The plan for Southwest D.C. and L’Enfant Plaza was not executed as envisioned, leading much of the construction to be viewed as a failed attempt of urban redevelopment. Scholars point to two fundamental setbacks that sabotaged the materialization of L’Enfant Plaza. For one, the Navy Department constructed their new building in the center of the promenade – rather than erect two buildings on either side of Tenth Street. As a result, the building blocks the Smithsonian Castle and interferes with the logical flow from L’Enfant Plaza to the National Mall. Although this problem may seem minimal, it is significant in the design of L’Enfant Plaza and the appearance of the entire space. Since L’Enfant Plaza’s purpose was to serve as a link between …show more content…
While the Commission advocated for the location in L’Enfant Plaza, other organizations – including the American Institute of Architects – were overwhelmingly in support of the site in Foggy Bottom. As the President of the American Institute of Architects stated on the plot in Foggy Bottom, “the area happens to be the only remaining beautiful site along the Potomac River. This location automatically will give the proposed cultural center the proper and most attractive setting.” After the Foggy Bottom location was selected and the Kennedy Center was constructed in that setting, L’Enfant Plaza could not live up to its role as a cultural center. As a result, the expectation that L’Enfant Plaza would attract visitors to the Southwest neighborhood was not realized. Ultimately, “the absence of the full menu of planned cultural and entertainment venues has led to only partial fulfillment” of L’Enfant Plaza’s role as a cultural magnet in Southwest D.C. Although L’Enfant Plaza is geographically close to the National Mall, its failure to become a cultural center symbolically isolates the area, while the Navy Department’s building physically cuts the Southwest neighborhood off from the rest of the …show more content…
Although I.M. Pei, a renowned architect, designed L’Enfant Plaza, it is widely considered an architectural monstrosity in Washington, D.C. in modern times. Despite its namesake, Pierre L’Enfant, the city’s original planner, the plaza’s modernist style is peculiar in D.C. Rather than blend in with the neoclassical style of many structures on the National Mall and other prominent buildings in the city, L’Enfant Plaza and its surrounding buildings stand out as “a concrete-scape as far as the eye can see.” Although it does not suit the building style of Washington, D.C., the most distinctive feature of L’Enfant Plaza is its isolated atmosphere. As Charlotte Allen discusses, “at night and on weekends, the lone retail zone, underneath the plaza, mostly shuts down, and cavernous L'Enfant turns into the Valley of the Tombs.” In other words, L’Enfant Plaza is a hub on weekdays, as the promenade holds a central Metro station for commuters. However, as Suzanne Boggs, a developer for the space, stated, “L’Enfant Plaza is still very much a Monday-to-Friday, 9-to-5 kind of place” and has minimal excitement on the weekends. This phenomenon is a circumstance that developers hope to improve in the future. L’Enfant Plaza underwent a $40 million renovation in 2014, which updated the cramped space and
Construction was resumed in 1803, with Latrobe as architect. Latrobe designed the central portion of the first building, and modified Thornton’s design so that committee rooms and offices would fit in the south wing. He also designed octastyle porticos for the west and east front of the building, and a colonnade behind the east portico that spanned the entire center section. In order to keep the view of his low dome uninterrupted, Latrobe designed the pediment of the central section to be shallow enough to not reach over the top of the entablature. Another thing that Latrobe designed were the columns in Corinthian style at the east front. Their capitals depicted corn cobs and tobacco leaves, as symbols of the country’s prosperity and the nation’s wealth,
In 1901 Cass Gilbert (1859-1934) designed the elaborate hall for the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, held in Saint Louis in 1904. This short-lived structure deserves attention, as it was a main focus of the fair and an important benchmark in its designer's career.
I fumble for an explanation of Fuller--architect, philosopher, voice of a generation like Dr. Spock. I joke that I should bring in my Whole Earth Catalog so I can illustrate my remarks. I explain that Fuller invented the geodesic dome and when some in the class aren't certain what that is, I scrawl a bad drawing on the board. Finally someone saves me by mentioning Epcot Center, and we go off awhile on that. I mention that another dome much closer is in Downs, Illinois, ten miles down the road in a one-tavern town. Here is an essay possibility, the connection between Epcot Center and Downs, Illinois. But that's not the road to travel in this essay.
Dell Upton is a historian and renowned professor of architecture and Urbanism at the University of California. He has published several books on architecture; one of them is “Architecture in the United States”, published in 1998. In this book, Upton analyzes the architecture of the United States in different aspects, such as nature, money and art, thus depicting the great variety in architectural forms, and how throughout the decades, different interests have lead communities to different ways of building, different purposes and materials, thus reflecting their way of thinking and their relationship with the environment. By exploring so many different architectural styles, Upton reveals the great diversity and richness that has always, and continues to characterize American architecture.
