mall. What did he do?
Click to expand...

It was Lapidus who redesigned Lincoln Rd around 1960 by cutting it off to vehicular traffic and turning it into the nation's first pedestrian mall with high-end retailers. Many of his flamboyant water features and outdoor lounge designs remain along the mall.

ablarc said:
Deco District went through a cycle of dilapidation and renewal. Does that make it "layered"? The buildings date from a narrow range of chronology.
Click to expand...

Layered--perhaps not, though it is an almost entirely intact district represented by Spanish Revival, Art Deco, MiMo, International Style, and Art Deco Revival. It's a variety in style that spans about 80 years.

ablarc said:
You're right, it is our best contemporary example. I didn't want to bring it up, because among "knowledgable" folks who haven't been there it's often declared to be "Disney." A visit will dispel that notion, but Seaside is hard to get to, so few people know it first hand.

Celebration --which really was built by the Disney organization-- is another example built from scratch.
Click to expand...

I know Celebration well. In my high school years I worked in the coffee shop (Barnies) in the Celebration town center. The original village and town center (where it is still a walkable environment) is a likable, decent example of new urbanism. Once it reaches out into phase II and III (and beyond) it turns into an unoriginal sprawling suburban development.
 
bdurden said:
Once it reaches out into phase II and III (and beyond) it turns into an unoriginal sprawling suburban development.
Click to expand...
At least it has an urban core that some folks live in and others can walk to.
 
^ Yes! The key to it's immediate success as a liveable community and its sustainability is its well planned core. Perhaps i'm a bit too harsh on its outlying areas--they are certainly more liveable and interesting than surrounding Kissimmee.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top