Not directly on topic, but it addresses the automobile-centric planning of the
1960s.
Misbegotten design proliferated in city of '60s
Posted: Aug. 26, 2007
Spaces
Whitney Gould
How uncomplicated were the dreams of our city-builders in the 1960s. Such
buoyant optimism about technology. Such uncritical acceptance of "urban
renewal." Such blind faith in the liberating powers of the automobile.
And, with a few exceptions, what uninspired design grew from those dreams.
Those are some of the thoughts that occurred to me recently when I came
upon "Modern Milwaukee," a Milwaukee Journal Sunday supplement from March 25,
1962. Its yellowing 80 pages are a celebration of what was defined as progress
back then: the demolition of entire neighborhoods, the completion of new
freeways, the proliferation of vanilla-bland modernist wannabes with gimmicky
details.
Those buildings included a corncob-shaped parking garage on N. Plankinton Ave.;
a windowless, cantilevered office building ("an attention getter") at E. Wells
and N. Van Buren streets; and lots of structures with zigzag, scalloped or
squiggly entrances, from Lapham Hall at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
to the Mitchell Park Domes.
A few memorable newcomers are showcased, among them the Eero Saarinen-designed
War Memorial Center (1957), which housed the forerunner of the Milwaukee Art
Museum in its lower level. Saarinen's interlocking boxes, perched on triangular
pylons at the top of a grassy bluff, married audacious engineering to simple,
cubist forms.
The Marine Plaza (now Chase Bank), at E. Wisconsin Ave. and N. Water St., is
another elegant survivor, despite its current maintenance challenges. Designed
by Manhattan's Harrison and Abramovitz, it was built in 1961. But unlike so
many Miesian knockoffs, which tend to be faceless and unforgiving, this 22-
story tower is a statuesque beauty, its sea-green glass curtain wall gridded
rhythmically into opaque and transparent panels, its street-level plaza
welcoming to pedestrians.
Alas, these are the exceptions. Today, so much of the architecture hailed
in "Modern Milwaukee" looks undistinguished and slablike, relieved only by
design clichés that now look as dated as the fins on a 1960 Plymouth.
And the urban planning wasn't much better: dead-ended public housing projects,
new subdivisions built without sidewalks, parking lots everywhere, the street
grid severed mercilessly for freeways.
Never mind the social and environmental costs of such anti-urbanism, which
might best be described as destroying a city in order to save it. As a writer
in "Modern Milwaukee" exulted: "Modern cars travel swiftly, comfortably,
safely. They have enabled city workers to live in the 'country.' Two or more
cars in a family are common."
And no one seems to have doubted the wisdom of making a public space all but
inaccessible. An artist's rendering of the civic center that would become
MacArthur Square foresees a domed planetarium overlooking a sterile plaza with
potted trees and a fountain that looks like a giant Slinky toy. Little did we
imagine that the actual result, which the city now thankfully wants to
overhaul, would be even more uninviting than the unrealized version.
With the gimlet eye of hindsight, we can now understand why there would be such
a fierce reaction to so much of what was once thought progressive. A historic
preservation movement emerged. Nostalgia for what was lost to demolition and
dismay over the excesses of modernism (its coldness, its indifference to the
street) also helped spawn a glut of postmodern historicism in the 1980s
and '90s, with faux towers, Roman arches and scrolled gables making pale
gestures to the real landmarks we leveled.
A more thoughtful response was the planning approach called New Urbanism, with
its emphasis on walkable, street-friendly design. That viewpoint is enshrined
in Milwaukee's revised zoning code, in the makeovers of public housing and in
the plan for rebuilding the Park East freeway corridor.
The removal of that underused freeway spur was itself an admission of the
limits of pouring pavement. Yes, the crumbling Marquette Interchange is being
rebuilt, but had we completed the original freeway system as envisioned, even
more neighborhoods would have been destroyed, and the downtown lakefront,
including the site of the Calatrava addition to the art museum, would today be
a swath of concrete.
If you think I am being too hard on the decision-makers who put us on the path
we are currently trying to correct, let's stipulate that they thought they were
doing the right thing. But the now-obvious folly of some of their schemes is
humbling.
What will the next generation make of today's civic dreams, I wonder?
E-mail Whitney Gould at [EMAIL PROTECTED] or call (414) 224-2358.
>From the Aug. 27, 2007 editions of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=652354
Dreams Wrought Some Duds
[p]
Photo/Benny Sieu
A cantilevered box of offices squats at 795 N. Van Buren St.
[p]
Photo/Journal Sentinel files
"Modern Milwaukee," a 1962 Milwaukee Journal supplement, was a celebration of
progress.
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