It is the new decade after the end of world war two and modernism is a well-established practice. Its pioneers and spearheads are prevalent figures looming over the new architects and designers who are trying to make their mark in the shadows of such historically influential people. With new technologies and materials emerging from the world wars the next era of modernism had started to evolved, bringing with it philosophies and ideas which seemed far removed from those of the pioneers of modernism “What emerged in the late 1940s and 1950s was an expanding synthesis of questions utterly removed from the confident statements of the pioneers.”(Spade 1971,10) Two significant buildings were designed in the 50's, both of them for educational institutes and to house students of architecture, there were both designed in completely different styles and methods. The first is Ludwig Mies van der Rohes' Crown Hall, finished in 1956 and designed as a part of a campus master plan for the Illinois Institute of technology in Chicago. Mies' design for Crown Hall is one of his most realised expressio...
Soon after the fire, legislature decided to tear down the remains of the damaged structure and replace it with a larger and more stylish design. Chicago architect, Henry Ives Cobb, was selected to design and build the second capitol. The government gave him a budget of only $550,000, which was not nearly enough to reproduce the size and design that the legislature had envisioned. Due to limited funds, Cobb was unable to finish his intended design. Legislature was embarrassed and unimpres...
James F. O'Gorman, Dennis E. McGrath. ABC of Architecture. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998. Document. October 2013.
Merchant elaborates on the extent of managing exotic gardens inside buildings particularly the mall to recreate a heavenly atmosphere. She considers the work that goes into maintaining these gardens to keep them pristine, from the expensive water works and pesticides utilized to keep the unclean and destructive nuisances from diminishing the aim for perfection in a desirable atmosphere (p.5). These gardens produce the atmosphere to make people happy and content. The greenery provides the feeling of being outdoors while truly being completely inside. She indicates mall landscaping is inspired by surrounding environments that are
One story describes the planning of the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair that had been proposed to celebrate the four hundred years since Columbus landed in America. The idea didn’t get much attention until a year earlier, when Paris held a world fair and unveiled the Eiffel Tower. Not to be outdone, America decided now it was a matter of who would hold a fair that would put France’s fair to shame. There was a dilemma of where the fair would be built New York or Chicago, but votes were tallied up and the majority of the vote was Chicago. Among the many architects in Chicago, the main job of the designing the fair was given to Daniel H. Burnham. He needed a companion to help him with the design and other features of the fair, so he chose John Root, a very close friend of his and former associate. Because of the amount of time it took to decide where to build the fair, The White City was believed to be impossible to construct because of time con...
His design was a Neo-classical plan that followed the classical style of ancient Greece and Rome. He drew a building that consists of two wings that extended north and south of a centural section. A huge cast-iron dome rests on the central section of the building.(World, 196) President Washington was very pleased with Dr. Thorton's plans and he was awarded first prize. Now it was time for Washington to lay the cornerstone on September 18, 1793.(National Park)
But these contrived differences give rise to esthetic difficulties too. Because inherent differences—those that come from genuinely differing uses—are lacking among the buildings and their settings, the contrivances repre...
Whenever we go out shopping or relaxing at malls, we actually don’t see or recognize any effects of malls as we mostly go there for these two reasons. Malls are an integral part in the lives of America. They are shopping centers that have created a lot of buzz in many writers. This is because we have more malls in America than high schools. Malls have received praises from people like James J. Farrell, Jon Pahl and George Lewis who view malls as not only shopping centers but also as places that provide a reflection of the American culture and serve as centers of pleasure and entertainment. In contrast, William Kowinski and David Gutterson criticize malls for just being an artificial environment that creates disorientation among American shoppers. In my opinion, malls are just magnificent commercial buildings that create a sense of false dreams and imagination.
In order to create innovative public architecture, considered to be the most civic, costly, time intensive and physical of the arts, the project holds a degree of risk, strife, and negotiation . Overcoming these tasks and creating worthy public architecture is a challenge designers try to accomplish, but are rarely successful. The people involved in a potential public building, can be larger than the building itself. Public architecture tries to please all, even the doubters and critics, but because of the all these factors, a building is closer to failing than succeeding.
Goss argues that developers and designers of the built environment, specifically shopping centers and malls, use the power of place and understanding the structural layout of the space to boost consumption of the retail profits. Shopping centers are separated from the downtown area of shopping, either by distance and/or design. These establishments emerge for many to be the new heart and location for public and social life. In his article The "Magic of the Mall": An Analysis of Form, Function, and Meaning in the Contemporary Retail Built Environment, Goss also argues that the regulation of the spaces within the mall creates an atmosphere of "community" rather than one that is "public". This article’s main argument is that developers manufacture an illusion of doing more than just shopping when designing malls and shopping centers.
In developing this contemporary and iconic building, the design focuses on practical attributes and optimises energy efficiency. The design strategy encapsulates four key aspects: